Category Archives: poetry

National Poetry Month: Fortune Cookie Poem 1, “Love is in the Air”

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Happy National Poetry Month to you! Welcome to April. My favorite month of the year.

Every April, I try to post a poem I write every single day. This year, I’m actually incredibly busy with my bookstore, my new editing business, and trying to get my first two novels republished by me instead of the traditional publisher that had them until recently. (See previous post.)

So, instead of trying to master a particular type of poetry (I’ve done haiku, sonnet, and villanelle in previous years), I’m opting for what I hope is a simpler route. I’m writing what I call fortune cookie poetry.

It’s pretty simple. Each day I’ll break open a fortune cookie, read the fortune, and write a poem based on it.

A little background about me and fortune cookies. A few years ago my life took a turn I had never anticipated. At the time it devastated me, and I became obsessed with wishing I could know what was coming at me before it actually hit me. Astrology, online Tarot and Magic 8 Balls (I recently got a real one for my birthday), hitting shuffle on my iPhone music after asking it a question…and fortune cookies.

Have any of these things helped? Probably not. Life is life and sometimes it smacks you around. Unpredictability is just what the world is, and no amount of crystal balls are going to help you see what’s around the bend…or, sometimes, right in front of you.

With that said, I still eat fortune cookies. And right now I have the sweet taste of one in my mouth and I got an even sweeter fortune. And I wrote a poem about it. It’s a sort of sonnet with a kind of cool rhyme scheme. 🙂 Hope you enjoy.

Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
Love is in the Air
By Michelle Garren-Flye

Love is in the air, you say?
Well, that explains it all.
I’m not looking up today
so I guess I missed its call.

Don’t bother looking out for me.
I don’t think I believe anyway.
Love has no real allure, you see,
and on my nerves, it will fray.

Seductive whispers just won’t work
now that I’ve been set free.
I don’t want to sound like a jerk
but I don’t think love is my key.

So go ahead and float about!
Someone else will hear you out.

Oh, another attempt at a ghazal on the anniversary of my Mother’s death

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Today I’m remembering my mother. She died one year ago. Throughout this year, I have had moments when I wanted to talk to her more than anything else in the world. And knew I couldn’t.

Maybe that’s where this poem came from.

At any rate, I’m sure it’s not just me. (Although some of you may not write ghazals about it. Or attempt to. I’m still struggling with this form!)

Hug someone you love today.

Oh. 
By Michelle Garren-Flye

I wait for the rhyme to come but, oh, pain?
The rhythm runs through my thumbs, oh pain!

Sometimes it all feels right—no strain—
and others it’s nothing but, oh, pain.

Some might seek comfort in cocaine
but that will not shelter me from…oh. Pain.

Your beauty I have come to know, fain
would I reject its attraction, oh Pain.

My last refrain is your domain;
rest, you’ll fly in my love, oh pain.
Photo and text copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye

Self Portrait, a poem, And Nothing New update

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First of all, I cannot begin to tell you how much I love Rattle. If you want to know why, check them out. I’m a subscriber, and they send me a poem every day, and the poetry is so good, it makes you feel good about just living in a world where people can think that way, you know? Yes, it is my ambition to have some poetry accepted by them, and I do submit to them from time to time, but I also just get so much inspiration from them.

For instance, every month they have an ekphrastic poetry challenge. If you don’t know what ekphrastic poetry is, it is a poem written because it was inspired by a piece of artwork. Here’s this month’s: Ekphrastic Challenge. I have entered this challenge several times, and I’ve always missed the mark and then read the responding poem and figured out why. But it doesn’t even matter. I’ve written so many poems and I’m learning every time I do it. Anyway, as soon as I saw this challenge, I knew I would enter it. I wrote three poems. This is the one I submitted.

Self Portrait



I am scraps of lost mail

pulled close around a center axis;

a book snapped shut by an unfeeling hand;

a paper doll cut from yesterday’s news

and left to crumple underfoot.

I refuse to yield to cripple and age,

obtuse in clinging to antediluvian belief,

a vow given long ago

and held in my chest,

concealed, mostly, by wisps

of lost dreams and things

that I won’t let go.

And you can’t make me.



I am obstinate in the face of the wind,

making myself ridiculous,

clothed in scrapbooks and memories

that threaten to blow away;

an object of pity perhaps

with no objective in mind.

So pull out my heart, 

and crumpled bits of newsprint

I can’t share

will spill at your feet but

spell out only what was

because sometimes forever

and ever won’t go away.

I also just yesterday published Chapter Two of my new venture, “Nothing New Under the Sun”. You can read it here: “Nothing New“. Although the story is called “Nothing New Under the Sun”, it’s all new to me as I’m publishing it on Kindle Vella in episodes, and it’s a mystery. I have an idea for it that I think you’ll like. I like to think of it as literary upcycling. And that’s gotta be new.

Maybe there’ll be a tropical sunset in a future episode of “Nothing New”. What do you think? Photo by Michelle Garren-Flye Copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year! (Happy Winter Solstice)

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People think I’m crazy when I say this is my favorite day of the year. But it is. It’s the day I feel the most hope for the future.

Today. The darkest day of the year.

Want to know why?

Because every day after this one gets brighter.

In honor of the darkest, most hopeful day, I’m doing a “live poetry writing”. If you haven’t joined me for one of those, it’s sometimes interesting since I’m working at my bookstore and am often interrupted.

(At 11:16 a.m. I’m already interrupted by customers. How dare they? Just kidding!)

Winter Solstice

By Michelle Garren-Flye

(11:20 a.m. debating about form versus free verse…really should’ve thought about this ahead of time!)

What makes the darkest day of the year so bright?

When the sun leaves early, why do I still hope?

I refuse the fear the end of day, the coming of night

With the long darkness, I know I can cope.

(11:23 a.m. I’m thinking sonnet, then. I do love sonnets.)

Daylight may not last as long while the night grows

and flowers cannot emerge in the absence of sun

but even now, I sense the spread of nighttime slows

and the approach of dawn will soon come.

(11:29 a.m. I know. Sun and come don’t really rhyme…)

In my bed, I wait to hear the first bird’s sweet whistle

(11:38 a.m. Sorry, I was off trying to find a book for someone. Back now.)

in the dark and the cold, with my head on my pillow.

and then it comes, like a message of dismissal

to the cold of yesterday, a welcome to tomorrow.

(11:45 a.m. I did stop in the middle of those last few lines to check out a customer. Not doing badly on time, considering…)

I jump from my bed, ready again for employ.

This day and the next I feel will bring joy.

(11:49 a.m. I wrote this couplet to end the sonnet thinking I wanted to write about joy, but as I wrote the last line, I thought maybe I should concentrate on faith instead. So, I’m working on an alternate.)

I jump from my bed, but wonder about my haste,

I pause to think but I know: it’s all about faith.

11:54 a.m. I’m done. This was fun and I will most likely polish this one up some. No idea what I might use it for, but it’ll go into a folder on my computer, anyway. Thanks for joining me! Enjoy the darkest day of the year, but don’t forget to have faith. Tomorrow will be brighter!

Photo by Michelle Garren-Flye. Copyright 2023

Silence (a poem)

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Poetry continues to be my main objective in spite of a couple of ideas I’ve had about novels. If I hear about a new form of poetry, I have to try it out. And then I have to stretch it. Remember Stretch Armstrong? How you would stretch and stretch him to see how far you could stretch him and he’d still go back to his original form…until he didn’t.

I sort of feel like I did that with haibun. Haibun is the combination of a haiku and a prose poem. Matsuo Basho wrote them. I discovered them relatively recently and decided to give them a try. And stretched the form a bit. What do you think? Is it still a haibun at its heart?

Silence
By Michelle Garren-Flye

it’s awkward, silence,
because it wants treasuring
and I reject it

laying too heavy on my ears in the dark, begging to be broken, shattered against the brick wall, revealing the death of sound ringing in my ears, spilling out like the yolk of an egg until the utter madness is stunned by a brief click in the wall behind the thermostat as the furnace breathes life into our emptiness…

don’t rejoice too soon
complete silence verges on
total perfection

you will seek it again, want to crawl into it, feel it envelop you in velvety warmth as if it can never break because it always always bends and that’s why you can never make friends with silence, why you can’t love it even if you want it, you will always seek release from it, but…

the birds will ghost you
the wind and waves will give up
leaving you…awkward
November flower. Photo by Michelle Garren-Flye

Poem: One Minute

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There are so many things to wish for. What’s your wish?

One Minute
By Michelle Garren-Flye

It’s 11:11, what’s your wish?
Is it love…money—or a bit of peace?
Go ahead, speak it and be selfish!
You’ve spent your whole life trying to please.

Whisper it to the first sparkling star…
Watch it drift away on dandelion fluff.
Pray for relief from your past life’s scar…
Hope a simple wish will be enough.

But just one single wish may not suffice!
I tell you what I think we must do:
in order to fulfill your wish’s price,
I’ll pledge mine to benefit you.

Hurry before the minute hand turns!
Tell me the passion that in you burns.

Self Portrait in 30 Years (a poem)

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Self Portrait in 30 Years
By Michelle Garren-Flye

She sits on her porch as people go past,
taking notice of what they bring into her past.

Little bits of their lives that pepper the now…
a tired mother…a crying child…now it’s all past.

Her son mows the lawn now every two weeks.
She likes it best when one week has passed,

when the grasses breathe rustles and chirps
echoing in her heart like songs from the past.

Those days when everything hurt so much—
if only she’d grasped that one day they’d be past.

Her daughter brings groceries, unpacks them inside:
“mom, come in, the summer’s heat is long past.

You’ll catch cold out there in the autumn breeze.
What keeps you outside when supper time is past?”

She smiles and takes her daughter’s dear hand,
hopes she’ll never know this longing for what’s past.

She could have dreamed up a magic spell back then
and stopped precious time before it had passed:

when she was a happy, tired mother of three…
now a lonely woman thinking only of the past.

She searches the stars for Orion’s sword belt,
Longs to fly to their light, leave this ache in the past.

Congratulations, it’s a ghazal (pronounced “guzzle” not “gu-ZAHL”, much to my disappointment).

Ghazals are hard to write due to their rhyme scheme, which involves repeating the same rhyme over and over. It can sound monotonous or forced. I’m just getting started playing with ghazals, so if it sounds monotonous or forced, I apologize.

The inspiration for this poem actually comes from a house. I used to walk by this house and see a little, old lady sitting on the front porch. I often wondered what her story was. I waved at her a few times, but before I got the nerve to stop and speak to her, I saw an ambulance there in the middle of the night. And then the little, old lady was gone.

I have no idea what happened to her, but her house is going through a major renovation. The porch is still there, though. I like to think she was lucky enough to spend her last days sitting on her front porch, maybe thinking of her loving children and eventually slipping away into her memories of past glories and loves.

Maybe that will be me someday. Because even if it’s painful to remember past sweet memories, it’s definitely better than not having them.

Selfie portrait by Michelle Garren-Flye

I saw the Milky Way! (with a picture and a poem)

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I first found out about the power of retrograde Mercury in 2021. Last night to celebrate the ending of the most recent Mercury retrograde, I went to the beach. It was the new moon, so the stars were bright. I laid on my back in the sand and looked up at the sky and after about half an hour, just as I was preparing to leave, I realized I could see the Milky Way, that elusive cloud of hundreds of billions of stars that is so seldom visible in the sky that I’ve never actually seen/noticed it before.

Part of me wanted to stay all night looking at that misty cloud, but at least a portion of this poem is somewhat true. And so I left. I did manage to (surprisingly) capture some of what I saw in a few pictures, though. And today I wrote a poem to go with one of them to share here. 

Retrograde Mercury
By Michelle Garren-Flye

My first time seeing the Milky Way, Mercury was in retrograde.
Everything went wrong, and I couldn’t linger long—
the cat was sick, the car failed to start, the restaurant I picked
had a two-hour wait, so I gave up, surrendering to my fate.
As the sunset faded, the stars above me played,
and I only spared them a glance, in no mood for a dalliance.
Yet later when my belly was filled, 
I thought about the way they spilled
through the sky…
down into the sea… 
and wished 
(oh wished)
that sight had held me
in place for a bit…
In the face of their beauty…
why couldn’t I just sit?
Milky Way during Mercury Retrograde by Michelle Garren-Flye

Celebrating Endings (with a poem)

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I used to panic whenever I’d draw the Death card from a Tarot deck. How could that possibly be a good thing? Even if it’s just the end of something, if it’s the end of something good, it’s gonna suck.

That’s why we as humans tend to celebrate beginnings. Birthdays, wedding anniversaries, the New Year. But we don’t really acknowledge that with every new beginning, something ended. The carefree life of a non-parent, the single life, the old year.

Today I pay respect to an ending in my life by celebrating what it was and what it brought me. It’s bittersweet, but I know that this is a new beginning, too. I’m ready for what’s ahead.

Let’s go.

Loop
By Michelle Garren-Flye

You left me once in the middle of a rainstorm,
I was tying my shoe, concentrating on each loop, and you
took the umbrella and wandered away
because something else caught your eye. 
I finished my task
but I was soaked to the skin
and even though you gave me my own umbrella,
I never really forgave you for taking ours. 
I doubt I ever will.
I’ll bring it up at family gatherings
and every anniversary
as if you could go back and change it,
hold the umbrella steady above me.
Turn back the clock
because without that, 
the end will never change.

Fortune Cookie Poetry

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Almost every night I have a fortune cookie with a cup of tea. It’s become my ritual. They are sometimes funny, sometimes uplifting, sometimes philosophical, sometimes almost a little spooky in the way they apply to my life.

I’ve been doing this for a couple of years now. I try never to throw them away. It seems sacrilegious. I do lose them sometimes, but I try to take a picture if it’s something I want to remember.

Here are a few I memorialized:

This one came along when I was floundering, trying to convince myself I could still write:

And then there was the time my fortune seemed to be hitting on me:

And finally, there was this one. It struck enough of a chord to inspire a poem. I thought it was a riddle, but when I did some research, I found it’s more of a philosophical conundrum. Fun stuff.

I have no idea what wisdom you can actually find in fortune cookies. Though Chinese restaurants adopted the cookie to appease Americans who wanted something sweet to finish off their meal with, no one actually believes they’re Chinese. In fact, though I did find some evidence in a quick Google search that fortune cookies originated in Japan, I’m pretty sure my fortune cookies are very American. And yet, I’ve found that the Universe can speak in many different languages, and English is definitely one of them.

WHAT HIDES IN AN EMPTY BOX?

We puzzled over the fortune cookie
long after dinner was done 
and the dishes taken away;
the check was paid 
and you and I were on the way home.
Darkness, you said, that’s what hides there
and I figured you were right
because if you open the box
and let the light in,
the darkness can’t be seen.
But later still, lying awake
with darkness pressing on my face
smothering me
like your apologies
I wondered if we had been wrong.
Maybe the darkness didn’t hide
when you opened the empty box.
Maybe when the light chased it out
it roared and screamed
and lashed about.
Maybe what hid there in its place
was my heart.