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 

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