Hard Valentine

When you get enough of time

One long series of embarrassments 

In which now and then

Small miracles still happen

Resounding flashes

That confirm eternity

Still running alongside us

We are so expendably immortal 

Isn't that we came for

To spend the wealth

Of our fire burning up

The imposter in us

The world is so hard to love

We keep coming back to fix it 

Surviving Valentine

Aren't there souls in heaven also

Who go to bed hungry for a time

Because those they love on earth

Don't believe their lives go on

But at least there on the shore

After a long night waiting

Old friends rush in

To meet them surely

And give them a place

To rest and to adjust

To heaven's air and light

And bring them cups of mercy

To share with those they love

On earth as it must be above 

Clear Valentine

The gold lantana has blossomed

Among the nameless purple flowers

When I looked them up

It said elegiac and sublime 

But they prefer to never die

Never not be flowering

It's clear they were waiting

For the gold umbels

To come among them

As one waits for 

One's love to come home

Love that started out

So meek and humble

Look how powerful it's grown 

Overlap's Valentine

Where is the overlap

Of the world that passes

Through your mind 

With the world that passes

Through mine where is

The place where we embrace

So far in the distance

We forget that's where

We set out for

So long ago one day

We'll realize we're going

Nowhere unless

We take the whole world

With us in our arms 

Ours Valentine

Sometimes I think our bodies

Are like clenched fists

We hold so tightly things

Of this ephemeral world

Is it because it's all so fleeting

We get a little frightened

Nothing's really there

While everything's hurrying on

To the next seemingly

Inevitable step in the plan

Only in that little moment that is ours

Between being pulled back

Or pushed forward 

When we think of those we love

Does the world begin to make sense 

Alchymical Valentine

Fire standing next to ice

The ice melting into water

Extinguishing the fire 

Thus a puddle's made 

From what's leftover

Leaves and ash 

Houses falling

Caught half way

And that enormous sun

Floating in over the water 

And I have not kissed you 

Yet today what light is left

Whatever has happened

But at least there's always that

To look forward to not miss 

 

Good Friday Valentine

You will be handed

A bowl of porridge

Because you are an old horse 

Making it through the winter

Which is the summer of your years

Since it doesn't snow here

And the beach isn't far away

There is a pattern to all this

Like a quilt thrown over

Your back and the bit 

Sinking into your teeth

The last days ridden

Faster than the first

And the porridge sweet 

Here On Earth Valentine

There is a swaying tree

Eclipsing a cloud and me

But now the cloud's

Moved on to other trees

Fleeing from the crows

A swallowtail crosses

Left to right and for

A moment after

Reminded of something

Everything pauses

As if to embrace

Everything separate

Then turns slowly 

And waltzes away 

Seriously Valentine

Did you seriously believe

We could get to some resurrection

Without passing through the cross

Did you really think it was all a story

In which you played no part

So far out on the periphery

Of your closed private life

The myth there is glory

In love's suffering and sorrow

Was it all lost on you

No worries every year

You get another chance 

Or did you seriously convince yourself

Spring could possibly forget

And not come back for you 

 

Night Watch Valentine

Go to bed old man

The full moon says

I'll keep an eye for you

But I just sit and stare

Right back at it

Swaying in my chair

Neither warm nor cold

Neither alive nor dead

Weaving through the poplar tree

The bobbin of some destiny

We all will share

But just then bright Venus chimed in

Over my shoulders flung 

One of her favorite songs

Begging me to stand

And sing with her alone

Whatever memory can stir

Whatever love intends 

Writ Valentine

We trade experiences

You driving down the street

Seeing two contrails making an X

And in its upper part a cloud

Catching the sun so brightly 

A little rainbow throbs

Tucked in its thigh

Like an exposed nerve

A single pulsing nerve

Writ large in the sky

But no one's looking 

No one seems to be listening

To its obvious prophecy

As you drive by

Making me forget

What I wanted to say 

 

This Morning's Valentine

Take this morning from me gently

Don't forget even the giggling

Of these birds or that lizard

Creeping up the wall

Take it from my lips

These words that taste

Like sweet and bitter flowers

This morning come like Christ

This breeze his body 

Take it to your breast

Let it fill your lungs

And set loose your heart

For once be certain in you

He's placed his trust 

 

About Valentine

I think we come here

To be taunted by joy 

Which sometimes sweeps in

Upon us but joy is shy

And often bullied by

Her giant brother sadness 

But I think we come here

To settle the argument

Between eternal joy

And temporary sorrow 

And trace back

Its family line to the first

Sun that still shines

That little egg about to burst 

Hanging Valentine

A poem is like two aspirin

They either work 

Or they don't

To relieve the pain

Screeching down your leg

It's meant to be medicinal

To calm the throbbing thirst

For something real but beautiful

Or else it never makes it there 

Too long looked back on 

So it falls into the shades

We must suffer the poem

If it will do some good

The poem of pain there

Hanging from the wood 

Somehow Valentine

From Oedipus to Hamlet to Faust

A skip and a jump to us

Covered in a semester

Over coffee and smoke 

From Gilgamesh to Joan of Arc

To little Robert Maxwell 

Fetching light from the dark

Mineral brain to us

And we come back at last

In an electromagnetic rush 

For the next deciding battle

Fire against fire and light

Against hate and somehow a love

That embraces it all 

Slow Train Valentine

We are so small

It's hard not to wallow

In our smallness

Or let it overwhelm us

We are so huge

It's easy to get carried away 

With the fullness of ourselves

And forget to listen just listen 

The first rule of having a baby

Is not to forget the baby

The grocery clerk reminds me

And yet it keeps happening

How many billion years

Will it take the earth to become

A sapphire or a diamond 

We Are All Refugees Valentine

The thing about the earth

Is what to do with a body

As if in life we are given

A certain amount of gold

To spend on anything we like

And what to do about the soul 

Always hanging around one's neck

Always wanting to get

Something done but let's

Go for a walk she says

Love takes refuge on earth

As if it had nowhere else to go

Still trying to build a home 

Where Valentine

If you sit among holy spirits

It's appropriate to quake

It's a little in your face

To look them in the eyes

If you are a child brought

To your first church

To meet the God and you

Are not prepared 

For another fearful father 

Where is the religion

Where the child meets the child

And a lifetime friendship

Is fatefully arranged

Out of a simple gesture 

Missing Valentine

I try to imagine

The soul of my mother 

Before she came down

Agreeing to accept me

As her son did I

Talk her into it

Out of some debt

We still owe one another

We keep missing

Our Madonna years

You holding me

Me rocking you

Poised upon the altar

Of our hopes and fears 

History Is What Is Hidden Valentine

If you look at the multiple ways

The past keeps losing its grip

On what must be remembered

So it all has to be done

All over again from the start

As in a schoolchild's notebook

A hundred lines of 'I am not stupid

I am not that stupid' but not to have

Lost on me the hours

Of the turning of the light

You sun of love

Still paying the cost

Of all we've lost 

Nothing More Valentine

The armies of the cold

And the armies of the warmth

Are massing along the creek

And then dissolving into fog

The way fear melts away

When you catch sight

Of someone you love

And the real world

Reveals itself as nothing

More beautiful

Than this sitting by a creek

Feet freezing

Faces burning 

Dissolving into fog