I Call Upon These Thirsty Demons Poem by Mark. A Heathcote

Now I know who they are.
And they know who we are, too.
I call upon these thirsty demons.
They don't live very far.
They don't work for NASA.
But neither do they live very far.
Just a few light-years from where we are.

There's this drought—famine.
Starvation in the hub of my heart
In the interior of their conscience
That mirrors a folding star.
Limitless deserts lick
At its crescent, a vast space.

Don't ask me to dance with you.
Don't ask me to swim with you.
You, acrid evil fools
Don't ask me to look into
Your two olive-stone-pitted eyes.

There's no water in either eye.
Neither pool bleeds nor fills —
There is no Elysian Fields in these cold, dry hills.
In our hearts, in our minds, in our breast
Only Martian salt crusts sweep before us in easy rest:
... Is what's left of our long-departed souls.