Let's Pretend it's April - Nov. 30
Rules: Write a poem for LPiA on the topic or form described. Each poem should appear as a New Reply to this thread. The goal is to, at the end of the month, have written 30 poems for the month of November. (or one, or six, or fifteen) Prompts may be revisited at any time. All members are welcome.

Topic : Write a poem inspired by an astrological event. 
Form : Any
Line requirements: 8 or more

Feel free to reply with comments or kudos as you wish. 

Questions?

It's a new moon
I will lose my sense of self when
It's a new moon
Count the minutes cause I know soon
I'll run outside in the yard then
Down the street jumpin and spinnin.
It's a new moon

Someone stop me
When the moon is new I'm like this
Someone stop me
How could humans be so sloppy
Time has taught me to be cautious
It's way worse with the moons fullness
Someone stop me

Heisenberg Astrology


There are many events
in astrology
best known of them, perhaps,
is transition from one “age”
to the next as Earth’s wobble
on its axis
moves the vernal equinox
from Pisces to Aquarius
for example
as early as next century
(with an upper-lower
of four hundred years).

But as in quantum physics
with its maybe-dead cat
the only finally significant
astrological event
is when you have your reading made...
for only after that
and its explication
can what happens afterward begin
to agree with its foretelling
or not.

Prometheus, they say, was bound
on one of the mountains that marked
the northeast border between
civilization and barbarity.

Halkidiki, perhaps,
was too close to the heartland
of the Hellenes to contain
one such peak, but still

I imagine the fire he stole
through a single stalk of fennel
from the wheels of his cousin the Sun
was first employed to heat up

a ragged samovar,
brewing tea for Father Silouan
while his dear companions,
like the Titan in those nights

when the liver-eating eagle
took a breath and left
clear his view of the skies,
observed the stars.

5/15/22

beautiful
red
birthday
balloon

super
flower
blood
moon

Astrillogical

When a fool enquires about my star sign
I reply,

           "Ophiucus"

in a manner that makes it sound
like a dismissive insult aligned
with the slightest hint of a swift
backhand slap across the face.

Due to the geometrical ecliptic quirks
of perceived patterns formed
by ancient light from dead stars,
I am indeed the mysterious 13th zodiac.

The one who makes it awkward.

The estranged family member
whose mercurial wandering orbit
leads to distant constellations
and forgetful silences of shame.

(12-02-2024, 09:20 PM)Magpie Wrote:  Astrillogical

i just want to note that the twelve zodiac signs haven't corresponded with the exact constellations for hundreds if not thousands of years, they're meant more as an mathematically equal division of the elliptical than something more literal

(12-02-2024, 09:31 PM)RiverNotch Wrote:  i just want to note that the twelve zodiac signs haven't corresponded with the exact constellations for hundreds if not thousands of years, they're meant more as an mathematically equal division of the elliptical than something more literal 

Yeah I researched it. 360 / 12 = 30 and all that

However I noticed years ago that the sun passes through 13 not 12 constellations and that most of Sagittarius is actually Ophiucus
-- look at that even spell check recognises Sagittarius but not Ophiucus

It's all illogical

13 became such an unlucky number they tried removing it from everything

(12-02-2024, 09:45 PM)Magpie Wrote:  

(12-02-2024, 09:31 PM)RiverNotch Wrote:  i just want to note that the twelve zodiac signs haven't corresponded with the exact constellations for hundreds if not thousands of years, they're meant more as an mathematically equal division of the elliptical than something more literal 

Yeah I researched it. 360 / 12 = 30 and all that

However I noticed years ago that the sun passes through 13 not 12 constellations and that most of Sagittarius is actually Ophiucus
-- look at that even spell check recognises Sagittarius but not Ophiucus

It's all illogical

i say it's poetic rather than illogical, then again i don't practice astrology so yeah xD

It's more the fact that people put faith in astrological predictions that is illogical. 
A serious question. I get your point about the zodiac signs being from observations thousands of years ago, but does that make the poem totally redundant? Or is a ridiculous answer a reasonable response to a ridiculous question like, "what star sign are you"? 
I ask, just in case I was thinking about trying to make it better. I can see possible ways of editing that could change it if it were an issue.

Then again I might read it in a couple of days and not like it (but secretly i think i do like it) but not if it doesn't work.

Cheers

(12-02-2024, 10:58 PM)Magpie Wrote:  RiverNotch a serious question. I get your point about the zodiac signs being from observations thousands of years ago, but does that make the poem totally redundant? Or is a ridiculous answer a reasonable response to a ridiculous question like, "what star sign are you"? 
I ask, just in case I was thinking about trying to make it better. I can see possible ways of editing that could change it if it were an issue.

Then again I might read it in a couple of days and not like it (but secretly i think i do like it) but not if it doesn't work.

Cheers

i don't think it does. for me personally it's fun to poke fun at modern astrologisers because they tend to be so far removed from what astrology traditionally -- and in the grand scheme of things, "normally" -- is, kinda like poking fun at folks who push prosperity theology, and such poking fun necessarily welcomes many different perspectives

add.: the original idea behind astrology was "scientific", insofar as people had no real way of knowing better. they could see the stars above, they could see seven of them (including the sun and moon, but excluding uranus and neptune) moved a certain way, they could connect those movements with the changes in their surroundings (the most palpable, if excluding the effects of the sun coincidental, being the changes of the seasons)....once the stars were demonstrated to be what we now know them to be, which only definitively occurred less than half a millennium ago, only then did that sort of way of thinking become, not so much illogical, as scientifically unsupportable (for all we know, their gravitic and electromagnetic effects *do* have some impact on us, only it's so minute as to be practically immeasurable), and it was at this point that the emphasis shifted from planets (whence mercurial, venereal, martial, jovial, saturnine, and of course lunatic, among other words) to signs (i don't think Shakespeare ever referred to anyone as being a Gemini) moved, since star signs were much easier to "psychologise", i.e. to make so illogical as to seem, for the scientifically illiterate, perfectly compatible with science.

i think people who choose to continue traditional astrology today are somewhat respectable, since they still have some logic behind their work, even if the premises behind that logic aren't perfectly agreeable -- at the very least, astrology still plays a part in the major religions of taoism and hinduism, afaik -- but "modern" astrology seems to exist solely to make money, and the hustle, in terms of taste, has its limits xD

that said, the way folks use star signs in pop culture -- Geminis as really creative but somewhat two-faced, from Raja the drag queen to Kendrick Lamar referring to himself as such in a few songs -- shows some promise. they never seem to play around with the star signs to suggest they seriously believe in them, though, or at least i don't think they do