Running Valentine

Of course

love stalks

us all

but if

you live

long enough

you can

see it

approach

through the

tall grass

you

its prey

so you run.

Red Valentine

All my life I’ve tried

to learn how to think

about how unnecessary

thinking can seem to me

at times even though

it’s the only exit

out of here

to make friends

with that comfortable

sorrow and sexual

trance or go for

a walk sweep the

garden did you see

the mums bloomed

red in their red pot?

Newborn Valentine

Inhaling it all slowly

the world’s pain

and poison

this is only a small

part a portion

which others also feel

may others feel only

this happiness exhaled

on all creatures

and the pleasure

to breath again

after long tunneling

through the womb

her first memory

reflects

all she’s forgotten.

Bristling Valentine

Self-knowledge
is useless
if not merciless
understanding also
of others worthless
if not at least for a few
seconds selfless
first let me apologize
for existing
for bristling
which if sincere
leads to hard labor
unambiguous terms
of desire is there a
word for that first
necessary overlapping
when you learn to tie
your own shoelaces
tightening the bow
with one pull or
loosening with
another?

Thanksgiving Valentine

Some tall dude being pulled
on a skateboard at quite a clip
by his Jack terrier
a huge overdressed old
woman in a wheelchair
drawn up the street
by her vain bulldog
a boy in Star Wars pajamas
playing catch with his
anorexic Chihuahua
like in The Poker Game
if we could see the dogs
and bitches we are
if in my left hand
I held my heart
and in my right
a hummingbird
that moment on the mural
came where the hierophant
had flaked away
pale wonder still fresh
on the supplicant's face.

Warm Valentine

I'm just the messenger
you're no angel either
he kept repeating yes of
disagreableness I go
life shocks and struts
lifetime I intend to haiku
you today there are two
new sprouts on the
what's-it-called plant
time to turn the blinds
so at least one room stays
warm all morning long
read Gogol again
for the music and Kublai
for O that deep romantic chasm.

If You Want To Valentine

Sometimes you can look up
and see how the wisdom
in clouds and stars
descends laughing
into the uprightness of plants
or under your feet feel
the rumbling the terrifying
heart of the world
only thirty miles down
on which our little hearts
are modeled I mean
we could drive there
in less than an hour visit
our strange parents
or just go on sitting here
glancing around
hearing the emptiness
and calm as all
our thoughts run
off to the horizon.

Red Apples Valentine

To be as beautiful
as the orchard that day
was Plan B on swallowing
his story he glowed
one juicy incredible
being you love me
and need to borrow
some money to invest
for us but we just met
you had me at the whining
how beautiful we are
garden you don't blame me
do you for staring and staring
at you like a child come
so far back from childhood.

Free Valentine

If we follow our
thinking all the
way to the end
would we have to
kill it or would it
be reborn as an
imaginary friend
each word a tiny
sonata if you take
each letter for the
instrument it goes
stalwartly on
playing with the
others just notice
how the love inside
hate is enormous
while the hate in
loving has almost
totally dissolved
what it once meant.

Mysterical Valentine

Looking back we
see a shorter way
we might have faltered
which makes no sense
to a barking dog's heart
or the arc we carried
between us in a group
yes but were there ever
actual palm tree forests
such as you could penetrate
collaged together from
untrustworthy magazine
reports I visited an old
man once who veritably
panted over poetry all his
shirtless poems stories
how he consciously
betrayed his love for
some shattered beauty.

Killer Valentine

Most poets would kill to be scientists
if they're any good or literary critics
if they've any sense or fastionistas
if they've any neenee side or politicians
if they're sentimental or gawkish
let's face it most poets are transvestites
gender-imaginative co-dependent
trans-regressive don't let the river
suck you dry around the corner
knock you up not in the mood
for life in the old sense it's all
middle school forever without
an astral upgrade downloaded
let me hold your cape write your
Christmas for you watch that
18-wheeler driving back and forth
over the bridge of our dead bodies
really don't you get it
if the gods were more like us
we wouldn't be here now.

Nude Valentine

Every Sunday
chicken and waffles
at Lo-Lo's with you
the most beautiful days
we drive by laughing
to get here
nude nude
everything closed
peopleless elsewhere
sexual pleasure
passing as sports
patriotism
the spending
of money
the disappearing of
so many icebergs
and animals
disappointed in us
but not here
in the blue air
hungry with you
past Central
and Paradise.

Neurotransmitter Valentine

'The brains of maniacs
are very luminous' (Cabanis, 1823)
yet there was no elemental
phosphorus present
just ash found
in that electricity
to speak of after all
there were changes
in the brain associated
with thinking so the idea
of the brain as a flower
foundered at its root
consequently have you pulled
your head up out of the ground
became the question occupying
the whole 20th century
which no one with a mouthful
could really put.

Painting Valentine

How come too often the
richest have the tiniest
souls while she my friend
has grown hers to
continent size
wherein millions of
smaller compatible
others can safely reside
happy or unhappy
as they prefer to be
even the greediest
with their insupportable
leprosy the ignorant
fathers and narcissistic
mothers can come for
painting classes and
learn to listen again.

Green Cloud Valentine

I left my book out
and it rained
so now it's dripping
even as I write this
to you on my feet
pinned to the ground
by long wires of
twilight a green
cloud pierces or
festoons and enters
your heart that
ancient city Oyez
Oyez all rise
here comes the book
of tears washed clean .

Only Love Can Get Beyond Itself Valentine

He hates me for
ruining his life a little
nothing at the time
for compromising him
confusing and driving
him into my hands
he dislikes me for
encouraging his fears
with comfort his humor
with despair for
mothering him at times
he likes me for
myself entirely
and for himself
the hard fact of us
but for love itself
he loves me how
else are we to get
beyond ourselves?

Inkjet Valentine

Just give me the ink
in this thin pen till it runs
out what is that lesion
but a lifetime to walk
the tiny circle of written
meaning a ball-point pen
bleeding interesting
to watch how one
types self taut (sic)
three finger exercises
as words become extinct
due to nuclear entreaties
only to context does the
morning come to workmen
in the alley to repair
the sewer to compose
new music here.

Original Valentine

The way salmon smell
their own particular creek
or an old wolf sniffs at
all of your original
genitalia the space
where it lay
still warm
sleeping in the open
suddenly aware the
stars have gone
inside me while
feeling deep in
the earth all
I used to be.

Twittered Valentine

Basically I find my readers
unable to take up the profound
scholarship necessary to my work
he would often attest to magic
imagine a man crushed physically
under the weight of his own words
a dictionary of forlorn tasks
twittered to him in his sleep
heroically working to stave off
the sense we will have to
give up on words
weak-kneed and indolently twisted
eventually and feel our
way forward with pictures
alone a seeing that's
a knowing all at once.

Moon Motel Valentine

It's the color of the armor
of the mounted troops come
to destroy us all again
the dark blue underbelly
of history's grand finale
and it's only five o'clock
though I did beg for rain
and some destruction
that there could be gods
so far above they can't
even see us germs without
a guilt microscope painfully
reinserted from memory
the question how to square
the requisite seriousness
with real comic timing so
poetry and philosophy
finally get a room together
which explains their readership
a permanent minority of
lakes in a desert of mirages
I'll have my angel call
your angel they'll know
where to go from here.

Feathers Valentine

I'm feeling quite blue
with a little orange
mixed in today
strangely rearranged
and/or double-crossed
how far they traveled
for parrots the ancient
native peoples spectral
flying in these parts
we live among for
their blue and orange
feathers as if merely
to corroborate a mood
settling in the air
in the ash of the loss
of what will be.

Cloudy Valentine

Because we can only nail
one thought at a time
there's a certain necessary
desperation and desire
always to the wall and
reckless seeking after
some variety of focus
that travels in a spiral
we think is human evolution
soon we will be settled enough
to read the abandoned hieroglyphs
we're writing now in a good
translation in cloudy cloth
torn and tattered where
everything's embroidered.