Phoenix Dreams

I feel that love and romance are more meaningful to me now I've reached middle age. It took me a long time to learn to be friends before being lovers, and to want to engage with the world at large. Everything changed for me when I finally realized how self-entrapped my world had become. I figured out that getting out of my head space and making real friends makes me happy.

Not all of these poems are autobiographical. Many were influenced by friends and their stories. Romance didn't begin and end with me by any stretch of my imagination! I don't view romance as being only about people, either. Places and things can be objects of desire. These poems represent different kinds of romance, ranging from simple to mawkish, from pure, sweet rapture to casual, indifferent shrugs of the shoulder. Some romances are daring and carefree, while others are lost, desperate, and lonely. Some are about age differences that on the surface are innocuous, but upon reflection, really don't work out. Some are about simply enjoying where we are and who we are, right now.

Attitudes influence style, and so, while some poems are blaringly in-your-face standoffish and stilted, others are free flowing and intimate. Who wants a romance with harsh, selfish reality, when soft, intimate dreams are so satisfying? And yet, sometimes, sometimes, we just want to break away, break it off, and be on our own again, don't we? Something for anyone might be here, just for you, just for me, just for now, and maybe, just maybe, just for forever!

I arranged these poems into an arc about consenting adults that starts with feeling trapped into a bad relationship, escaping it, and then learning to trust oneself and others, and love again. Kind of like that mythological phoenix bird that burns up and gets reborn from its own ashes. One can dream about that kind of restart. One can make it happen with just a bit of faith in oneself. This time, love is not a myth; this time, love is real.

So, in the beginning, because it feels right to say it, "It was a dark and stormy night".