No Knives Valentine

Get over it
even if you’re
what needs getting over
no you get over it
and get over yourself
while you’re at it
they were in the booth
behind me I never
actually saw their
faces there were
earmarks of Doom
on the menu
or you could have
the cutlets of Klingsor
suddenly I noticed
their were no knives
on the tables
none in the entire city
very frustrating
but I couldn’t walk out
and I had no intention
of getting over it.

Old and Fucked Valentine

Because you’re old
and I’m fucked anyway
we can drive
right through
that red light
maybe kill us both
except they seem to know
we won’t stop
so they all stop for us
and we sail right through
but if we didn’t die there
at that intersection still
death scared the very
word right out
of our mouths
our love.

Sparrow Farts Valentine

These cold nights how many
sparrows come to dream in
our one orange tree and
our one pomegranate tree
to dream and poop all night
all the colors they flew
through eating the day
reduced to these black
and white runes strange
fortunes spent on bricks
I hose down afternoons
sweeping the dust
from the leaves also
and from the air
the cold the night’s
bright mask.

Lemurian Valentine

Come indoors
Plumeria it’s
too nippy out
there I can
hardly lift you
in and out
anymore reach
down you pure
white roots hoist
the ethers through
your manly branches
to the leaves’ height
sail-shaped leaves
who would have
thought you held inside
the last perfume
of Lemuria?

Wedding Valentine

We want nature
neutered without
noticing nature
merely mirrors
who we are before
thinking shows
up at the wedding
the lonely outcast
the happy barbarian
the true bridegroom
so now when the dove
turns its head away
it means he’s seen you
for which you can be
truly grateful
and fly away.

Exultant Valentine

I feel a certain
exultation without
any explanation
or conceivable
deconstruction
or consummation either
just standing here
gazing out the window
raining in the garden
half of me helpless
enraged and fearful
the other half
heroically calm
humorous and
peaceful.

Triller Avenue Valentine

Sit here for a while
under this bare tree
were among your
first words to me
what could they mean
what did they want
from me
who could tell
your whereabouts
from my trilling
shaking as when
the old man
pulls the sheet away
from the naked
fifteen year old body
to know desire before
wisdom was not
the plan of good gods
that’s for sure
arguing yet again
language bottoms
for the poem
not the other
way round.

Failed Haiku Valentine

Even when old
to have some beauty
even when young
some good sense
they ran
straight at the
enemy they had to
to save their friend
are you hit or are
you just holding your
hands over your ears
three men already
have died who
didn’t want to
for days
I believe he’s
moved on
the first three
minutes are free
for new callers.

Wailing Thanksgiving Valentine

Out our window
the wind howls
wanting the house
the sun still
shining the trees
and buildings
swept free of
people swaying
gently lifted
by the wind
humming sad
fairy tale verses
into wails
for a new way.

Remembered Valentine

You explained
yourself more
clearly how
something you
said one way
might heve been
taken another
hurtful and
alienating when
you'd wanted
to be friends
then I did
the same thing
to you saying
something to
defend you that
later seemed
cutting and cold
when I'd wanted
to take you to bed
with its overshadowing
trees and lakes beyond
the grief of ideas.

Uskudar Valentine

Some countries
are orphaned
by their
grandiose
parents left
with nothing
caught between
wanting to be
loved and wanting
to be forgotten
the great fountains
of sadness
that feed
their sheep.

Suitcase Valentine

He would always
leave his suitcase
parked by the door
opened and piled
with tossed clothes
no other place
to put it in the
small packed
apartment for
those short visits
sleeping on her
long couch or
together knees
tucked up
watching movies
he loved
thinking of himself
in the third person
her in the first
smiling.

Hardly Valentine

Like you I
am one of those
green and lucky ones
to have everything
I’ve ever wanted
and hardly known
what to say or do
in its presence
like you like now
my eyes draw
a line from the blood
on the bricks (pomegranate
juice) to the poor
plumeria (forced into
a climate both too hot
and too cold)
to the birds chirping
(gathering overhead)
to the newborn stars.

Stalker Valentine

People think because
no one’s stalking them
they’re not being stalked
one day I used your name
when speaking to myself
I wasn’t pretending either
but had somehow entered you
it was momentarily confusing
is that how I look at you
does someone who signs
their name over and over
lose their sense of shame
without which worthless
is nothing or everything?

Triage Valentine

The only remaining
question on earth
is what help to give
where and how much
and how to be
a reliable witness
in the midst of it
to your own life or not
but if you grow up
in a harsh scene
you can get addicted
to bitterness and need
to recreate it in later life
life’s fractal that way
is one of my favorite songs
how small things huddle
together on cold nights
but your heart never freezes.

Traveling Valentine

Traveling slowly down
that green and yellow
road you need to eat
the road as you go
leaving behind you
caterpillar-like
only the dried focus
of the road the flowers
the houses as if
they never existed
you have so absorbed them
until the whole vine
is eaten and you hang there
waiting for your wings.

Empty Valentine

May the heart
hunt on
but the mind
is an empty landscape
except you visit it
with your safari
of eyes and hands
once or twice a day
bodies feast on bodies
when they can
even here way out
in the sticks of love
where only the
raving lives on.

What Makes Empathy So Scary Valentine

One doesn't have to be a Sigmund
to recognize the way aggression
works generally in service to
the repression of sexual fears
which fears underlie and drive
all nationalism and sports cultures
a big part of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
these are mostly arenas in which male
and female aggression bully and intimidate
and induct their members into the Man Is
(Just Another) Animal Club
aggression is the ultimate sexy
always a turn-on and most of
the United States is still pretending
to be a teenager a high school drop-out
trying to live without feelings or thoughts.

Silent Valentine

The complete summer silence
that happens one morning
in the middle of summer
when almost nothing is heard
hushed birds hidden in foliage
is followed soon enough
by the complete autumn silence
that happens one morning
in the middle of autumn
when absolutely nothing moves
everything in the world
dead or asleep or in a trance
the trees still full of leaves
a call coming from far away.

Vigil Valentine

Now there’s just me
and the plastic owl
sitting on the roof
waiting for Minerva
goddess of fading
the owl’s gotten
stuffed with used
kitty litter to keep
him stable lord
knows what stability
I contain or how
it all gets processed
into me sometimes
or to what effect
I’m compelled to be
still obsessed with you.

Moon-Flower Valentine

When did you last see
the moon-flower
not the sunflower
nor the mayflower
though they too
bloom by day
but the cloudy moon-flower
ghost-flower waving
by the side of the road
back to the sun
each seed a hook
catching the days
the lonely shadow-flower
your very own?

Better Valentine

Wouldn’t a better valentine
always have room
for a flower
or a sissy
or a great mind
or a face being
thrown across
a broken threshold
the false inclusiveness
of good and evil
is due to its fugitive
nature and means
no harm
keep to the rhythm
sweet heart
not the beat.

Academic Valentine

Do facts defend themselves
or wait to be discovered
how can otherwise
brilliant minds assert
matter alone is real
when just to say so
proves its falsity
thinking’s already
a spiritual fact
as true as anything
in the material world
to deny the simple logic
of this inescapable conclusion
often out of fear of religion
and call that science
boggles and annoys
get over it boys.

Valentine Driven into a Valve of the Heart

Am I finally
beginning to feel
the fluidity of it
all and how it
all flows together
and gets fucked-up
simultaneously
everything that exists
forgive me you mothers
out there but then
it all gets restored yes
YOUR FACE HERE
evaporated into
memories of a
future perception
of the well-being
of all things.

All Good People's Day Valentine (formerly All Saints Day)

I need to find someone good
among the so-called dead
to be my friend and sponsor
so that when I relapse
higher than average chance
back into believing in
this so-called world alone
they can calm me talk
me down with stories
based on our earlier lives
convince me it really was
all about me (and you) all along
me as God-All (including you)
or as my mother would ask
her little Lucifer my brother
so who made you God-All King
of the world?