Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Cloudy Valentine

How can I incorporate

this really good new stuff

into my ongoing

evil nature

the boot of greed

wants to know

forgetting every

thing we own

is but the treasure

of our indebtedness

we stand upon

eloquent clouds

telling our slaves

how much their hard

work saves us

rubbing their noses

in it already

they�ve come for

our water

soon they�ll come

for our air.

United Valentine

I am running

my eyes off

drawing lines

of touch and go

imagine the sun

boiling your brain

in its dented little

saucepan every day

wouldn’t you prove

into light

sulphur sugar

as we do

every night in that

other world

where we are all

really together

as one family

for a while?

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Naked Valentine

How can we ask God

or the gods for material

success when that’s

the last thing

they’d want for us

by the time Buddha

got to Gethsemane

Jesus was already

hanging on the hill

the sun was hiding

in shame the earth

was shivering like aspen

it’s a metaphor

what don’t you get

not just for love

but for its power

the absolute nakedness

of its power.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Returned Valentine

Somehow I entered the day

with a clear desire

to be freer

more equal

to be larger better

than I’d managed

heretofore

and to notice how

many plants have

that Ah gesture

hands in the air

arrested by grace

or invisible police

and the others who

could care less

about the past

about being

remembered

you know how

to get dirt out

from under one fingernail

by using another

tools that we are

but I could hardly sleep

last night thinking

of all the work

we have to do

to get ready

for the future.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Conceptual Valentine

A forked stick (or shriek)

stuck in the ground (or eye)

can douse flowers

but is poetry to gardening

what flarf is to yanking trees

out of the ground

to check how they’re

growing then trying

to replant them

in some other field

quite clearly it’s not yet

the monkey wars

but goes all the way back

to the universal cosmic language

in its frog-pond form

prior to percept and concept.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

True Valentine

That we could live

together for years

perhaps for centuries

certainly centuries

and still know only

a small cross-section of

one another compared

to all that’s there

saddens and amazes me

the mystery of the small

ego and the big ego

within each of us

and how these are embroiled

in the creation of yet

a third but true ego

the you supposedly

that’s been hidden

there all this time.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Stalking the Wild Etheric Valentine

Even a word

has its own body

and soul naturally

a movement and

then a meaning

inherent in its

very persistence

every single word

or near word

westwardly

but is it only an animal

guttural still

with no one home

or where a spirit

comes to dwell?

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Trusty Valentine

That birds are comfortable

with me and can come

within unsafe distances

a few inches of intimacy

is all I ask there is so

much matter to devour

to get to that kind of thinking

they emulate in flight

and brilliant upwind leanings

now they know I know

to trust how they do it

how far they open up

to capture the light

in their bones and lift

lighter than air.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Salvaged Valentine

The homage of my attention

in the plumage of my indifference

the bondage of my affection

in the dotage of my derision

the hostage of my independence

in the marriage of my woes

the passage of my tiny ship

in the ravage of your smile

the cordage of my piled bones

in the tonnage of your death

the vantage of my tightrope

in the damage of your cheers

the voyage of my confusion

in the courage of your fears.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Luciferic Valentine

All I can do

is work with the pitch

of some of these voices

that pass through me

and practice my landings

always aiming toward their lips

in the darkness of the music

to carry me further

than I would ever go

left to my own devices

while still remembering

it’s my body they need

to occupy and devour

as daily bread.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Auction Valentine

Right in the middle

of the just-cut grass

one tall stem still

standing trembling

remember trembling

I never stopped

hiding from myself

we all do that

now I see how

I rejected my body

rejected my mind

but felt enough to know

this bid could go higher

and not to settle for

less light less love

especially when

I’m not worth

it I think.

Matins Valentine

As soon as I wake up

I want to give up

on everything

completely

my first flush

is embarrassment

for everyone and

of self that little

I have anticipated

and then I have my coffee

I sit down

in my windy garden

feeling this morning

aimed toward me

like a lover or a child

I could be sleeping

through right now.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Pupa's Valentine

A pupa is a seed

a sleeping sky

a flower freed

a butterfly

a mariposa resting

on a reed

what grade was that

on my knees

what looks like

I’m pushing out

dead skin from

within or it’s

a thin winding

sheet I weave

around myself

a thread of cum

dries and I melt

back inside back to

the three original

chemical functions

that can take any

form they want

but choose to be

this butterfly.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Western Valentine

What a true poem perceives

cannot actually be written down

but still some vain attempt

to speak a few words of grief

is made where memory

once stood trustworthy

witness no more

how else can great truths

living on distant planets

weave pictures of all

our old weaknesses into trees

and flowers as we pass

or the animals poor

creatures we one by one

sacrifice who once

held the poem as friend

go on?

Monday, June 7, 2010

Valedictorian's Valentine

When the outcomes of victory

are no longer viable in

the annals of lovemaking

or on any other channel

you’ll see how your penmanship

never lived up to its potential

or was that a lack of penetration

scrolling through lifetimes

pausing to mute the comedy

whenever you call in Spanish

or is that a bull’s horn piercing

a matador’s throat at last

you want to say

the horrible is more

than possible

it’s actually more

than likely now.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Movie Valentine

All the things that never happen

all the things you never are

if you could only accept them

and get out of their way

but poetry is not a condom

nor a cosmetic maybe more

an emetic every comparison

smacks of sibling envy last

night I watched The Brothers

Karamazov on TV the story’s a

one liner ‘You know who killed him’

which is where history began

finessing horror

and where I fell asleep

until that little bit of Dickens

at the end as they escape

the sick boy as picture

of our noblest part.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Cancerous Valentine

Is it the government’s job

to hide the truth from us

if it is in its own best interest

so we not lose confidence

in the already agreed-upon lies

which are in our own best interest

when the government is a Potemkin

Village big business resurrects

from time to time

when the common wealth

is sold back to us at

poverty-insuring prices

it’s not capitalism

we’re afraid of

it’s the rank materialism

that hides inside it

the cancer we support

posing as salvation.

Video Valentine

Will what at first unites us

be the weapon in the end

we use against one another

all the way home

he was beating your ass

rain came down like ladders

but when I came to want you

you hurried off

a rickety bridge of slats and rope

like in the nightmares of escape

to the other side

where it happened

for a moment

a radiant existence

slowly walking its shoreline

waited for you alone.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Getting Medieval Valentine

Because our

human sins

sink down

into the earth

and are turned

into oil gushing below

sticking to everything

it touches it swallows

are these mad teenagers

in some garage we have

as corporate heads

take them to the woodshed

take them far out to sea

please

and drop them off.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Death's Valentine

A line of brilliant sunlight

about six inches wide

twenty feet

long slides

slowly down over

our three windows

and out across the brick

patio every day

there’s sun at least

this painter who

somehow leaves

the space behind darker

for the light

having been there

how is that

my love?

Mauled Valentine

How we talk

about one another

in years or days

after the fact

love laid its paws

all over us tells all

death is interested

in knowing

if each of us

has four bodies

how finely to get

three out of four

to connect with

someone else’s.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Dead Sea Scrolls Valentine

When in the far flung future

these early computer files

are extracted from remote

mineral sensing patterns

capable of retrieving

a kiss thrown through fog

centuries ago

let alone a piss taken in

and on the darkness

let them find here some

of all we touched and smelled

and wanted

great that gathering

of each of one.

Lost Valentine

The unusual person

of today recognizes

right away the foreignness

of poetry its off-putting

or standoffishness

I’m not sure which

but the sense it

probably shouldn’t still

be happening anymore

a lost art of speaking

once common now dead

forgettable remote

on tombstones

except when it

gasps awake

some dead Romeo

by its side.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Bird's Valentine

Some bird was singing

in the rose garden

when the President

announced the disaster

was permanent and that

the blow-out preventer

the emergency disconnect

and the top kill

had all not worked

an energy that creates

an infinity of power

on the road

but the migratory

criminal acts straight

both before and after

the devastation

as if it was like stopping

your period or avoiding

some of the annoying

aspects of menopause

that bird was singing of.

The Past Is Prose Valentine

When we get to return

we’ll have to give up

being afraid to die I guess

which won’t be easy

given our grief addiction

and we’ll have to walk all over

an obliterated earth

on an individual basis I suppose

to really understand

the concept of a conscious life

not as foretaste but as residue

of an inner necessity again

yin and yang being

what they remain

love and freedom

being what they become.

Valentine to Others and Myself

Unhappiness is not

an attractive calling

whatever the reason

but if you forget something

go back to the text

however you remember it

it happened to you

if you lose something

or delete it from

whatever receipt you may

no longer be your body

even if it’s still cheaper

it’s not machines

we should intake

it’s plants in light

silky and budded

who’ve woken.