.aries.

.pyrite.

At dawn Aries’ fleece captured light,

Suns first rays spun and wound and tangled through his majestic coat,

Till the light slowed to a crawl,

Cloaking him in a fierce radiance,

Late in the afternoon the light would begin to unspool,

Until, deep in the belly of night, he only faintly glowed with the memory of the sun, 

The rumour started as many do,

The misheard torn edge of a drunken conversation,

The story spun and wound and tangled its way through the pub,

Changing as all stories do over time,

Until finally Aries’ fleece was not captured light,

Not intangible beauty,

It was gold,

Night began its drift to day,

The villagers, minds crazed by a gold lustre, headed for Aries’ field,

They arrived as sunlight broke the horizon,

As Aries’ fleece began to draw in the light,

 To say it was magnificent is a disservice,

Imagine pure burning gold,

Imagine a star cast miniature, 

Imagine seeing time slow,

And the villagers, some drunk, some hungover, some just buoyed by the crowd,

Were dazzled by it,

Shielding their eyes they advanced upon him,

They tackled Aries,

And Phrixus slit his throat,

With a long sharp blade,

Calling it sacrifice,

Not sacrilege,

Skinning him with an unsatiable greed,

At days zenith they paraded the Golden Fleece,

Dancing it through the village,

Whooping and hollering and stamping,

Then came the quarrels of how best to split it,

They argued late into the afternoon,

Words laced with anger turned to fists,

Noone noticing the fleece unburdening itself of light,

Letting it unspin, unwind and untangle,

Until, the last of it floated up through the atmosphere,

And in the heavens, it split into four stars,

And Aries took his place amongst the Gods,

And the villagers realized their error too late,

Their imagined wealth was just that,

Their beloved Golden Fleece was lost.

.taurus.

.the minotaur.

The boy’s horns grew in at five,

He hid them as best he could,

Wearing lumpy misshapen hats,

Growing his curly hair out as best he could,

Hiding his true nature,

The other children labelled him freak,

And, like so many other childhood labels, it stuck,

He hadn’t meant to,

The goring happened with a quickness,

As if the thin veil holding back his animalistic nature slipped,

And he was stood over his bully,

Watching as the red leaked and pooled,

Watching the rapid struggling breaths as his lungs fluttered to the gaping hole,

The village elders heard the case,

And banished him to a mirrored labyrinth,

The crown jewel of a ruined amusement park,

The kind with mini golf and laser quest and arcades and goldfish in bags and overpriced candyfloss and airbrushed cartoon characters and seagulls and chips drenched in vinegar and soft serve ice-cream and half-forgotten memories,

The rot has long since set in,

Think rust,

Think decay,

Think of a child’s wasted potential,

He matured looking at reflections of the monster they believed him to be,

Horns you could shave with,

Teeth that could tear your understanding asunder,

He haunted himself,

Until one day his mind snapped,

Bellowing in fear and pain and anguish he smashed the mirrors.

One by one by one by one,

His rage fragmented into sharp triangles of glass,

His hauntings increased tenfold,

The Moon Goddess, Selene, saw his torment and vowed to rid him of it,

During the new Moon she took a knife and cut a sliver of  darkness out of her,

Cloaking his eyes with it as he slept,

He woke blinded,

He woke at peace,

Things he had not noticed before began to take root,

The rich salted smell of the ocean,

The breeze though his hair,

He noticed the sound of waves as they kissed the shore,

He imagined the ocean,

That endless expanse of water,

No mirrors,

No glass,

No walls

Just a never-ending horizon,

At the quietest,

At the deepest part of night,

He found he could hear Selene,

And so, she began to whisper directions,

Guiding him slowly out of the labyrinth,

It took many years,

And over time the minotaur and the Moon Goddess fell in love,

Their souls wound about one another’s bodies,

On leaving the labyrinth the spell was broken,

His blindfold slipped,

And try as he might he could not hear Selene,

Could see her tracing across the heavens,

Heartbroken he went to the beach,

And laid down in the shallow waters where the ocean kissed the shore,

He lay still and felt her waters wash over him,

So still and quiet he could almost hear her,

So still and quiet he could feel himself becoming one with the land,

Go to the beach,

And look closely,

And you will see a rock shaped like a man,

And if you too are still enough,

Quiet enough,

You might just see him blink

.gemini.

.the horse twins.

The first born strangled his brother at birth,

Tangling the umbilical about his neck,

Strangling his first breath,

He was stillborn,

The midwife worked with a quickness,

Scissored the cord, freed his neck,

She pressed her mouth over the boys and breathed into his lungs,

A metallic taste,

A silent prayer to the old Gods,

And they struck a bargain,

And the boys chest fluttered,

And he drew a half breath,

And the first born drew the other half,

He was still born,

From that moment they lived as the tides,

Firstborn hightide,

Stillborn lowtide,

They switched at the halfway mark,

That was the bargain the old Gods made,

Their mother moved her boys to a small fishing village,

So they could better grow with the ocean,

And so they grew to match their tides,

Firstborn was passionate to a wildness,

Stillborn reflective and calm,

The Ocean God taught them to fight,

Firstborn would lay his fists into the cliffs,

Hewing great chunks of rock from them,

As is the way of the high tide,

Stillborn would pepper the hulls of ships with quick jabs,

Splitting the steel of them apart and letting the ocean finish them off,

As is the way of the low tide,

In their twenties they kissed their mother goodbye,

And headed out to find their fortune in a canary yellow Citroen Saxo,

One slept the other drove,

Changing with the tide as their custom,

They ducked and weaved a lap of this land,

Taking on all comers,

In the bare knuckled fringes of society,

Undefeated they lived like this for months,

For years,

Their bodies were strong in a manner you would call uncivil,

Beaten and broken and bruised and bloodied,

Their minds though were beginning to fragment and split,

Each would hear tales of the other,

Firstborn’s unstoppable haymakers,

Stillborn’s vicious uppercuts,

And yet each had never heard the others voice,

Had only known their twin as a sleeping form,

Their lives as divisive as the tides they grew with,

And so they returned to the fishing village,

And gave their mother their winnings,

And took a small rowing boat,

And rowed out into the vast grey of the Atlantic,

One rowed the other slept,

Changing with the tides as was their custom,

Finally, they stopped,

And let their small boat drift to dreamlike currents,

The Ocean God found their bodies,

Curled up against each other as if in a womb,

And he cast a mighty storm that carried them into the heavens,

Where they could no longer feel the push and pull of the tides. 

.cancer.

.an echo.

You can picture them,

Maybe even taste them,

Those fleshy white sticks,

Edged in red,

Echoing the ocean,

The idea of crab,

The reality is the detritus of a fish processing factory,

Mixed to a thick colourless paste,

Workers in heavy yellow rain jackets hose it and strain it,

Washing the ocean from it,

Replaced by artificial colourings,

Artificial flavourings,

Artificial food,

We used to gather,

 and hunt,

 and fish,

 and dance,

 and sing,

 and love,

 and lust,

 and live,

Now we tear through this wonderful planet,

Our domestication will be the death of us.

.leo.

.the lioness.

The Ocean God heard the idea of her,

It was faint at first,

Her slow steady breath,

Muted footfalls as she paced the cavern she had been trapped in for millennia,

Heart beat steadily against the rock,

The Ocean God directed his adopted sons to her prison,

Told them to free her with their fists,

And watched as high tide and low tide split the cliffs with bloodied knuckles,

In the cave the lioness woke up,

She did not recognise this new land,

It was hotter,

The men were much louder,

Much more daring,

Her old hunting grounds had been swallowed up by the true savagery that is civilisation,

No longer was she able to feast on great animals of the plains as had been her fashion,

And so she too would have to change

Now she left the cave at night drew a deep breath and dove into the channel’s icy waters,

Hunting fish in the shallow light of the Moon,

Over time she grew strong,

Her muscles began to ripple as if mirroring the ocean,

And so it was,

Years pass,

Decades too, 

But civilisation carries a greed that is hard to sate,

It wants to expand and develop and expand and develop,

And would not tolerate a lioness,

Even one who seemed only partial to fishes,

The insurance costs alone would be astronomical,

They solved this problem as they solved so many problems before,

And they watched the flames lick the walls of her cave,

And they drank and they celebrated,

All the while the lioness watched safely from a rock pool,

The ocean god had blanketed her with water so only her eyes shone with reflected stars,

In the morning the fire began to quieten,

And the savages believing her dead stumbled home nursing hangovers,

She stopped fishing,

Tempted instead by warmer prey,

At night she would prowl the outskirts of the village snatching those who strayed from the light,

Dragging them back to her lair and tearing into them with anthropic violence,

Their shadows danced on the cave walls,

The villagers hired the great hunter Orion,

Orion who cut his teeth on the plains of Africa,

Orion who had made trophies of lives,

Orion who had turned the hunt into a leisure

He was so sure of himself,

As he lined her in his cross hairs,

And took a deep breath,

And thought of how her head would look next to the television.

And he squeezed the trigger,

And the shot rang out,

And too late he realised,

You can’t kill a shadow,

She charged him,

Raked her claws down his chest,

Her roar carrying him to the afterlife with ringing ears,

Humbled the villagers realized that some things are too wild to fight against,

That some deep old ideas will win out every time,

And so they made a peace offering,

Every year sacrificing a bull,

Every year remembering 

.virgo.

.how the stars came to dance.

She danced barefoot through furrowed field,

Crops sprung up in her delicate footprints,

She danced from sunrise to sunset,

For one day a year,

On autumns equinox,

As the sun dropped the horizon her feet and mind were bloodied,

The villagers laid her next to the fire and massaged her feet with rich oils,

And her mind with rich stories,

And she slept,

And dreamt her crops to ripen,

In the morning the villagers took to the fields,

And harvested her dreams,

From sunrise to sunset,

One day for toil,

The rest of the year spent in the arts,

Great paintings and sculptures and stories and poems,

They birthed a pantheon,

And they were happy,

And they were balanced,

And they knew peace,

And love,

That was in the long ago,

The men came with bright armour and brighter weapons,

And took the maiden to the fields,

And had her dance at the tip of a spear,

She danced and danced and danced,

At first the crops were abundant,

And then,

Over time, 

As her blood salted the earth,

The crops began to fail,

The spears forced her to dance harder and faster

And harder and faster

And harder and faster

Until her body convulsed against the cool earth,

Some broken part of her mind still dreaming of the harvest,

The men left the fields barren,

Taking their pitiful spoils,

The villagers made a funeral pyre,

And laid her upon it,

And massaged her feet with rich oils,

And her mind with rich stories,

The fire burnt hot and fierce,

And the flames carried her to the heavens,

And the stars,

Once points of dull cold light,

Began to glitter and gleam and shimmer

She had taught the stars to dance.

.libra.

.blooded eyes.

Her eyes were carved from the wood of a great Yew,

It’s roots were anchored to the underworld

Its canopy gave shade to the Gods as they watched over us,

Back when the Gods still seemed to see us,

Her left eye would spin she heard a lie,

Her right would spin to the truth,

Her small cottage was full of brailed law books

Her judgements were true and she kept the villagers honest for the most part,

When their demands became too much,

She took to wearing a blindfold,

Took to telling them which eye was spinning to their questions,

At first the villagers abided this,

But that little seed of doubt was planted,

There were liars in their midst,

Could she too not be lying?

Spinning the truths out of fictions,

Fictions out of truth,

They did it with a cold teaspoon,

Holding her down and working it to the back each eyeball,

The truth came out easily,

As truth often will

The lie not so much,

They lay dead on the table mottled with tears of blood,

Motionless to any question set to them,

With no way to determine truth from fiction the village quickly dissolved to chaos,

And so they came back to her cottage,

And offered her bloodied eyes back to her,

Begged her to regain her blind insight,

Told her what a gift it had been,

How foolish they had been,

But their grovelling was not enough

She demanded an eye from each in retribution,

And the villagers pressed cold teaspoons to warm eye sockets,

And each found they could not quite do it,

And so, they never again had the peace of absolute truth.

.scorpio.

.a spiral.

It has been said his sting pricked the universe into existence,

A single pinpoint that tore through into the very fabric of reality,

A single pinpoint from which everything was born,

To hold him in the palm of your hand was to hold creation,

Was to feel the weight of potential,

He had lived an unassuming life,

Observing for eons,

Gravities gentle attraction,

Spiralling dust into planets,

Had watched the slow evolution as life rooted herself,

Had watched as the village insulated itself in stories,

He fed off their emotions,

Love begot love,

Anger begot anger, 

And so, when Aries was slaughtered, he felt a great pain,

The sort of pain that can sting a universe into existence,

Finding the man who held the knife

And stinging him with a black hole,

A single pinpont on his foot that turned his universe inside out,

Till he was but a single spot of blood.

.sagittarius.

.an acute dream.

She ground the herbs between her teeth,

This was in the long ago,

The medicines she spat out cured with a quickness,

She could set broken bones,

Massage aches and pains till they were forgot,

And her soft whisper could cure the mind,

It seemed as though nothing was out of her reach,

On the first day of Prometheus’ punishment,

On realising that his liver was not in fact growing back,

That instead he was rapidly bleeding out,

The Gods sent for her,

That first night she coaxed his liver back from scraps on the cave floor,

And sewed him up as the sun was rising,

She was exhausted,

Covered in blood and sweat,

And she sat against the cool cave wall,

And she watched as the Eagle tore into him,

Flinging pieces of his liver about the cave,

Undoing her nights work,

That second night was harder,

Her fingers ached to her bone needle as she finished stitching him together,

The Gods gave her immortality for this reason,

Years passed in this manner,

Her work sped up significantly,

Till she and Prometheus could share the predawn,

In this time they told stories,

It was in this manner they escaped,

They left the cave far behind them,

And imagined a small village on the coast,

And made a life for themselves in this fantasy, 

And they raised a child here,

And they were happy here,