Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Next Issue Kirsty Gunn re-arranges the world John McAuliffe reads Seamus Heaney's letters and translations Chris Price's 'Songs of Allegiance' David Herman on Aharon Appelfeld Victoria Moul on Christopher Childers compendious Greek and Latin Lyric Book Philip Terry again answers the question, 'What is Poetry'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 271, Volume 49 Number 5, May - June 2023.

Poems Radosław Jurczak
Elon Musk dies on Mars

for Ana Adamowicz

There’s no pain, there’s the light of sympathetic LEDs.
And hours of gazing through an armoured window
which is like watching Netflix in separate rooms,

one room is green, the other red, with no door from red
to green. It’s beautiful, the way so many things are missing.
There’s no pain. There’s the light of sympathetic LEDs,

and there’s a murmur. The transmission wheedles. It’s Earth. Your Earth,
except there’s no Earth: there’s a view of Earth
like watching Netflix in separate rooms,

with the same pair of eyes (while all eyes on Earth
are looking at you. And what they see is: peace,
with no pain.) There’s the light of sympathetic LEDs

a gesture. An airlock release. A dutiful drip.
Molecules pass through the cell membrane as if through an armoured window
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image