Transreading the Baltics: LIFE ON MARS by Anna Blasiak

Life on Mars is Anna Blasiak’s response to I Can’t Remember My Future Name by Ilzė Butkutė, translated by Rimas Uzgiris, which made Anna think of the “American Horror Story. Freak Show”. The poem has been written during ‘Transreading the Baltics’ course ran by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese at the Poetry School.

 

LIFE ON MARS

 

I stumble upon Elsa’s blond perm wig,

her red lipstick and wooden leg.

I walk past a jar with pickled Ma Petite.

This is home.

 

I am the third Siamese sister

to Bette and Dot.

My sink is blocked

with shaved-off beard, like Ethel’s.

 

I am a permanent resident of Jupiter,

a regular freak.

I wear a suit and eye-shadow

in David Bowie blue.

 

Here all talk is Meep,

all talk is throwing daggers,

pinheads end up in Briarcliff

on the other side of the story.

 

And only in the afterlife

life goes on on Mars

and wooden limbs

grow back.

By Anna Blasiak

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Anna Blasiak is an art historian, poet and translator. She runs the European Literature Network with Rosie Goldsmith. She has translated over 40 books from English into Polish and, as Anna Hyde, Polish into English. She has worked in museums and a radio station and written on art, film and theatre. annablasiak.com.

Read Anna’s #Riveting Review of CARAVAN LULLABIES by Ilzė Butkutė