Poetic License Horoscope for May 6-12

Taurus (April 19-May 18): It’s a new month, try a new medium. Try working in exaggerations, or omelets, or check-off boxes. Whatever you make, be prolific.

Gemini (May 19-June 21): Whatever you have to say that’s new, say it—ring it out across the crowd and damn the judges. Read it off paper, or off of your phone, or scan the wall murals for hidden messages, just say it, already, say something new.

Cancer (June 22-July 23): Here, we’re celebrating wisteria, are you? They always have enough blossoms for everybody and they smell like the good/bad influence version of lilacs. Climb all over everything and make the air sweet.

Leo (July 24-Aug. 23): Gold star, Leo, for not taking no for an answer, for muscling in. Learning means making mistakes, means pushed away or accepted, always some combination of both.

Virgo (Aug. 24-Sept. 23): When Andy Warhol first moved to New York City, he got smitten with Truman Capote. He used to stand outside his apartment sometimes, and leave little notes that said things like “Happy Friday!” Collect romantic art history facts, you’ll need them for something.

Libra (Sept. 24-Oct. 21): The stars are supposed to love everyone, that’s kind of our thing. (That and blazing. That and emitting too much light. That and exploding slowly. That and ersatz navigation.) For you, we’ll admit that Favorites is kind of our favorite game. Wait for the light to get there. Wait half. A third.

Scorpio (Oct. 22-Nov. 22): I wrote this week’s horoscope early because it’s a good way to put off studying for my Linear Math final. Lately I’ve been skipping church for poetry and hangovers. My scale broke and I didn’t replace it. Make sensible decisions like these.

Sagittarius (Nov. 23-Dec. 22):”Start a huge, foolish project like Noah. /It doesn’t matter what people think.” (Rumi) You are brave and prolific enough for every flood. You’ll get email olive branches and text message rainbows to tell you what I’m telling you now, which is that it’ll be alright.

Capricorn (Dec. 23-Jan. 20): Your house keeps showing up in people’s happy poems. Your face is on everybody’s “Best Of.” Your art collection is priceless and weird. Your children (if you have them) have soft faces and millions of hugs. You finally have everything, isn’t it everything?

Aquarius (Jan. 21-Feb. 19): I used to have video on my desktop of a friend of mine dressed up as Lady Gaga and singing Papapazzi. I took it off the desktop because it made me miss him too much, and now I can’t find it at all, which is probably for the best. Songs should have new lives, I think, over and over again.


Pisces (Feb. 20-March 20): You are Leslie Knope as depicted as a hot centaur, workaday and swoonish all at once, an administrative sexpot, a mythical source of prosperity and progress. Get used to this new version of yourself.

Aries (March 21-April 18): “We need a drink that takes subtext and makes it into text: whiskey.” (Lily on How I Met Your Mother) Do the opposite of this. Perfect your secret message skills and hide clues in the most unlikely places. It’s kind of fun.

Poetic License Horoscopes is a free syndicated series which appears weekly on such lit blogs as The Serotonin Factory, Critical Mass and The Legendary and Apiary If you are interested in adding the Poetic License Horoscopes to your lit journal / lit blog, please email me at serotoninfactory@gmail.com.