Poetry by Kyle Owens

I. Man's Crowning Glory:

Celestial bodies
thick with light,
rip through the sky
upon the birth of night.
It was beneath this pallet
in which thought was violenced alive
and winged forth vibrant
from an orbit of desolation
into a paradise unrivaled.
The mythical fountain of life
may bring forth youth,
but the fountain of actual science
brought forth worlds.
Mars, that crimsoned globe
that once stood
as a quiet witness
unto itself
now stands crowded
in a mantle of influence
that rivals the gods of old.
Rivers and lakes
streams her scape
and berries, grasses and trees
valley the eyes.
Yet, there is not only natured wonders here,
but a sphere of cities
that have been populated forward
upon the push of a rocket's flame.
Sums of Earthlings
seeking a stride of glory
have left their mother planet
to live in this created sphere.
All was pristine until her centennial sweep
in which rebellion's voice swam the Martian sky
to determine their own future
beyond Earth's reach.
But the Father will not suffer
his child to its own devices
and demanded harsh that his creation
stay beneath his eyes brow.
A planet once dead
now demands in life
its independence
and a planet once awed by her glory
now demands to hide her
inside the darkness of servility.
Freedom's virtue
now has been seeded afar
and of its bloom
what will Earth do?

II. Senator Upchurch:

Senator Upchurch belongs
to the honored age.
When God and science
lived together
in a harmony
that prevented their
destroying one another,
but could exist
inside their individual sovereignty
and bring calm and comfort
for those that desired their wisdom.
Now two standing worlds mock his beliefs
and the words that structure his warnings.
To him the Martian Shadow President, Romulus
was not one to be trusted.
He believes freedom's voice is a disguise of the most mordant
to build a multiple world altering military
and storm the gates of Earth in a conquest
that will enable him to be the first man
to king two planets.
He has read the invoices
for new crimson reactors
beyond the need of the Martian uses.
There was only one use
for the reactors he sought-
to build an arsenal
that could blister Earth's sky
into the poisoned clouds of war.
He has put out his warnings
in speeches and edicts,
but upon their gatherings
they are simply littered away
with delete's key.
Why would Mars wish to war with the Earth?
Why would Romulus seek to conquer
that which cannot be obtained?
Senator Upchurch is alone in his writs.
Scoffed by all except his staff's chief,
the young Wilson Riley,
whom idolizes his elder leader,
though others believe his best days
shadow away from his face.
Riley reads the posts of Romulus-
he tries to see the side of his chief,
but with every turned phrase
which he examines in dire concentration
no outcome hills his fears.
But he will not leave Upchurch's side
for his wisdom has cleared
many a stormed sky.

III. Shadow President Romulus:

Romulus was born on Mars
and has had a most precious existence.
Honors award his thought
and his eloquence dramas two worlds
in a sustained awe.
He energies about the mediums
of sound, image and words
to persuade voices to freedom's decree.
An entreat of grace
heroes his form
and he esteems the eyes
within his journeyed worlds.
He is not of the old faith
where a god thrones a paradise
behind shelves of clouds.
His universe is ruled by science
and his quest
is cosmological in scope.
Free one world
so two may stand,
but enslave one world
by another's lust for chains
and no life can form
the span of planets again.
He is not seeking war.
He is seeking a peace by freedom's voice.
A doctrine that represents the best vestiges
of Earth and her inhabitants.
The old rules
will take us far from meadows
lush and bright
and storm the new world
with a pitch of dunes.
Who can call for a thunderhead
of unjust enslavement
and not be judged
by their trailing light
that would spray its particles
in blood splattered dark?
Don't misread his words,
his allies would decree.
He seeks freedom,
man's first faith-
not the dire consequences of
a poem epiced violent.
Don't allow the old
to bitter our cause
with a misreading of doctrine.
Freedom is his gospel, testament and spirit-
of which who can disagree?

IV. The Reckoning:

In the end
there was no time for debate
for the obvious was not prepared for
and the whispered surprise
drank the night in its rawest form.
The attack came strong
from the red planet's perch.
Storms of spacecrafts
blistered the Earth's sky
and rivered down missiles
savaging cities
into plumes of scalding ash.
A counter attack was launched
from invention's dark lair.
Rockets bright the skies
to sword the orders
of their sender's plan.
The Martian landscape
once sculptured in marvel
with loving hands
was shook to yesterday's core
bringing a wash of brimstone
reverentialed in blood
to suffocation's scream.
The beautiful wonders
that had stood afar in the mind
now lie near the eyes
of satellite stares.
Upchurch had been vindicated,
but only tears and agony
saluted his words
and cries of lost
in people and hope
gardened the bridge of destiny.
Now a chase of stars have begun.
Two worlds
with promise held strong
cascades it all aside
in a waterfall of death
to establish a dominance
which neither deserves.
The sounds of war
slam down from the sky
and beat the occupants of two spheres
into tears that march
behind the coffin's drive.
Thus, we now comprehend
that the first interplanetary war
was not from unknown aliens from afar —
but with ourselves.