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By COLIN HONNOR.

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IT IS THE footsteps on the path
the rustle of leaves blown into streets
time-gloating day has ceased his jeering cries
and wounds now gape where eating was

strange night, naked blue eloquent mystery
in the Venusian seventh house of Mars
the pure aspect of Scorpio inclines
asseverate charts table the mapped heavens

rashed constellations whirl vortex
the uncomprehended cosmos gloats sidereal
moon grows close to engulf its own tides
sun flares unseen on this gnawed blood

with Mercury ascendent as the glass drains
western wind creases and twists
in likeliness of unlucky unanswered prayers
echo among Agatha’s Norman apse and arch

contrition witness where a love has been
address interpellate spectres mist people dissolve
cold touch divine their glutinous entrails
as Ptolomy’s star map’s glistening cales

visceral, ancient and with the power of stars
fruit from these black-seeded pomegranate skies.

♦

Colin Honnor has been widely published in numerous magazines in print and online. He is a former editor of Poetry and Audience, a literary scholar and translator of modern European poetry. He runs a fine-arts press in the Cotswolds. The archive of his work appearing in The Fortnightly Review is here.