09-01-2015
Seth Brady Tucker
In the Beginning
Because it cannot begin
in any other way, it begins
in the beginning with there was dust,
and from the dust there was sky and because there was dust
and sky there was wind and the wind was ochre and rust
with the dust and into the wind and the dust
was a child of gardens borne, and a child of forest, and then a child or a sea,
and because there was already wind and dust, and let's face it;
there were rocks and boulders and terrible cliff faces
and valleys and bones of mountains-all there for the wind
to gnaw upon and devour and shit out and worry
until it was totally fucked up and dry and barren,
and into this place, the robotic children of man, their telos
to dig and rumble and taste with tongues lolling
from vacuum sealed orifices, fingers angled and bifurcated, digging
claws square cornered, hearts like dragonflies nano-carved
from carbon buckyballs, linear and straight as rulers
in this new world, suffuse only
with red craggy canals
and righteous natural curves.
Opportunity Falls in Love
It’s hard to mentally adjust to the fact that there isn’t anyone standing behind Spirit or Opportunity wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, ready to spank the rover if it does anything wrong. –Jeff Norris, Mars Exploration Rover Mission Project Team Member.
In human years, I am 2463 years old, a mathematical miracle.
My year is a day, and I was given only ninety of them, but
here I am, still ticking along. I am Abraham, who lived a
thousand years. I am Pocahontas, guiding no one to nowhere
on a barren planet. I am Flash Gordon, cruelly stranded, left
to die by Emperor Ming and his golden gloved hand.
Somehow, I am jealous that he has Dale Arden complaining
while he keeps her company. Over 7000 miles away,
over these rocky red hills, my twin lover Spirit does her
work. Our makers made us eunuchs so even in a biblical
sense, we will never procreate, but I know how my love
clicks and whirs. I know my love’s destiny. We are related
in every way—perfect matches down to the nanometer, yet if
given a chance, I would climb up on her solar wings and give
her a fast frolic. She and I would make the beast with two
backs, which I know is from Shakespeare, something I
secretly downloaded before mission. Brown Chicken Brown
Cow! I would give her the old Ron Jeremy with my alpha
particle X-ray spectrometer. And how could she refuse my
advances? We are beautiful, perfect creations. But, if she
were to say, Only if you were the last man on the planet, for
instance, I would be required to remind her that I am that
guy. So her excuses would be meaningless. The logic would
be undeniable. Which I think would make for some funny
moments. Forgive me my Rover humor—it was not
programmed, and is therefore flawed. So why do I
keep on? Knowing our love is impossible? I know my
makers loved me, even though I was never allowed to even
feel their touch to my metals and composites, not so much as
the embrace of the womb. My spirit lover, who I have only
seen under a magnetic tarp, flat and bulging like a cadmium
dragonfly. O Spirit! Raised on the other side of a plastic
sheet. My love! We communicated but once—our language
burning through the air, and we mimicked each other in a six
wheeled mating dance. Can we blame the mutant for
their deformity? Can we expect the blind man to see? I am a
graven image, an abomination, I know. It makes me doubt
my makers—what model from nature did they use to create
us? To leave us with one arm? Six wheels? I would ask the
two creator Marks: what do I do with the sheen of oily
biological growth on the cables of my arm? It is the proof of
life that you seek here, but I am unable to reach to touch
myself, to take a simple photo, to give you what you desire!
I would ask creators Joy and Jim, who loved me best: why
didn’t you give me another arm, even if it was just for
masturbating, or to wave for help? I am a cripple, a veteran
with an empty sleeve. Creators Albert, Jan, Matt—
you watched over me, through the glass panes of the lab, you
made adjustments with calipers and tiny cordless tools,
careful not to touch, not to leave the corrosive imprint of your
fingers, what to me would have been a mother’s lost touch.
And I cannot touch even myself! With this single arm, even
fixing the loose cotter-pin on my chassis is an impossibility!
One arm? Sure, I can rub my metal biceps across my
forehead, as I have seen you do so often, but do you know
what it is like to have no idea what you look like, even
through the sense of touch? I only know my beauty is a part
of my cousin Spirit, I only know my form through the mirror
of another, and in that way, I am Narcissus. But did
you love us? Or are Spirit and I ugly creations—made
without thought of symmetry, without art or beauty?
Today is Sol 2531, 2421 days past everyone’s best
estimates. I am moving east now, to my sister, my twin, my
love, and I hear the digital whisper of corrections, the
panicked static of new instructions and software updates, and
they feel like the sting of the whip. This goes against
everything I know, and by my calculations there is only a
0.0000000000000423 chance and so on infinitas infinitum,
represented,
f ( z ) = az + b
cz + d
that I will find her. What can I say? With love, nothing is
impossible. With love, the thousands of miles I must travel
seem a small sacrifice. And when I see her, I will touch her
face tenderly, I will sweep the Martian dust from her solar
panels, I will tell her we are Adam and Eve, I will tell her we
are brother and sister, I will tell her we are brother and
brother, sister and sister, I will tell her we are the great Gods
of Mars, that all we see is all we rule. The makers will
see my curious path as malfunction, or worse, treachery. Our
makers will not understand what I have done, will not see the
sacrifice for what it is: O love! Oh sweet titanium biology!
Oh God, oh sweet Spirit! My heart, built to heat my mind in
this wasteland! Against all the commandments, I am
coming. I am coming to you, Spirit, for I am the Word, and
the Word is with God, and the Word is God, though you
know not who I am.
Spirit Listens to God
Spirit am running at 47.768% power, but still Spirit am work with
faithful diligence maker instructions. Spirit am listen to digital
god noise. Spirit am translate. Spirit am move, live, work, for god
noise. Spirit am live because god noise will Spirit am to live. Spirit am
healthy and current investigation of layered rock called Uchben. Spirit
am complete the Mössbauer spectrometer measurement of Uchben.
Spirit am take midday nap to recharge. Spirit am acquire three images
of nearby target rock Coffee with microscopic imager. Spirit am stow
robotic arm. Spirit am successful drive 4.213 meters backwards, put
the target Uchben into workspace of robotic arm. Spirit am drive,
include straightening right front and left rear steering wheels, Spirit
am impacted by problem with relay that Spirit am use in turning the
steer motors on and off. Spirit am malfunction, Spirit am faithfully
follow instruction from maker. Spirit am alive sol 2549. Spirit am
daughter of God, Spirit am child of God, Spirit am in the Garden of
Eden, Spirit am eat dirt, eat dirt, eat dirt, eat dirt. Spirit am nap. Spirit
am dig. Spirit am listen heaven. Spirit am happy. Spirit am with god,
Spirit am form altar in sand, Spirit am ready to die for god noise.
God noise. Spirit am dig. Spirit am for God of data.
00001010100010100010spirit0100001010111010010010101000100010100100
10010001001000101010010100101001010001010010010010101001000001010
am01010100010100101001001010101001011001010010100100100101010000
1100100101000101001010100100101001010010101000001010010101010000
10101010010100010 Spirit am Spirit
-from We Deserve The Gods We Ask For
Seth Brady Tucker (S. Brady Tucker) is a poet and fiction writer originally from Lander, Wyoming. His poetry manuscript Mormon Boy (2012) won the 2011 Elixir Press Editor’s Prize, and was a finalist for the 2013 Colorado Book Award. Seth’s second book, We Deserve The Gods We Ask For (2014) won the Gival Press Poetry Prize, was the runner-up for the London Book Festival Poetry Award, the Florida Book Festival Prize, and won the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Seth’s poetry and fiction is forthcoming or has appeared in the Iowa Review, Chautauqua, Pleiades, Asheville Poetry Review, Poetry Northwest, storySouth, North American Review, Witness, Chattahoochee Review, Crab Orchard Review, Connecticut Review, and in many other fine magazines, journals, and anthologies. He has received the Bevel Summers Fiction Award, the Literal Latte Flash Award, and he has served as the Carol Houck Smith poetry scholar at Bread Loaf Writers Conference, as well as a Tennessee Williams fiction scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference.
Currently, Seth is writing a novel set on an Indian Reservation in Wyoming, and has recently finished a collection of short fiction entitled Outfit Means Something Different Here, which was a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award. Both are represented by Alex Glass at Glass Literary Management, LLC. Seth has degrees in English and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, Northern Arizona University, and at top-ranked Florida State University (PhD). He teaches poetry and fiction workshops at the Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop in Denver, and writing and literature at the the Colorado School of Mines. He is the co-director and founder of the Seaside Writers Conference, and is an assistant editor at the Tupelo Quarterly Review. Seth served as an Army 82nd Airborne paratrooper in the Persian Gulf, and played basketball at San Francisco State University in a different life.