Amid The Screams Valentine

If you don't like children

It's not a good sign

But I can understand

You might want a break

This morning I overheard them

Playing in the yard next door

Their screams and eager laughter 

Hitting a ball around

And then suddenly silence

All swept indoors

I remember being five

Watching them from the fence

Half wanting to go with them

Half content on my own 

What Is Met Valentine

When we gather together

The insufficiency of each

Feels completed in the other

A temporary wholeness holds 

As among musicians or singers 

Warming up for some concert

Where can we take this song

But to our mother's grave

And bid her wake and speak 

Our childhood stories once again

One more time before

We fall asleep

In the presence 

Of our king 

Operatic Valentine

How many acts are there left

In this singing world

How many scribbled drafts

And obvious revisions

Do we have to go through

To get it down

To the right inflections

Because I love you isn't 

Enough syllables

To get you there

The one thing that could

Actually be believed

The thing that made you

Stop and stare

Beauty undressing truth

The curtain closing  

Another Birthday Valentine

I slept in till ten

This morning something

I don't often allow

Because it was the birthday

Of your death and we'd stayed

Up all night talking

Long distance love affair

Now we meet up in the ether 

You half-reaching me

And I almost touching you

What's still here when they

Carry the body away

The body that loves the world 

So much it never wants

To leave except the pain

That carries it away 

Harbored By the Dead Valentine

We don't see them

Except in dreams 

But they're still there

They see us vividly

While ours is a coarse

Sensing of their presence

Like Gabriel they just appear

Like Mary we don't believe it

At first at times their love

Breaks through 

To remind us

We are always

Safe at home 

Sometimes laughing 

Predictive Valentine

After the war

Of all against all

We will hear 

A Baptist choir

John will come again

To the river and wait

Eternity will wait

Will you show up

Even if only at the last minute

Rushing in through the trees

Did you almost sleep through it 

Alarm after alarm going off 

Who would want to be the Christ

When you think of all that means 

Brothers Valentine

I think it's our clever brother Lucifer

Who teaches us about feeling free 

To do whatever we want

While it's the other brother

Who teaches us about grace

That mysterious element in the world

Or what is freedom for

He had his father's habits

And his mother's darling eyes

Which made him unafraid 

And eager as a child

To accept the whole world 

He must be in his twenties now

Still climbing the empty hills

Always just arriving

In the village of some heart 

Make Way Valentine

A beautifully cool day in May

Which seldom happens in the desert

And then the almost unrecognizable 

Sound of rain's answered prayer

Sweeping through the yard

The seasons themselves

Coming in out of order 

A few days of fall

Followed by blazing summer

Spring lost in the shuffle

I sense the air around me

Filling with bright angels 

And witches on long brooms

Come to clear a new path 

Breaking Through Valentine

Defying evolution

Every now and then

There's a revolution

In the human heart

Defying human reason

When faith is not enough

For hope to live on

Heaven intervenes

In some atmospheric way

It cannot help itself

But must rush in to rescue

What it can like a crazy man 

Running into a burning house

This human heart we carry

Through the flames 

At The Urgent Care Valentine

How is violence

Received in heaven

Is it carried in

On a stretcher bleeding

He was only a boy

Staring up at the doctor

He lost his temper

And killed his brother

Is there still one bed

Left for him enough

Of the right medicine

To slowly recover

But the wards are full

And we are running out of doctors 

More Valentine

I listened to the old men

Speak what they had learned 

As young men eager and afraid

In the temples of longing and love

What stuck with them

Through all the vagaries

And unexpected turns

The stones and shells

They would take back with them

To lay at the feet of love

Their hearts like begging bowls

Their eyes brimming with tears

Their silent wish in the end

To be sent back for more

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