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    Martian Nights: An Epic Verse Novel (Saga No. 3)
    Martian Nights: An Epic Verse Novel (Saga No. 3)
    Martian Nights: An Epic Verse Novel (Saga No. 3)
    Ebook98 pages1 hour

    Martian Nights: An Epic Verse Novel (Saga No. 3)

    By Simon Pole

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    About this ebook

    What if fallen angels got a second chance?

    In The Saga of Terminal City they do, freed from prison to walk the earth, doing good -- if they can.

    Many are the secrets hidden in the Martian dirt. What happens when they are unleashed on an unsuspecting Earth? Find out, along with the Poor Shepherds, in Martian Nights (No. 3)

    30 chapters, 2400 lines of poetry, all written in modern epic verse.

    Synopsis

    When on the surface of the Martian world,
    under the weight of Time's crusty mantle,
    in the red dirt, living ice is dug up,
    what confusion it promulgates on Earth.
    Of the many orders of cell-bound life,
    green plant, wily animal and proud man,
    a vying begins for supremacy,
    and sanctity, in Terminal City.
    The rich politic that sent men to Mars,
    and returned them home, exploited will be
    by amoebic Doc Plankton, with teams of
    conscripted actors and fading starlets,
    in contest with crooks for hire, including
    a renegade super-fascist police chief,
    while opposed they are by Anarchists two,
    and the first appearance of Poor Shepherd,
    and jet pilot, Kat Vitko, whose husband
    at the pinnacle of the effort sits,
    to lose or save the civic web of life.
    Immigrants, idjits and iconoclasts
    also colour the scene, as endless are
    dire secrets disclosed by the Martian dust,
    and offered to uncomprehending Earth.

    Bio

    His mind corrupted by childhood exposure to horror movie matinees, but equally enthralled by the atmosphere of old churches, Simon Pole writes cosmic poetry from the location of Vancouver, British Columbia. A graduate of Harvard University, Simon has continued his studies of what is hidden in the dark. Writing is also in his blood, being the great-great-grandson of early Canadian poet Susie Drury.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon Pole
    Release dateFeb 15, 2013
    ISBN9781301527021
    Martian Nights: An Epic Verse Novel (Saga No. 3)
    Author

    Simon Pole

    His mind corrupted by childhood exposure to horror movie matinees, but equally enthralled by the atmosphere of old churches, Simon Pole writes cosmic poetry from the location of Kingsville, Ontario. A graduate of Harvard University, Simon has continued his studies of what is hidden in the dark. Writing is also in his blood, being the great-great-grandson of early Canadian poet Susie Drury.

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      Book preview

      Martian Nights - Simon Pole

      Martian Nights

      an epic verse novel

      Simon Pole

      The Saga of Terminal City

      No. 3

      Smashwords Edition

      www.simonpole.ca

      Copyright © 2013 Simon Pole

      All Rights Reserved

      No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Simon Pole.

      Original Cover Photo by clry2

      Used Under License

      http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      About the Author

      Chapter 1

      Everything human is provisional,

      except love. The towers constructed in glue

      and glass, downtown, and with luxury lined,

      soon come apart at materials’ end,

      and their husks homes become for nesting doves.

      Countries also will dissolve into parts,

      to be recombined into allegiances,

      unrecognized, or allowed to scraps lapse,

      the nucleus of something not yet known.

      Even the mind immortalized in page,

      or in performance distributed wide,

      is lost to the moths by civil rupture.

      But love, that which is handed insistently,

      from generation to generation

      abideth forever; unlike the urge

      of airy individuals, more so

      the heirloom of confidence projected

      in our common store of reasonableness.

      How much better than hate, whose jumping seeds

      like cuckoos expire in depleted beds.

      A star-speckled night it was, through the glass,

      at the top of the Summit Restaurant,

      cap-stone crowning the Consular Hotel.

      Refracted dome, in whose panoptic panes,

      bubbling the drinking and diners below,

      like astral star charts, the heavens were spread.

      The clash of knife on fork, their chop rhythm,

      and the muted vowels of private talking,

      at contested tables and seated bar,

      a reverbing wash make, like tip highlights

      over this crowded stilllife, gathered in

      from all corners of Terminal City.

      Like spectators before an ancient game

      of kick the bones, await they the players,

      or their proxies, spun in spangling diadems,

      or skeletons of star-light, feet of gods,

      who slowly people the black playing field,

      above, with the deftness of ritual.

      Released will be the blood-rouged red skull puck,

      at the proper instant, into the fray;

      this they craved, soliciting tickets to

      the hottest show in town, when planet Mars

      would to earth closest be centuries hence,

      and magnified in the sky-exposed roof.

      Some rare display of strength expect they then.

      Of many miens were the sundry guests,

      and by many paths come to sit beneath

      the imminent show. Full sombre some fall

      at cake, while others glibbed by giddiness,

      in strong liquors uninduced, quieted are

      by dire bus boys threatening expulsion.

      Then the cynics hold momentary sway,

      looking with malice on expressions of

      the slightest breathlessness in beholding

      the extent of Heaven’s true magnitude.

      Vanquished they, inconsequential pip-squeaks,

      on appearance of she who had been there,

      seen that, and done what the multitudes here

      in wishes only attempt: visit Mars.

      At special table cordoned round with tapes

      of a gilded variety, sits she—

      in a cone of light, softly radiant,

      with sisterly kin, and, close at elbow,

      an old black bag, curiously head-shaped

      —the Martian astronaut and pod pilot,

      Kat Vitko, who commiserates coolly.

      My dear girl, she says to her table-mate,

      "do not fret what I do tonight. Duty,

      not oath-sworn, but that naturally given

      to comrades, steadfast and implacable,

      is what calls me to perform this hard task.

      The end of friends, or those we love greater,

      though accomp’nied by unclot effusions,

      is something we must loyally attend,

      and all sympathy give to their last thoughts.

      So I bring the black bag, and will unzip

      when time is right the singular contents."

      Concludeth the pilot Kat to her sister,

      Trilby Stash, who still bears the devil’s mark,

      and by the watch counts, sore trepidated,

      mere minutes until Mars its zenith zones.

      Chapter 2

      On the twelfth day of the Martian mission,

      with the ambulatory dirt rover

      descended, and in its aloof orbit,

      distantly threading the thin atmosphere,

      in pulses communicating only

      its instructions, handshakes of bleep and blip,

      the manned command probe overseeing all

      (though sealed in smooth leaded shield), Tank McMann,

      our city’s first citizen astronaut,

      under a gloved, resilient hand directs

      his wagon into the dune-ribbed North Pole;

      there to activate tools fashioned on earth,

      and penetrate the frozen Martian sands.

      The Western League of Sovereign Cities

      had chosen him: that eager, young network

      counting Terminal City, Calgary,

      Edmonton, Seattle, and Whitehorse too

      as founders. The space race, with its promise

      of riches and scientific advance,

      prompted the city fathers and mothers

      to sponsor, through pools of tax capital,

      this expedition to the red-skinned twin.

      With the flag of mount and ocean flying,

      their symbol, and in the mud, late-moistened

      by the dazzle of solar reflectors,

      he worked, Tank McMann, abrading the blocks

      of primordial ice

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