Careful Valentine

Carefully he selects
a teabag from a large
variety of options
finding one for sore throats
then standing for a few minutes
at the cupboard choosing
a cup from a lifetime of cups
finding one in the back
hidden a dark blue
I forget where I picked
you up he mutters forgiveness
is the simple fruit
of self-knowledge the water
just boiling he pours and waits
letting it steep and steam
every second healthier
every second your name

Giacomo's Valentine

While contrails play
X marks the spot
above the ruined city
I sit in dappled shade
reading Leopardi
like a prince on holiday
with the good sense to enjoy
this gem-like day
the abandoned hillside
of this night perched
above the sea
in the silent distance
until I neither think nor feel
my heart skips a little
at the storms ahead
who remember eternity
so much clearer
and the foundering
than we do

Valentine for Pierre Reverdy and Max Jacob

Often in our youth
when we felt an anachronism
creep near
soon a god would step
out from behind the stony
curtain of the bodies
we loved through
in those days
now I feel had he said
by my own perceptions
which the past is full of
hundreds of years later
had and humbled
by our own youthful courage
which could only
carry us so far

Gemini Valentine

I have never been more
exasperated with myself
and strangely never
more compassionate
with the exasperation
I feel coming toward me
and through me
but how many chances
to kiss and make up
do I give myself
before my compassion
peters out and
my eternal exasperation
gives up on itself

Empty Valentine

I grew these from seed:
two wonderful arms
two wonderful legs

and wonderful how two
proved the basis for
everything I grew

and killed and grew

imagine traveling miles
for a particular color

an idea with childhood
written all over it
as if it weren’t

a red and purple
sea hustling
a predatory people

but an eggshell you
gave me to care for
a spear of celery

and a cold sunny
afternoon’s three wasted
wishes we will build

new bird houses and
they will come back
three days they cried

circling the emptiness
where their hedge had stood
where they had nested for years

and that was just one group

Hazy Moon Valentine

A landscape of quiet dust
under the glass dining table
as the sun passes by
creating and destroying spaces
we have only accumulated
into matter for a while
as a barrier against sadness
is built or a dam against some
flood bound to rearrange us
but not to be carried away
or get enchanted by
material freshly emerging
from the stitching of millions
of tiny invisible elements
under uncertain conditions
we misrepresent as ours
our river our time
but to get intelligently lost
and sleep in a strange bed
and wake among stars

Gracious Valentine

Hey cadastre
hither line by line I’ve
set this least easement
in higher indifference
in the metes of love
and bounds where they
kept their original t
the forerunner of more
modest languages
unmarked by monuments
as how you say eagerly
similar and specious
in our anytime going
from grace to grace

Risen Valentine

Especially beautiful tonight
is the sleepwalking wind
through alleys through creeks
a cold psalmist in cloaks
of living silk
a cellular succulence
in the density
of the god of darkness
driving the moon
out of sight singing
I have something to say
but I have no one
to say it to

Choleric Valentine

Even there at the level
of bacteria
a signal to stop
swimming and
lodge in the walls
of the small
intestine a terrific
readiness to respond
to radically changing
chemical environments
to return to prior
conditions and impulses
no longer relevant colonies
angrily driving out
all moisture and life

Ear's Valentine

You were sitting
in the sun I was
sitting in the shade
the hearing in my
left ear is going
going where I said
don’t you remember
you didn’t hear me
it was always your
insouciance I loved
most about you I
heard you clearly say
the sun was warming
you the shade was
cooling me off
can a heart have
tinnitus mine was
ringing off the hook
don’t you remember
you didn’t hear me

Whisperer's Valentine

If our better angels
are as far above us
as we are above the
animal kingdoms
the composite flower
each so intricately is
I try to imagine their
profound frustration
infinite patience as
our trainer-teachers
whispering and
herding us through
our lives toward some
harvest like how
today my angel
told me to inspect
my hands every day
and ask myself if I
remember how I
made them and why

Martin's Valentine

We do what we love
and we love to do it
we love evil and we do evil
thinking because we love it
it must be good
or we love to do
whatever and call it
good because all these
preliminary questions
must get discussed
among our incipient selves
but then the audience
goes blind and silent
the curtain opens on a castle
an old man is knocking
at the gate

Not My Parents Valentine

A very old couple at Fry’s
staring at the heartburn
remedies display
their effortless calm
in the face of
the diaper aisle
how they hold still
as the cosmetics section
passes them by trembling
I meet them again
heading for the exit
him holding a clutch
of yellow freesias
her hugging a fifth
of scotch

Mani's Valentine

Today I turned to Mani for help
he of the Manicheans
whose name means the jewel
who was flayed alive
by those who came to believe
killing someone ends their life
forgetting their home with the gods
just an idea among ideas
among streets and bridges
how can we still not speak
to one another as light
to light still not know
ourselves as children
of the sun and moon

Your Valentine

From the gleams
in gems to the colors
in flowers and wings
to the fires in eyes to
the light in minds
to the seeing past
bodies past brains
to pictures in the past
from the beginning of
memory to the sense
of a future self the true
long-prepared-for one
but for what for
whom if not you