After All Valentine

For one to get to three

It must endure duality

It must break the soul

Into an army of opposites

Warring in the will

While all along

It is only the heart

That can mend the mind 

Torn apart its cities

Laid waste its bodies

Screaming for their mothers

What is the heart after all

But a hovering thing

Our only true power 

Does Life Live For Itself Alone Valentine

My feet are burning in the sun

While a cold breeze swims 

Around my head 

Never more alive

And in between

My gathering body sits 

A shade in shade 

At one of death's bus-stops

Far out in the hills I suppose

Where it rushes past me

Forgetting to stop again and again 

I heard someone say

He didn't want to be here anymore

He thought his life a shame

To be relieved of by some peace

And he was right

But it's not that simple quite 

Through All Valentine

Today for a few minutes

The sinking sun and the full

Moon rising stand in the same sky

The earth between them

Taking a cosmic selfie

Of the little family they are

Who mothered you

Who fathered you they ask 

Receive the warmth of the sun

The inheritance of your heart

Receive the blessing of the moon 

With all its promises

Never think we do not

Hold you in our arms

Through all your nights and days 

Sensed Valentine

It may not be polite

To peer into someone else's soul

Unless one is invited in 

And yet that's what we're

Doing most of the time

We sense something magnificent

Inside each of us but

It will take the devil

To find it some days

Love is this contractual

Arrangement it is binding

And we struggle through

The fine print to be read

In not too harsh a light 

Its Own Valentine

True words were put

Into my mouth 

I just spoke them

False words were put

Into my mouth

I just swallowed them

By the time I showed

Up for myself

I was struggling

To sense the difference

Can only a true mind

Find the true word

And know to speak it

As its own 

Sarah's Valentine

Wrapping up a long love

Now you can carefully

Step back and behold

All the faces of the children

The years have taught you

And slip back into

That younger self

Still waiting for you

On some London corner

No one retires

From their childhood

Time comes to resume

The art of it

A beautiful scarf

Can make a start 

When I Was Young Valentine

I turned up late

But just at the right time

What was another castle

Along the way the air

Was full of them 

Some kind of celebration

Was going on great dignitaries

Were being seated in a long hall

A solemn mood prevailed

I stood in a corner

And watched while

We all were lifted

Into a kind of glory

Momentarily unquestionably

And then the hall was empty

And my horse whinnying to go on 

So Much Valentine

When he's in the mood

I let Lucifer rage on

Or is it his shadow half

He has so much to say

That speaks to me 

So much makes sense

About the insufficiency

Of the earth our paltry

Lives our mineral souls

He keeps forgetting

You are in the room

He doesn't notice you

Half-smiling waiting

For him to finish so we

Can resume our chat  

All Of You Valentine

There is a lot of copulation

In the world mostly seasonal

And a lot of cupolas

Scattered among them

And hidden narrow streets

In the cities of music

Leftover from the Romans

Who lost the refinement of the Greeks

When love got confused with passion

What to make of a body

Which is our whole concern

Why else come to earth 

But when I say I love you

I do mean it all of you

Our bodies bundles of light

And our trembling souls 

Potential Valentine

Heaven is not yet Heaven

The earth is not yet Earth

And the doorway moon

Creaking on its hinges

Ever in need of repair

How hard the sun strives

To become Sun one day

And the stars like children

Still rushing off to school

How could we all not

Have so much more to be

To say to do to touch 

Eternity just our potential

For an actual life 

Anyone Valentine

Smarten up young man

My mother would say to me 

I still hear her voice

Pretending sternness 

As if eighty years stopped

Nothing between us 

Now I see her

In three phases

Closest to her

When she was

Seventeen and had

Just lost her mother

In the second she

Betrayed me or so

I thought in the third

An old woman

Anyone would love 

What Was All That Valentine

What if we meet up again in passing

On the day before all the other days 

Or on the night after all

The other nights

I know I know you

Give me a minute

But you say your name

Yes now it's all 

Coming back to me

Pictures of you still hang

In Florence so many

Variations of your face

The empty slate of love

Let it be all my pleasure

To finally meet

The real woman

Behind it all 

Intrusive Valentine

Forgive this intrusion

On your grief dear world 

But the resurrection 

Has already happened

I can insist on this

Because every night still gets

Filled with dreaming stars

And every morning I wake up

To a new revelation

Which otherwise wouldn't happen 

Another piece of the puzzle

Slides into place

Love takes its time

Moving us rejecting us

Into its perfect picture 

Looking Back Valentine

I nominate 'Strange Fruit' to be

The best poem of the 20th century

Or at least the most  universal

Who knew the Statue of Liberty

Could sing in the voice of Billie Holiday

I see her traipsing around the world

Visiting every country

People flocking to hear her sing

How she calls them out

The malicious the incompetence

Buried in each of us

Liberty's broken heart

Broken to be mended

Stitch by stitch by love 

Copper Valentine

Brimming with joy

The copper butterfly 

Can hardly

Contain itself 

How can you

Just sit there

Don't you have 

Enough body 

To dance your

Grief away

Let me show you

How to swirl

And dive 

Into this rippling

Sea of joy 

Ginny's Valentine

She had the gift of laughter

Which is the one gift

We all need while

So many do without it

But how quickly laughter

Turns to tears we cry

For ourselves left here alone

Carrying around with us

This great gap in  our hearts

How can you be invisible to me

When I see you everywhere I look

But there is no loss in love

Once given it goes on and on

We take comfort in your laughter 

This Morning's Movie Valentine

Just waking a black beetle

Flops down on the pavement

Staggers a few steps forward

Then flies off over the roof

Beautiful sapphire wings

Catching the sun for a second

A black cat saunters by

Stops to stare at me

With such sad eyes 

Then saunters off 

It occurs to me

The stars behind this blue sky

Are never not brilliant

Never not shedding their light 

From Far Away Valentine

In this morning's conversation

With my angel I asked

If she could trust me  

To be on my own 

For a few hours today

And not fall apart

So she could go and stand

With you dear heart 

While you go through

Your crisis in case

Your angel could use

Just a little more light

While you decide

Whether to come or go 

Taken Valentine

Our fallen tree left behind

A single sapling we will

Have to move to where

Its mother stood and grew

Such shade and flowers 

For so many summers

All that work just to induce

That particular blue

Only possible in our yard

Through those particular years

I mean the soil had to be

Just the right mixture of iron

And mercy so even the sun

Stands back amazed

Taken by that blue