Thursday, December 31, 2009

Year's End Valentine

As evolution dematerializes us

verbal confusion considers revising

the passions are extinguished

and our bodies turn wispy

the souls have so outgrown them

then we will see the pure beauty

of a physical world touch

its delicate management smell

the skin of its construction

which partially wants to be

dragged under while being caught

looking back and on the other

hand seeing I is always two

at war or in love that much.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Spring Training Valentine

Watching for poetry’s sake

three fat-assed old men

trading horror

baseball stories

Braille watches

take him out

drug-free America

here’s the masterpiece

pitch Mr. November

men are more emotional

than in the winter

turn the sound off

got my money’s worth

got chased out on purpose

grown men jumping

up and down

start fresh

every game

never complain

or go back

keep going.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Bitch-Slapped Valentine

Descending the

empty staircase

of branches one

at a time slowly

sparrows

and finches

one flicker

four doves

to drink while

the sun

comes in

through the back

of my head

bitch-slapping

me falling

into the shallow

end of their bowl

of fresh water.

A Bowl of Winter Basil Valentine

Love’s not the weather

or why is the world

so dire for us

if we’re the ones

who can’t resist it

it doesn’t winter over

but what is that

world for which

it doesn’t matter

the line woods unravel

their sense of impending

direction and front

bird thoughts with blood

on their throats

and faces.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Gray Valentine

What is
doing under
there you
need assistance
text this day
in sense
this end
the machine
flew right
over us that
gray color
no one loves
no heart
should be
painted in.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Christmas Valentine

By ruined streets
or arches fallen against
probably symbolic
broken columns
fields of red or yellow
that first green in
decayed or shattered
beauty was overcome
magnificent new palaces
quarried from
ancient resignations
only a half-knowledge
a half-life an ocean
without a beach
a child in relation to
world evolution.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Solstice Valentine

At the center

of the heart

the ashes even

a little flame

produces

as it breathes

a gas oven after

all wherein

are bodies

taken back

stacked away

too soon

falling asleep

in the stillness

falling not falling

snow of bones

red birds come

and fly through

like blood.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Blizzard Valentine

The truth may be

no one is healthy

enough for sexual

activity he was

speaking spiritually

living south of Surprise

Arizona I hope

they all say yes

for the rest of their

lives he admired

their harsh fate

the forty year

blizzard arriving

televised it may

be weird here

but it’s 68 degrees

and it never snows.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Secret Valentine

Just as I was

going down

I heard speech

again and laughter

of course I

was drowning

but I was thrilled

to hear them

even if not included

in their kiss

in the street

their happiness

so similar

to my own.

What Is Is Not What Pleases Valentine

Finally I’ve never

gotten over there are

other people in the world

their beautiful strangeness

with hands and eye color

I stare at and want

to ask each one where

are you from

no I mean

where are you from

if we have not

our own coruscations

to go through

for what else

has he risen

water-breaking

fish?

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Apples Cut Up For Sparrows Valentine

When thinking sees itself

and feeling is added that

attraction or repulsion

the metabolism wakes up

ideas have ideas

for good or not

just to go from seeing

what happens here

one thing or another

to seeing from inside

the thing itself

to be your pain

what you are

suffering of

and for.

Unapologetic Valentine

If I keep trying

to turn this solitude

to fit me it’s not

I’m not nice enough

about it it’s somewhere

in the middle of the

suffering-happiness

cul-de-sac of the movement

where thinking about it

gets so impressed

with itself it forgets

humility must serve

the lord of love

you must be my best

enemy at times as I’m

called to be yours.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Afterlife Valentine

He swore

on the birthday

of his death

on that day

while listening

to his favorite music

cranes flew over

south mountain

following the lines

his heart had made

when he died

because they still

loved one another.

Yellow Valentine

Stood upright

out the window

at midnight

a tree looking

back at me

a pomegranate

yellowed with

at year’s end

leaves rotten

fruit maybe one

salvageable but

then who eats them

every ruby earned

sweet crunch

I like the idea

of disorder the body

as the mouth’s

true food.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Christmas Valentine

Christmas gets old

especially for children

waiting to be gifted

at year’s end the

eighth grade play

begins that way

one poor boy too many

on the earth

so thousands die

like today while

he hides in the hills

above Alexandria

the widow’s son

young and alive

often in the market

in the company

of questionable women

questionable men.

Slow Hand Valentine

Poem locked

against me

unworthy lovers

for that hour

when the sun

lies down on the table

feeling its way back into

the wood’s stern empathy

I sit beside its

gravestone whether

or not the inside is more

important than the outside

more trust than power.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Wishing Valentine

Well done the sun

whose criticism

starts with himself

I wish I was him

from behind they all

look like thoughts

wearing large bonnets

if thoughts had petals

I wish I was them

or even this statue

quiet as a conscience

on its pedestal

for which the world

is afterbirth and shell

and thought is you.

New York Valentine

The poet John Ashbery appears

in every single one of his poems

but the person John Ashbery

appears in none of them

not in any convincing way

in fact isn’t that the point

he means to be the world

so there’s a certain coldness

but with Schuyler and O’Hara

it’s all personal emergencies

as a passionate meditant

would put it and one feels

their immediate aloneness

and laughter like waking

with someone you love.

Outlook Valentine

End shark finning forever

our gift to you

Canadian drugs from

your organization

diabetes-busting evergreen

scent that lasts

outlasts the revelation

disengaging from likes

and dislikes like tonight

how you’ve gone too far

it’s our sixteenth sitewide

wilderness financials

kitchen evolution

anniversary

how is ya?

Apologetic Valentine

A poem is the science

of recurring possibilities

a thesis to abstract

how much of the usual

can be overthrown when

replicated by some small

significant aspect

you overlooked and

had to go back for

to some damn thing

we are giving birth

always or being born

we had to pull over

we were laughing

so hard at the world

if you can imagine it

from inside your liver

the full unworthiness.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Dark Valentine

I asked the lord of forms

for a new form

how crazy was that

pretend thoughts

came to us once

now just ghosts

I love most

the ones

I disappoint most

I always drive past

where I’m going

at least one time

between void

and supercluster

I lose track.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Too Late Valentine

Onto a narrow yard

between two houses

a band-aid of light

gets applied

then gets ripped off

what do you think

of the goal of

infectious whimsicality

in the way the greens

are placed on red pavers

how is the eye not led on from

blindness to transcendence

in the rise of two small trees

one red one orange

shading one another

and the usual gnomes?

Friday, December 11, 2009

Hidden Valentine

While we were waiting

for you to go to jail

we watched surfing on TV

and talked about hell

in those days I avoided

everything good

but knew enough

to be around it and

to hide like a yellow

star in the south of

France the year of my

reappearance and

capture I painted

myself so you could

see my handsomeness

as it was for you

in the old days

as it is in the camps now

what will become of

the last encouragement

I have left.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Text Valentine

The lake-effect

love can have

on warm fronts

nature is dying

because she has

better things to do

always that piece

of trying to impress

someone lingers

lost migration

routes open up

icy mornings

nomads appear

still breathing

the afterlife.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Brother's Valentine

Dear brother the cover

Fra Angelico did this year

for your Christmas card

is lovely in a way we’ve

never been to one another

he’s getting better

gold and blue with

red in the center forming

a cup as if her bodice

and her waist which is odd

there’s another cup

in her right hand and

in her left her almost

standing baby in a pink

dress when things meant

different things than now

yours is always the first card

to come and I am such a shit

but if you follow their eyes

his as he offers a lily

to the past hers staring

down the future

isn't that you there

where they intersect?

Lost and Found Valentine

One red and yellow

McIntosh apple mobbed

by volunteer tangerines

death insists on the juice

of living to earn some

credit for the earth

the redemption of orange

in childhood calls

for its own disease

the last one I picked

the actual atmosphere

was wrapped in

delicious past delicious

your poem nothing

left in my glass.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Haiku Valentine

Handsewn slippers

untested household

toxic chemicals

late night construction site

reality homes

but no (true) buyers

a bowl of cold

tangerines Cezanne

channels

no true understanding

of the unrained-on side

of your nature

that I hold you while you

wipe the dust from the table

with your sleeve

this tenderness is how you said

life enters our physical world

starts pacing back and forth

November was coming

out of a long tunnel

into an open height

December’s an ocean

wherever you stand

waiting for whosoever.

Monday, December 7, 2009

First Winter Storm Valentine

The furnace farts

I fart back

we’ve eaten

too many bodies

not to approve or

disapprove of ourselves

as if your laughter proved

heaven exists at least

somewhere bodiless

beings as self-evident

systematic geology

you have to start with

the future and work

back from there

to where the past

warmth keeps happening

that sense of danger

starting to fall

almost everywhere

gray as language.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Wet Valentine

I suddenly remembered

it’s because we have a body

that acts like a dam

holding back the hidden

a resistor for the invisible

what do you call it

momentarily so everything

has to pass through it

as stones accumulate

due to upthrust or downslide

the stream is interrupted

strained to individual voices

that the body thus made

can miss and momentarily

recall the body you made

never inanimate to me.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Chimney Valentine

I don’t trust women

who listen to me

who treat men

like gods or children

who prefer the lions

to the chickens

who hide behind

their children

who capitulate

to their own gender

who believe in gender

who’d rather be

a percept than

a concept did you

know the chimney of

the Homer City Generating

Station is the world’s

31st tallest structure

an amazing confluence

of words and windiness

I don’t trust women

who listen to me.

Pyramidal Valentine

When the great doors

of sleep closed behind me

I was in a picture

of the grand gallery

the exits were sealed

and there was no sound

I came to a well

how did this get here

the water smelled bitter

but I drank it anyway

why go back now

to rebuild ruins

centuries ignored

bones of a lost responsibility

the history of perception

so that by the time I was

ready to spend the night

in the highest chamber

in dreamless sleep

I knew how hard the lovers

who made me had worked

to salvage something

they were losing fast.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Your Valentine

The way the sun

prefers certain

things tosses

others away

the insect once

a flower until

it won its freedom

in ancient times

everyone was rich

now we’re all

slaves if I loved

you any more

I’d have to be

Jesus Christ.

Form and Movement Valentine

It’s the way the new ballerina

dances the old ballet

that matters most to them

not the ballet danced

so many times before

but for us it’s the new

movement itself

we go looking for

the elixir after all the past

we must get over

face it at least

some parts we’ve kept

the preservation

of a certain slovenliness

and refusal to rest.

NYC Valentine

Please save me a seat

on the wonderland express

even if I haven’t personally

seen death a thousand times

been the immediate cause

we’re all still in the motivating

one another business

escalations in uncomfortable

rooms coming up against

limits then interpreting

the implications

aren’t we aren’t we

we walked all over the city

every day and night

we were like the conquerors

of whole civilizations.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Valentine for Franz

When we finally track down

all our other obsessive selves

gathered for one last dinner

or coliseum together

where to start

with depression

after job loss he

donated one gently-worn

heart quilt square

which all our lives

lie hidden buried

open named under

Franz we can’t even imagine

a God the closest we

can get to is angel

or Elohim and that

rarely and pathetically

but maybe if we

stopped leaning

so heavily on them

they might be able

to hit on us

for a change.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

People Valentine

The overcoming of all

that overcomes us

which must be

submitted to

again and again

control is the last

to go come morning

winter’s plastic

surgeries this time

she wants a larger ass

made of snowflakes

for which she kills

herself as usual

each one bearing the

same meme people

people

please wake up.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

War Vigil Valentine

In their crosshairs

as a born-again nation

vast and illiterate

they talk all day

rubbing their huge

cold mandibles

under their desks

or cloaks collaborating

is this the best we can do

you call this an arms race

he went to Europe and found

twelve iron chairs he re-painted

in the colors of several mornings

and sold for a small fortune here

the form as delayed movement

as decay the power behind

free movement slowly you actually

think it through

thinking as loving

refusing to be glamored

or unduly unenamoured.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Running Valentine

Of course

love stalks

us all

but if

you live

long enough

you can

see it

approach

through the

tall grass

you

its prey

so you run.