This is a poem in this series of 144 poems that I’m writing based on the dodeks, or twelfth parts, of the Zodiac signs. As far as I know, everybody else calls them dodekatemoria, but that’s a very complicated word to say, so I just call them dodeks.
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Capricorn of Taurus: The Town Dump
20° TAurus 00′ to 22° TAurus 29′
Every morning a little knot gathers
to jaw about the business of the day:
leftists and rightists in fierce palavers
on every issue that won’t go away.
Here by the refuse of last week’s dinners,
informal discussion waxes and wanes —
each side learning from its saints and sinners,
both the extremists, and more nuanced brains.
The dudes who regulate the dumpster door
(who pray for dusk since they opened at dawn),
know each talking point (they’ve heard them before),
and nod to eggheads, give dullards a yawn,
and don’t mind hosting where opinions clash —
they know all debates end up in the trash.
Image: A group of people animatedly argue beside a large pile of trash and some recycling dumpsters at the city dump.
Important Relationships
- Part of Ptolemy’s Term of Jupiter
- Part of Ptolemy’s Term of Saturn
- Part of Decan III of Taurus (administrated by Saturn): The Prayer Beads
Colophon
This is a part of a series of poems based on the dodekatemoria, or twelfth parts, of the Zodiac signs. The dodekatemoria are sub-segments of the Zodiac, each representing two degrees thirty minutes (2° 30′) of arc; there are 144 dodeks (as I call them) in the full Zodiac, or twelve in each sign. Each dodek is supposed to be a recapitulation or miniature repetition or summary of its parent zodiac sign, as though it were filtered through the lens of the main sign.
The Sun crosses this distance of 2° 30′ in about two and a half days, making these dodeks cognate with the Moon, which crosses one sign of the Zodiac, or thirty degrees (30°) in about two and a half days. The Sun’s passage through a dodek thus mirrors the Moon’s passage through a sign, and squeezes a “mini-year” of passage through twelve signs into a single month.
Each series of dodeks begins at 0° 00′ of its parent sign with the same sign, and there are four dodeks in each sequence of 10° degrees. Each poem in this series will give a (my) name of the dodek, its relevant degrees, a sonnet describing it, a 1-2 sentence description of the dodek, and some other information.
