The Frogmore Papers’ 107th edition has been published and will be finding its way through the letterboxes of subscribers and contributors in the very near future. The issue has a striking cover by Armenian artist Arusyak Pivazyan, inspired by Peter Carpenter’s poem ‘Under Stars’. Other poets featured include Mike Barlow, John Freeman and Linda Saunders, from Ireland Marguerite Doyle, Mary Howlett and Noel King, and from Canada Salvatore Difalco, Sarah Feldman and Danielle Hubbard. And 107 has prose from Wendy Brandmark, Jeanette Forbes and Jack Jenkins. The late John Lucas (1937 – 2025) is the featured poet in the ‘From the Archive’ section. Copies are available for £5.00 (post free) from The Frogmore Press, 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1PJ. Subscriptions remain competitively priced at £10.00 for one year (two issues), £15.00 for two years (four issues).
Peter Carpenter
UNDER STARS
Bar the occasional sweep of headlights at the crossroads
along the Farnham Road, there’s minimal light pollution
here on Church Common after ten at night where under
the night’s black sea, I’m out walking our pair of dogs
who sniff the air or tug on their leads towards hidden life
somewhere in the bracken, up by the tower of St John
the Baptist, set in rubble flint and limestone dressing,
before Hector cocks his leg and pees into a scumble
of fallen leaves. After the unprompted questioning
of why we’re here and where we’re going, a tracery
of words flickers across my brain – don’t run away
from the shadow, turn round, hunt it down – and it’s then
I crick my neck back against my shoulder blades
and stop to gaze at the empire above us, its ever-shifting
permutations of planets and constellations, distant meteor
showers, traced in the names of myths and legends –
Pegasus, Venus, Castor and Pollux, and there, Orion
the Hunter, his sword’s tip marked by a star we know
as Hatsya, visible now over Azerbaijan and Odesa,
still light years away from a family group heading across
disputed territory for a settlement on the West Bank.