There’re so many sad love poems around here.
If you guys need help negotiating love’s slippery *****,
let me offer you, your own, romantic horoscope!:

Don’t court romantic disaster
don’t mistake a lightbulb for the moon
Titanic wasn't a rom com

and a sad update:
Grand romantic gestures don’t happen anymore,
you're lucky to get a vibration in our pocket with a "sorry" text

I know what you're thinking though, “We didn’t know the moon was useless until we landed on it,” but once you’ve ‘landed’ on a guy (or girl), once or twice, it’s too late—you’re likely ‘in it.’

Big picture-wise, I think we all have Shakespeare to thank for unrealistic, romantic storylines. Romeo & Juliet are the perfect example—they meet, fall in love and marry the very next day.

In Shakespeare’s defense though, love in his world-building was always messy and imperfect, and there were few "happily ever after" narratives. (The exception being Beatrice and Benedick, in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’).

In a side note, my weekly horoscope (Libra) for the Thanksgiving holiday reads:
“You’ve become so self-centered, It’s all about you. What about your family? Before you go emo and angry, change your perspective—own it—strive to improve relationships.”
Sarsh (so harsh), in this writer’s opinion.
.
.
(Songs for this):
Love Is In Town by Brenda Boykin
Do You Even Know? by Rae Morris

~
Unusual and cloudless

This slippery world

Today is still contagious

Here is heat, here is rain

Here is love, regardless

Shadows in the scaffolding

Look like a broken alphabet

The sun in its anger

Just won't set

Life and how to do it

Perfectly absent
~

have you ever seen

moonlight on the lake?

the moon whispering

to the water lilies,

the lilies white as the lace of a bride's gown.

have you ever sat on a log

contemplating the mystery
of a cold and distant romance?

2 hearts
forever longing to,
but not able to embrace

separated by endless night...


...wild birds are singing,

and dawn's sweet chorus
chases away the sad, lonely moon.

have you ever heard the moon
loves the flowing water,

loves the mortal music
of earth-borne water lilies?

The poor thing got
lost in the escape.
And she was still hungover
from the childhood terror.
Her personality was
ruined--redolent with
the first flowers of
madness.

She made a pretend
world, full of delusions.
A house of cards that
was laden with
lunacy, her insanity
became safe and dependent
on her never taking
responsibility for her
actions--she was a
pawn for the adage,
Hurt people Hurt people,
like Blanche from
A Streetcar Named Desire,
and
Don Quixote,
Her world crumbled and she climbed
into the abyss,
when she looked
deeply into the
mirror of reality.

I read Zygmunt Bauman, but I think of the Aeneid and
                                                                  the seven years of wandering, and
the Nashua river that keeps flowing beside me, and the storm from last night, and
the tree blown down, which is still on the ground, lying  as if it was tired and went to sleep,
the only difference now is that the roots stand with their mouth opened up speaking with the clouds,
                                waiting for the rain, waiting for the night,
begging

~
I cast my net
                  into the tributary

and release into you, a seasonal swim,

I give to you a mother's color,
        as you recite
        infant hymns,

                    you're a bleeder
on the days sunfire meters out its origin,
                    you're my river

free and clear from the grip

      of anchorage,

                         my river,

drifted on to wherever
                       moon wishes glister
~