PAUL DEANE is a computational linguist by profession and a poet by avocation. Since 1999, he has edited Forgotten Ground Regained, a website and (since 2023) a quarterly journal devoted to modern English alliterative verse. Three of his poems appear in Dennis W. Wise’s 2023 anthology, Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology
Author’s Note: This poem was inspired by Zach and Kelly Weinersmith’s Hugo-Award-winning book, A City on Mars, and commemorates in advance the fate of a Mars colony planted in the spirit of “move fast and break things”. Its form is an updated version of Old English alliterative verse (what the author calls “tail-stave meter”) in which alliteration is keyed to the end of the line. When you read it, you will no doubt notice multiple allusions to the 1960s and 1970s, when I came of age. I first read The Lord of the Rings at age 11, when one of my father’s co-workers gave me a copy. Not long after, I was assiduously reading science fiction and fantasy – Asimov and Heinlein, Patricia McKillip and Tanith Lee. 2001: A Space Odyssey was one of the first adult movies I remember watching. That was an era that anticipated futures that are now looking all too real, which is what this poem is about. A sound file of ‘Last Man on Mars’ follows:
The Last Man on Mars
They told us to volunteer. We had what it took,
or so they said. We were the new settlers
on the Final Frontier, that bold fiction
that made Captain Kirk (not Musk) our king.
Only the best and the brightest could hope to beat
such terrible odds so far from Earth
and reclaim a world from its long wasting.
The rockets thundered. We sat enthroned
on rising prayer and the pulse of peril.
Orbiting outward, we followed an arc
that ate up years – but we were young,
self-proclaimed heroes, harbingers of hope.
Our landers disgorged metal golems
whose open maws swallowed mountains.
Caverns and domes drew the city of our dreams,
our eternal Rome, our new Jerusalem.
But the rooms were cold, miscarriages common.
In the face of famine, supply ships were few.
We found that Mars made a harsh mistress
and fought for freedom but ran short of fuel.
Our overlords learned that asteroids are easier,
a better investment that never revolts.
But robot miners need direction,
so our Olympian citadel is server central,
and here I sit on the dead-man’s switch,
lest Hal come, drawn from some dark dream,
and say, “I am sorry, Dave –”
PAUL DEANE is a computational linguist by profession and a poet by avocation. Since 1999, he has edited Forgotten Ground Regained, a website and (since 2023) a quarterly journal devoted to modern English alliterative verse. Three of his poems appear in Dennis W. Wise’s 2023 anthology, Speculative Poetry and the Modern
Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology