Kohl Shadows Black Medlars

fastidious rosewater pink mache misted

a cobra petal inferred of grapebloom.

Dark Souls go to Osiris distant psychic

white sea-friend verdigris-luminescent

the old adroit ears rising of golden dog

in dusk with beasts in kohl shadows leading

the secret lucky blessed knave

black medlars opening purple in brooding

old road.in troubled sunlight ancient white  

sealing here the river stone the silver meadow


The Otherworld. Crimson serpent gate mouth.

Tinted cobwebs whistling queens’ fragile lips

transmitting ravens no rusty cauldron exhibits

eternal grey life dead bread damp tiles

the stained waterfall the tired caught flowers.

Curious fuschias like smoky paws in rose wax.

Two rowanberries the horses’ wild telling

of night’s melancholy purple yews

distant blotting the Rose Wych Dynasty.

Her foaming gallopers exuding the drawn aura

stirring from hills opened on silence of evergreens

blue mildewed wine jars changing cloudy dusty figures



The Silver Hollow Boys

Wine glass poised spirit your irises dark

voices with dog-stale existence drinking

ripples   shadow rain fragile lost

galloper sun upon bone-grey clouds

heron at dip her face deep

that pewter madam entwisted

brindled strangers perform on moss

where leaf table sees a golden signet

creatures like sad tarot starkly plunged

the cards blue full wet. Fairground scarlet.

Fleeting November garden icy baroque yew

painting skeins as peacocks dog-gathered

gaze a silhouetted existence on slate

singing in sunlight the silver hollow boys


Mark Valentine’s Star Kites (2013) translates work by over twenty European poets. At Dusk (Exposition International, Bucharest, 2012) evokes over thirty interwar European poets. Fiction appears in Secret Europe (2014) and Inner Europe (2018).  Recent poetry has been published in PN Review, Agenda, Reliquiae and elsewhere, and essays on avant-garde literature at Wild Court and Queen Mob’s Tea House.  He edits Wormwood, a journal of the fantastic with a European slant.

Painting by AmirMahdi, 8- year-old from Iran