Blue Moon Valentine

The good you want
for me may not
be good for me
I say as the light
takes off its clothes
who ever thinks of
of what I might
be feeling just a
little bit ahead of
me it’s creepy love
is craven and a
little creepy as if
to say you’re mine
from now on nothing
will be the same

Flickering Valentine

Fireflies light
the unborn
touching down
looking for a
life to begin
uncertain as
at the departure
the longing it takes
to live on in a jar
for nature can only
sing herself to sleep
the same songs
over and over
and only in darkness
can you see
your true home

Martian Valentine

Mars to us is dust
and curious desolation
but to the Martians
their home is a glowing
heart-shaped ruby
opening to reveal
a single flame inside
feeding on itself
and I imagine
them glancing
over at the earth
thanking Buddha
they don’t have
to go through hate
and wars and death
like that again

 

Sentient Valentine

Having spent lifetimes
learning evil’s ways
as we all consciously
or not must be doing
here beginning with
our very own friends
and families the first
thing to overcome is
one’s prejudice against it
while maintaining vigilance
at an imaginative level
knowing all along
there is no such dragon
intelligent compassion
can’t overwhelm and topple
when it is awakened
and when it is working 

Dirty Valentine

To be limited
gods like us
but to have found
limitless forms
to move inside
and outside of
this the wholly
spiritual gods
can’t handle
the dirty work
the dying work
the actual gods
of all power
the anxious gods
of all wisdom
who still need
and worship us
as we need them

Light's Valentine (for Paul)

At that point in the day
when I have to decide
to turn a light on or not
when everything outside
slips into something wild
ominous and wonderful
whether to insist on more
light inside or surrender
into everything around me
darkness draining light
darkness without light
sitting there helpless I call
you to mind wondering
what you’d do in such
events and bet that you
would choose a flame
burning through the night
to the empty sun of twilight
running out of same

Deja-Vu Valentine

What’s left
for you to long for
after the world
fails to live up
to you and you fail
to live up to it
neiner-neiner
finally all the deja-vus
collapse into one
rather seriously
interesting movie
if you’re in that
wicked stage
of your life and
love someone

August Christmas Valentine

The wise ones
in the east
already had
a complete
cosmology
so they just
read the signs
and came
to the exact
spot but the ones
already there
could only
stare and stare
and feel they’d
seen a wonder
or a canyon
of the dead

Unfathomable Valentine

Pain’s death’s convincer
not to be in this body
is better without hesitation
to climb the steel stairs and leap
into unfathomable blue
shouting thank you thank
you please turn out the light
when you leave I’ll be
riding the invisible
next door to memory
and sleep let’s say
but what of this other pain
only your face relieves
your presence the final
proof I still exist

Walking the Cat Valentine

I tiptoe out
to see the day
without disturbing
anything or anyone
I creep up
on the sunlight
out-catting my
anonymous kitty
his once and
future name
scissoring our way
so tightly even
our scent a moment
later dissolves
not even a ghost
could sniff our
slipping past and
in and around
today

Martian Valentine

Of course the world

would die without us

as we would die

without the world

left to our own devices

we would soon be cold

draughty places

wonder once stood

grounded in and full

as we are ignorant

looking from the future

young and irresponsible

in those early dark

days of our evolution

when we threw our

lives away for

lies and money

Gardening Valentine

Of all mother
earth’s creations
gardeners are both
her doctors and her
hairdressers
replacing whole organs
with colorful displays
movements of guts
laid out on the table
sorted through to find
fear no where
neither in finger
nor flower
hands in dirt
heart in power

Found Valentine

So much more
than I remember
discarding now seems
lost and memory
feels like knitting
in the first grade
scarves and scarves
which must still
be somewhere but
like all I’ve lost
unforgettably wintry
in summer’s sleep

Crossing Valentine

Waiting for the symbols
to ride up to our shores
when they’ve already landed
I am a symbol of myself
each one says as they
come down the gangway
go down to the docks
watch the arrivals and
departures at the moment
of their leaving one another
that we can only love a few
people or things at a time
that love would kill the world
if only it existed you can
see that in their arms
the weight of the light
pressing on their faces

Dusty Valentine

If the poor aren’t held
responsible for their poverty
then the rich can’t claim
to deserve their wealth
which no more confers
worthiness than poverty
confers saintliness
but wait a dust cloud
sixty miles by sixty miles
by sixty miles approacheth
the great cube
of social justice
the whirlwind
of love draws near

Assumption Valentine

Along the way
we started to
take up space
abandoning inter-
penetration for
you and me
time and death
not to be light
but merely see its
painful amputation
heal to a
comfortable callous
hands as money
our bodies all
we’ve left to trade
or to betray us

Kundry's Valentine

A wish is a memory of a will
which one can feel on witchy days
but for real insight there’s
nothing quite like murder
stories in which our human
progress portions out
the number of degrees one is
from murdering or being
murdered by some murderer
or as some would say a ‘merderer’
but then you fail to see the humor
if you aren’t looking hard enough
a mockery of sunlight licks your eyes
starting to imagine how it ends

Hard Valentine

Coming back
to my life
is so hard some
mornings often
so many more
interesting things
going on elsewhere
like what if
death really is more
like sleep than
we imagined and
the after-death life
an endless dream
that finally ends
in some further  
life inside you

Courageous Valentine

The courage to think true thoughts

can only be purchased by pain
pain and suffering have all the money
and time in the world so they
can just sit and wait for you
to fold and crumble
 
After a while you happen on
a little courage it can still happen
you start to think in stanzas
taking on the mountains of
meringue self-doubt masters
with its lemony aroma
 
Or was that you
profound other
actual flesh
I loved where words
dolphin-like slipped
in and out of silence       

American Valentine (for Ayn Rand & Paul Ryan)

Lately America was sold again
this time becoming a privately
owned but heavily subsidized
experimental mental hospital
just like in the movies vicious
nurses and handsome heartless
doctors asking stupid questions
of innocent bodies with electrodes
for probing poking and prodding
who think I’m exaggerating
grossly to think such things
so drugged-out on money-lust
privilege and material success
they fail to notice only comes
at someone else’s huge expense

Painted Valentine

They put a pen
in my hand and
made me write this
silly contract this sad
confession they made
me swear I would paint
these three women
walking on the beach
with these three boys
body-surfing in the
bottle-green waves
sleek as seals behind them
how they stop to pose
faded-red hat yellow hat
multi-colored hat
blue blouse beige blouse
orange blouse and the boys
climbing the foam behind them
they made me promise it
with the wind touching us all
today I would be happy
even against my will
under duress of beauty
under its lashing still

Vacation Valentine (for Bill K.)

I pretended the heavy
traffic outside our motel
door was pounding surf
and the maid vacuuming
and thumping around upstairs
a passing summer shower
I pretended we drew
a circle around ourselves
everything inside eternal
everything outside purely
temporary forever
however finely made
I pretended we slept
for a very long time
first with you sitting awake
by my bed all night and
then with me sitting awake
by yours all the next day

Dog Valentine (for jd)

A less intellectual age
wouldn’t have gotten itself
into such a cognitive collision
unless that’s just its
covert purpose to set us
all upon the riddle of ourselves
that we be hunted down
by dogs bred for that purpose
the dogs of our desires
and the dogs of our reasons
who after we’ve been snared
and eaten appear again
on the streets looking
sweet and alert
quiet or asleep
like dogs everywhere

Lost Valentine

Our money plant
loses three old leaves
for every five new ones
it flourishes just starts
to get ahead when
something happens
something mysterious
riveting and threatening
that wants to pull it all
back down and into
the ground while we
watch and feel for
what must also be there
somewhere in this picture
that something else
that fights to lift it up

Evil Valentine

The purpose of evil is simply
that there be a choice
that one can make up
one’s own mind
for life or death
go one’s own way
that one is free to err
not bound to love
but choosing it
eventually perhaps
out of one’s own
hard-won wisdom
which by the most
circuitous routes
a simple heart survives