It’s hardly a noble
science, para-
science: lunar

nodes and portents
of events, when
the crackpots

and charlatans count
sidereal time
and turn

lead into gold.
It’s a traditional
know-how like

art, acquired
by habit or traditional
rules, of which

composers compose
the nomenclature
of the planets

in any order:
saturnine, lunatic,
martial, jovial:

small dots
in their sketches
like notes on a staff,

the head above
a lyric of disquiet
and legality, slight

contrafacts of fluency
and chords
are community property.