Tag Archives: fortunes

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.

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.