We hope you enjoy this collection of poems for the disenfranchised and lonely. And the sad, of course. Maybe the mistrustful or no-longer-hopeful. Definitely for the single.
A Valentine’s Poem
by Dinaz Rogers
Roses are red,
and violets?
Always blue.
Put on your thinking caps
and come up
with some new hues.
and flowers too.
How I Learned What Valentine’s Day is All About?
By Joanna Rosinska
My first Valentine Day celebration, ever.
No such holiday where I came from.
I dated a guy who had no original thoughts
nor did he cared to make anyone smile.
He knew I was allergic to chocolate
and frankly … didn’t like it much.
On Feb 14th he brought me
a cheap pink heart-shaped box
of not-so fresh chocolates,
I think from a gas station.
I asked “Why?”
He said “It’s traditional.”
The relationship didn’t last long.
Haiku Reflections
By Joanna Rosinska
mid-February
couples inside restaurants
look past each other
culture hails couples
tax breaks, respect, valentine
singles omitted
Valentine’s secrets:
couples only holiday
singles: discounted
It’s All Love, Right?
By Jessica Rich
Cardboard poetry that gets recycled or stuffed inside more cardboard boxes,
collecting dust just so you can remember someday
that someone spent some time in the grocery store aisle
on February 13th or 14th laboring over the perfect words.
Sugar-coated sentiment melts on your tongue,
disappears with the butterflies in your gut.
Annual dollar-bill origami folded into hearts
to wrap around your wrists.
For you to show your friends how much I love you.
Is it enough?
Valentine on Commercial Street
By Joanna Rosinska
Chocolate industry geared for gain
Chocolate, a love symbol in a container
Un-customized token, simple and plain
Love sits on lay-away, here’s my retainer
Like sunday religion once a year in love
When closeness vanished each is a complainer.
Excitement gone, simply nothing to talk of.
Eros is only a futile campaigner.
In Defense of Singles
By Joanna Rosinska
In the yester romance was a standard.
And divorced or unwed folks were slandered.
Is it different to date?
With divorce mounting rate?
Singles still feel a marriage is pandered.
Plaster Fantasies
By Sally K Lehman
The plastic roses you bought at
The Dollar Tree
wilted into grey puddles on my dashboard
beside the box of
unmeltable chocolate-like delicasies
you bestowed
in the names of love and Venus and…
Aphrodite.
Which turned out to be the name of
the prostitute you hired on Union Avenue.
It’s been a confusing year.
