Another Valentine’s Day
of broken heart and
unrequited chocolate.
By David Edwards
Valentine’s Day meal
Wanting more than just roses
Serve up slice of self
By Aeronwy Dafies
slicing the heart worse
than the sharpest cutlery…
wrong word or gesture
By David Edwards
True Story
By Mark Hudson
I remember once on Valentine’s Day,
I was on the train, making my way.
Back to home, without a date,
no holiday could I ever more hate.
The train stopped by a local bar,
and a couple got on my train car.
The man had a girlfriend who was pretty,
not the only one in this city.
I was a bit jealous, I must admit,
I envied the man, as I watched them sit.
But in the next instance, I wanted to clap,
the girlfriend threw up in the boyfriend’s lap!
A Question (without answer) in Fibonacci
By David Edwards
How
did
the Roman
Lupercalia – a festival
celebrating the annual commencement of
birds mating – become a feast honouring third century
Christian martyrs, then morph into
the modern market’s
fete to
commercialized
Love?
Smoke
By Harris Coverley
We went up on the hill
to have a night-time
picnic overlooking the
old town cemetery,
and we watched the
black smoke of the
crematorium rise up
into the purple sky.
“There’s no point in
doing it at night,” I said.
“We can still see it
anyway.” She mumbled
something in agreement,
before I asked her:
“What’s the point of
it all anyway?” And she
stopped eating, looked
me in the face with
cool eyes, and replied:
“You have no idea…”
And with that she
dissolved into black
smoke and rose up
to join her brethren.
Chill arms enfold her
Lover returns from the grave
Love transcending death
Making love in the darkness
Light destroys the illusion
By DJ Tyrer
Originally published in Tigershark
The Touch of Aphrodite’s Wings
By Matthew Wilson
A curse on she who loved me
I was unhappy being a poor farmer
Hungry in famine and cold in winter
Until I caught Aphrodite’s eye
Who promised no more cold seasons
Her wings surrounded me
They carried me to her mountain
For many years we were happy
Until she wished to have me always
Pleading to Zeus for my immortality
Now Aphrodite has no heart
Leaving me after she forgot one thing
To ask Zeus to keep my youth
For thousands of years I have walked alone
An old man with a bent spine
Getting older and uglier without dying
Who wishes for that mountain to crush him
To spare him more awful winters
Without the touch of Aphrodite’s wings
A curse on she who loved me
Gift
By DS Davidson
Valentine’s Day dinner
Gift waiting to be unwrapped
Knife and a note
It’s over!
A final farewell
Offering a way out
Sinister, cruel means of revenge
Removing a loose end
As they move on
To relationships new
View From Atlantis 