 Horoscope of Prince Iskander, by the Royal Kitabkhana Workshop of Persia (Persia) 1411 The Zodiac Gallery at the Bialystoker Shul As we walk the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I inhale centuries of history, my feet yearning to slide into ancestor steps. On Willett Street, we come upon a large synagogue, once the prayer house of my great-grandparents. Great-grandmother Esther Taube couldn’t read in any language. She knew the ancient Hebrew prayers by sound. From the women’s balcony, she stared at each of the twelve images in the zodiac gallery, cerulean blue, maize yellow, vermilion, so vibrant against the tenement grays. She savoured the pascal lamb for Aries. She weighed the golden Libra scales, reminding her of how casting her sins into the ocean at Rosh Hashonah evened the score. She admired the two perched parrots facing each other against a robin’s eggshell sky--a reminder of Shavuos, the two tablets of the Commandments, and the Polish canvas she missed. She would not have known that the mural for Cancer portrayed a lobster and not a crab, because what would she know about unkosher crustaceans? But it made a pretty picture. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and a PhD in Holocaust & Genocide Studies from Gratz College. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Chicken Fat (Finishing Line Press, 2017) and Pounding Cobblestone (Kelsay Books, 2018). Her poetry has also appeared or is forthcoming in Cimarron Review, Nimrod, Vine Leaves Literary, Tiferet, and other publications. She lives and teaches in New Jersey. Her website is www.barbarakrasner.com. ** A Most Ambitious Sign The constellations tell us you were born under the sign of Taurus. The planets aligned to protect you ... the zodiac foretold your success. There were promises of victory, long life, and good fortune. It was in your power to carry out destiny and seize the crown. But you failed to see the stars were blind ... your enemies had other plans. Conquered and imprisoned, it was impossible to believe the heavens had betrayed you. Given the nature of the beast, your ambition could not be tamed ... rebellion was the only answer. The act of treason would be your last. Unfortunately, for young bull Iskandar, no pardon was written in the stars. Kathleen Cali Chicago-born and Midwest raised, Kathleen resides at the Jersey Shore. Her poetic interests include formal and modern poetry and haiku. Always the student, she enjoys poetry writing workshops and working with her local library. Other interests include historical fiction and photography. Kathleen enjoyed a career as a senior auditor and educator and served as an assistant professor of business following receipt of her MBA. Technical writing and editing were a major part of her profession; now she uses her skills to craft poetry. Her poetry has appeared in the Ekphrastic Review; her haiku was published in her local community’s magazine. ** Aligned Illuminators, make their mark with gilders, glyph calligraphers, more, paper-making specialists, as craft exquisite work of art, though here but flyleaf is portrayed. A sample of kitabkhana, to royalty, publishing house - a lavish manuscript laid out, exemplary of Mogul style, star quality in all regards. Sky guardians, each district, four, so Aldebaran, Regulus, with Fomalhaut, Antares too; thus spake these stars, Iskandar’s birth, of Turkman Tamerlane, grandson. As solar, lunar cycle guides, predicting future paths of life, these brightest neighbours of the sun, used to navigate their world, were governors of good and ill. Sohrab, Rustum, battlefields, or Persian rugs, but duly flawed, and flying magic carpet tales, all predetermined fields indeed, by horoscopes’ delineate. Astronomers, theologians, as poets too, courted, gathered before his regnal power assumed; starburst of culture, birthed by him, but soiled ambition, cruel times. Was Regulus, controlling grave when Shah Rukh, uncle, brought defeat, aligned, that royal line dispute? Self-minting coins, credit lost; he’s blinded, executed, end. A horror scope unseen by him. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** It is Writ in the holy scriptures that visionary spectrum calls forth your subterranean self, asks you to transcend what you know, to melt, to cradle your wholeness against the solace of seraphic sky. You glide through the Platonic realm, where you were first conceived, as spark, as aleph, as bay, as Piscean yin yang realisation back to ram of self discovery. Summoned to begin again, you hang dot to dot in the ether of awakening. You floated away with your old soul fragmenting in your wake and now, now you have to grow a new soul, one you were coaxing abloom all along. It’s beautiful out here, in the cosmosis of all-knowing self, an undoing of all you knew. It is the arrival of fourth sky plane, dream world caverns, a purging of consciousness, an arabica of joy. You are a puzzle of rapture calligraphed anew. You always knew you belonged somehow, you just didn’t know how until now. All this time, enlightenment was hiding in plane sight, if only you had peeked beyond the mayan skyscape at the edge of the woebegone world. You are the lone navigator of your new winged demeanour. But you are not alone and that is a double joy, a multiplicity of realm and heaven. What need do you have for the fetters of earth self any longer when you’re the cosmic ultramarine dream? Except it’s all the more real, hyper-real, than it’s ever been. The perfect maths of things anchoring all chaos, not really chaos, but the finest celestial order. The whole hangs as neatly as it always was and will never not be. At long last, you become we, become all, become one, a longing fulfilled and untangled in the multiverse of doors to dreams spun real from art fantasia. Come now, let us cartwheel through the starscape of surrender, and dissolve deep into its alchemy soup. Nina Nazir Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, artist and avid multi-potentialite based in Birmingham, UK. She's had work published in various journals, includingThe Ekphrastic Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, and Unlost Journal to name a few. You can usually find her writing in her local favourite café or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir and X (Twitter): @NusraNazir. She blogs regularly at https://sunrarainz.wordpress.com ** The Horoscope On the 25th April 1384, in a fine palace in Uzgand in Fergana in the Timurid Empire, Prince Iskandar, son of Umar Shaikh Mirza, grandson of Timur, the Mongol conqueror, was born. On the 25th April 1384, in a one-roomed, dirt-floored mud-walled shack in the shadow of the Imperial palace of Uzgand, Malikat was born. The daughter of Fakhira and the granddaughter of Bakht, she was named after Prince Iskandar’s mother. Prince Iskandar’s mother, Malikat Agha, daughter of the Khan of Mogalistan and senior wife of Umar Shaikh, was exhausted after the birth of her second son. She passed him to the wet nurse who handed him to his father and grandfather to anoint him. The news of Prince Iskandar’s birth came to Malikat’s mother as she nursed her newborn daughter. That is good, she said. To have your stars aligned with a Prince’s is good. May your life be as lucky as his, my little one. Umar Shaikh consulted an astrologer. The astrologer consulted the stars. Like you, your son will be a fine warrior, he said. Under his leadership your powerful Timurid dynasty will grow and grow. Good, said Umar Shaikh. I will call him Iskandar, protector of men, in honour of Alexander the Great. In the shack beneath the palace with its stone minarets and domed halls, Fakhira kissed the dark, downy hair on her baby’s head, breathing in her newness and whispered, I will call you Malikat, my precious. Prince Iskander’s mother is a good and kind woman and you shall be blessed to carry her name. Malikat and Izkandar grew under the same stars and worlds apart. Before Malikat could walk she was carried through the lanes and alleys between the shacks by her barefoot brothers - five wiry boys with dark curls and dark eyes. Behind the walls of the palace, Iskandar and his brothers learned how to be warriors. When Malikat walked, her brothers held her hands. When she could run, they chased her. When she learned to dance they twirled her round as she laughed. One by one they grew and worked with their father, hawking along the Silk Road. One by one they slipped away to their new wives and the Prince’s army. Umar Shaikh died in 1394. Iskandar was ten years old and already the governor of Fars. He was chosen to accompany his father’s body to his burial in Kesh. His older brother became Governor in his place. Iskandar was his grandfather’s favourite. He was a bold but unconventional warrior He rode alongside Timur and brought him success through his victories. However, he made enemies of his brothers and cousins. When Timur died, brother fought brother and cousin fought cousin. In 1397 Iskandar married Biki Sultan, the first of his three wives. They had five sons. Her father said when Mailikat sang the birds quietened the better to listen. She was wooed by all of their neighbours’ boys. She too married. She delivered five daughters safely. Malikat cared for her husband and her daughters and her mother and her father, scraping meals from the discarded scraps of the market stalls. Iskandar was a cultured man, a patron of the arts and literature, printing books and developing libraries. In 1410 he commissioned a personal horoscope depicting the position of the stars and planets at the time of his birth. The finest example of the era, it had twelve sections, one for each astrological house, and the twelve signs of the Zodiac within. The exquisite lapis lazuli and gold leaf decoration was all applied by hand and took astronomers, illuminators, gilders, calligraphers and paper makers over a year to complete. Its earthly interpretation of the celestial heavens was to Iskandar’s liking. The astrologists foresaw a long life with great success on the battlefield and in the arts. A prince to be remembered for eternity. In 1411 after long sieges, Iskandar took Yazd and then Isfahan. He declared himself Sultan and made Isfahan his capital. In 1411 Malikat’s father died. Her brothers carried his body to his burial place as she and her mother wept. Having fought with brothers, fought with cousins and switched alliances back and forth, in 1415, four years after his horoscope was completed, the soothsaying of his dazzling horoscope deserted Iskandar. He lost his lands to his brothers and cousins, was blinded by Rustam, his elder brother, and imprisoned under the custody of Bayqara, another brother. He escaped but was captured by nomads who handed him over to Rustam, who ordered his execution. News of Prince Iskandar’s death came to Malikat’s daughters in the days after Malikat’s death in childbirth, delivering a much-longed for son. He was named Iskandar. Caroline Mohan Caroline Mohan is based in Ireland and writes sporadically - mostly stories with the occasional poem and mostly in workshops. ** vanishing in reverse once the wheel was discovered it rolled endlessly, infinitely and beyond half moon, whole moon, none at all-- there is always more even inside subtraction I don’t know where my body goes when my mind is in reverie—to the stars? is there anywhere to go? this journey I dream leads back to itself—a gem set into life, shimmering-- the end, a circle, a breath, completed, released Kerfe Roig A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/. ** Order of Dreams Symmetry, exquisite with order blue with calm and gold with entrancement belies truth in living-- such real days as jumble shapes and colours, images and apparel leaving us to sort the order and meaning. Carol Coven Grannick Carol Coven Grannick is a poet and children's author, with fiction, poetry, and essays published and forthcoming in many print and online publications for children and adults. Her novel in verse, Reeni's Turn, debuted from Fitzroy Books in 2020. ** Alexander/Iskander Royal Daily Horoscope The day they heard that you had crossed the Hellespont their horoscope spelled a fall into a cryptic hole and in that petrifying proskynesis they failed to grasp your name let alone your budding fame and though on the face of it they feigned their arcane Persian cat game they just about gasped to render the thunder as ‘Iskander’ running in and out of metathesis mess wrecking spitting and choking on demanding euphonic tones of your advancing nominative case. Regardless. The battles rolled in accord with your Delphic oracle horoscope enfolding in only one word –“invincible” – Gaugamela Issus Granicus Babylon... Invincible – the leap of faith of the brilliant pupil of Aristotle who went on to conquer the known world slicing the empire of Darius as a piece of cake. Cesar cried on his supposed grave. Napoleon hosted him in his dream. Too late - they had long passed that starry teen moment of the Macedonian boy-king. And this became his horoscopes refrain though no horoscope could explain Alexander’s impossible charismatic domain of a mortal adored and abided as in trance hugged as a brother and idol at once. Only his mother had a probable clue – Olympias simply believed he was god. You may call it paradox. Moon may move in Pisces. Mars may become real spicy. Taurus may trigger bad choices. Venus may linger in bed late. Regardless. Alexander advances ahead with one weapon at hand – ‘invincible’. In reality as in transcendence. In life as in legacy. In infinity as in the moment… Iskander follows as his spellbound ascendant… Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning and her poems have been frequently honoured by TER and its Challenges. Her collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europe Edizioni 2021. ** Where Will I Go, What Will I Do? At age nine, grandfather called me to him, showed me this paper where my future was all spelled out for me. Even in the beauty of deep blue, crushed lapis lazuli, could not disguise that this working out of my future in blue and gold, blue ink, bluer than the sky, was meant to set me on the path his advisors mean for me. Even at that tender age I shrank from this determination. History will not recall my name with the honors, accolades earned by Grandfather Tamerlane, but I not let this ink define my destiny. I will live a quiet life. I am my own person-- So now, listen carefully: The wind of history does not whisper of me and that is the way I want it. Joan Leotta Joan Leotta is a poet, author, story performer, and teacher of writing and performing. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review and many other publications. She has been twice nominated for a Pushcart and twice for Best of the Net. At present she is debuting a one-woman show that brings Louisa May Alcott (live!) to audiences. ** Malikat Agha writes to her son, Iskandar. Astrologers are harlots, paid to please. Fairground fakirs one eye on the heavens the other in their pockets, a third watching, seeking clues from their patron. Beware, my son. I am not the favourite wife You are not the favoured son. My horoscope told I would outlive three sons. The greatest, a comet, soaring in beauty through the desert’s blue black sky to astonish all who saw his rise. Great beauty, great power But oh the fall, to sudden total darkness. A son blinded by his brother, cast out, rising in despair to final execution. Beware my son. Hear me. This horoscope will outlive us all. Rennie Halstead Rennie writes poetry and flash fiction. He is a reviewer for London Grip. ** A Planisphere A planisphere portrays the sky as seen by contemplative eye whose constellations reign as sign of geometric, planned design where stoic stars remain serene as moving planets intervene that circle stabilizng sun around which earth is also spun as if by forces they extol much like those found within rhe soul that move the conscience from its birth to journey that returns to earth the legacy it leaves as art preserving course it chose to chart. Portly Bard Portly Bard: Prefers to craft with sole intent... of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** Three Haiku Balance a moving stillness world of symmetry and order ** Exquisite calligraphy holy and aesthetic art mathmatical proportions ** Majestic gold and blue ancient signs of the zodiac precisely linked to the heavenly stars Sarah Das Gupta Sarah Das Gupta is a retired teacher from Cambridge, UK; The colours and balance in Islamic Art are so exquisite and precise. ** horror scope what is in the stars for mother earth what on earth is her rising sign as forests burn & oceans heave what on earth sighs the multiverse as air thickens & children die what augury aligns her stars with hope Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith writes from deep faith in our future generations.
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