Continued...

do you mind being obsessed with the physical

do you mind thinking of the body if at all

   as just a thought that’s taken on physical form

do you mind these bodies of thought

do you mind if they’re holier than thou

do you mind if they’re mostly unafraid

do you mind joining me under the table

   during the next earthquake

do you mind if a terrible epidemic

   nearly extinguishes humankind

do you mind sincerity

do you mind having to walk home forever

do you mind praying for that man

    beating the other man

Continued...

do you mind keeping it to yourself

do you mind being totally exposed

do you mind being admonished

do you mind living in the desert

do you mind endlessly repeating yourself

do you mind feeling injured and worked

do you mind if I don’t have another one

do you mind discontinuity

do you mind getting ready to go

do you mind if they always know where you are

do you mind that love is a Trojan horse –

   once inside it takes control

do you mind if my favorite word is fresh

do you mind if my favorite dish is fish

do you mind waking me between now and then

Continued...

do you mind regressing to the plant stage

do you mind regrowing your heart

do you mind adaptive deceptiveness

do you mind local punishment

do you mind not receiving specific instructions

do you mind waiting to pee

do you mind having three lives every day

do you mind never returning to New York

do you mind driving my jalopy to my autopsy

do you mind doing eurythmy of my history

do you mind fighting back even though

   you know you’re beaten for now

do you mind having often been a monk

do you mind having been molested

do you mind having to deny you were molested

Continued...

do you mind that only spirit really exists

do you mind that flesh and blood

  are its shadowy counterparts

do you mind if I call her ‘nature’

do you mind if I refer to Bernardus Silvestris

do you mind the whole 13^th century

do you mind scratching my back

do you mind the three beasts of the soul

do you mind deepening the silence

do you mind if I just start kissing things

do you mind if government hates people

do you mind inconvenient emotional crimes

do you mind if alcohol wins sometimes

do you mind unnecessary grammatical errors

do you mind abandoning all fears and terrors

Minding Continued

do you mind having to change your life

do you mind having to repair the frig

 

do you mind holding that squirrel posture

 

do you mind being prepared for anything

do you mind easily reading my mind

do you mind singing my tune

do you mind taking care of your trees

do you mind keeping it briefer pithier

do you mind teaching me the casida

do you mind if time is purely fictional

do you mind if I stop you right there

do you mind if I go commando

do you mind if we don’t go home

do you mind if we drive all night

Minding Valentine Continued

do you mind being just another copy of the cosmos

do you mind being a red fox pursued by black birds

do you mind being a homeopathic remedy
   for your town

do you mind being ironic but not sulphurous

do you mind being cathartic but not cathetic

do you mind functioning as a symbol

do you mind polishing my rudder

do you mind stiffening my sails

do you mind taking the longer way

do you mind never seeing the trees
   you planted bloom

do you mind getting me a coffee

do you mind losing house and home

do you mind how summer floats you away

do you mind how winter carries you back

Minding Valentine Continued

do you mind losing your life for a lie

do you mind living your life for a lie

do you mind it’s always a small circle

of men who send a whole world to war

do you mind that the world lets them

do you mind that the world celebrates this

do you mind that the sun shines on everything

but one thing at a time

do you mind if right now everything is flowering

do you mind if right now even the grass is shouting

do you mind if I don’t call you often

do you mind what women have to put up with

do you mind being sodomized while God watches

do you mind uploading  your life file

 

Minding Valentine Continued

do you mind not fucking me

do you mind not snorting

do you mind not being so extreme

do you mind keeping up

do you mind falling behind

do you mind repetition or require it

do you mind that evil is ultimately stupid

  and usually ends up doing itself in

do you mind that the cultural revolution

  was a huge criminal mistake

do you mind that America is the crazed

  offspring of genocide and slavery

do you mind being the worm in the robin’s beak

do you mind blooming in the fall

do you mind losing all your nerve

do you mind the prospect of reincarnation

do you mind matter gets under your skin

do you mind if I never get (to) the point

Minding Valentine Continued

do you mind not freaking me out

do you mind your phone replacing me

do you mind our still feudal economy

do you mind our manufactured lives

do you mind royalty still rules

do you mind there are still poor people

do you mind the whole musical world

do you mind flossing twice a day

do you mind feeling bullied at work

do you mind the moral or the physical climate change

do you mind not interrupting me

do you mind having to carry your own weight

do you mind having to pray without faith

do you mind having to be my fate

Friday Minding Valentine

Do you mind the given

do you mind what you walked in on

do you mind the taken

do you mind what you’ve just lost

do you mind rubbing my feet

do you mind being self-conscious

do you mind being self-centered

do you mind the yelling in the street

do you mind not being able to eat

do you mind if I slip in a little rhyme

do you mind if you’re my bread and wine

do you mind coming closer for a second

do you mind my slight shine

do you mind me touching your lip

 

Minding Valentine Continued

Do you mind walking out on me

do you mind causing my death

do you mind running everything

do you mind being my mirror

do you mind having your own star

do you mind never working really

do you mind holding your applause

do you mind coming back later

do you mind ruining the century

do you mind telling your first lie again

do you mind leaving this womb

do you mind me asking your age

do you mind living on the beach of your mind

do you mind surf for brains

More Minding Valentine

Do you mind getting fucked up

do you mind going to pieces

do you mind having one testicle left

do you mind having no legs

do you mind giving me your last dime

do you mind holding my breath for me

the way you do I’ll be right back

do you mind not touching yourself

do you mind being taken into custody

do you mind being locked up for love

do you mind not having a mind

do you mind giving it up for safekeeping

do you mind passing me your nights

do you mind being being

Ascension Valentine

Everyone will have to be a Jew
everyone will have to be a Palestinian
everyone will have to be a German
everyone will have to be a Frenchman
everyone will have to be a Vietnamese
everyone will have to be an American
everyone will have to be black
everyone will have to be white
everyone will have to be evil
everyone will have to be good
everyone will have to be insane
everyone will have to be a genius
everyone will have to fall in love
everyone will have to die

Minding Valentine

Do you mind being left behind

do you mind being sent on ahead

do you mind being forgotten

do you mind being on everyone’s lips

do you mind being too late for sleep

do you mind being too early for waking

do you mind being beaten by death

do you mind being stupid brilliant

do you mind being loved into existence

do you mind being a thin black seed

do you mind being talked to this way

do you mind being everything for a change

do you mind being mine

Blessing Valentine

With rose and frankincense ashes
I sweeten the compost pile
I send my dead thoughts
into the dry leaves and dung
and tell them to flourish there
to take what nourishment they can
from all that’s left over and rots
digest it into useful chaos
the residue of prayers
not yet pure enough
here on earth only
is it possible to waste
in the after birth 
death has no place

No Fear Valentine

Death is the biggest lie we tell ourselves
since the one I won’t get into anymore
smug you to be the one who says
see I told you time did not exist
O look we made it all up the sense
world we turned it into nonsense
by thinking away thinking itself
did we really feel we were up to
the conceit of the 21^st century
not to think it through that birth
comes out of death the two halves
of life rather reduces the drama
that even if not welcoming it
not to be afraid of it anymore

Soaked Valentine

Having fallen straight through the night
the rain stands up even straighter now
inside the trees and plants so everything
looks plumper prouder flecked
with splashes of morning light
even the harbor ponders deeper
considering how deeply the rain entered
turning the bodies of the clouds
into the clouds of our bodies
drifting by in boats and sails
like a longing satisfied
even though we know
it will all be taken back from us
drop by bloody drop

Unreal Valentine

We still don’t get it do we lord
that you spoke as a true economist
of the spirit when you warned us
not to take for real what passes
but to check the foundations
and underlying implications
of the soul of things
knowing full well having
stored yourself there
we would find you waiting
the one real thing
from which alone
could the unreal proceed
as flesh and bone
as talent and need

Useful Valentine

A smallish bird trying to land
on the top of a tallish tree
in a brisk headwind
dancing up to a standstill
blown back then beating
upwind past the tree then
letting the breeze carry it
back onto the branch
it was trying to reach
in the first place
so elegantly it made
me think of evil
how to use it against itself
so at the last moment
to turns to good

 

Hearing of Franz Wright's Death Valentine

Like the rain I waited
for you to fall I drifted out
over the low hills of expectation
the narrow ridges of disappointment
just offstage while you sang and sang
your heart out in that year’s competition
so much life is just about to happen
and then doesn’t or does too weakly
to resemble Heckle and Jeckle
the original odd couple
to make us laugh at ourselves
we go for a healthy walk
then cash in the calories burned
on an ice cream cone
on the way home

Beetle’s Valentine

Going over yesterday in my head
I think of a dung beetle at work
it feels like sitting by the bed
of a dying friend and then
I realize it’s the world
how much beauty is locked up
in the hands of a few people
but does it inspire them to goodness
does it work on them at night
as they sleep shaping a new
penetration by the light
or implicate them further
in the darkness of the dream
that anyone can own a thing

Translated Valentine

Over there where we’re going
hunger and thirst translate
as courage and knowledge
having first been pressed
through the sieve of desire
formerly known as the soul
they become concepts again
thus an arm and a leg
provide the form and outline
for the first sketches of hope
though some believe these
were meant to be wings
in the original design
in the end hope settled
for purely human things

Ascendant Valentine

When I touch my head
it feels like a grain of sand
that has yet to find
its beach its land’s end
it awaits the right
leaf to enter the left
foot to fester the faint
light to undermine
all that holds it
to this earth to float
it merely a grain
to fly in a bird’s throat
above the merely sane

Nursery Valentine

Absent the birds and flowers
the world would have no colors
because green is not really a color
but a condition of being
over which color triumphs
with its scents of joy and valor
lingering aura of the earth itself
which is why the ancients painted
all their beautiful marble statues
to bring life to the dead stone
while we prefer them naked
at home in the world before shame
persisted into conscience
and compliance
we prefer their ruins
to what would have been their glory
for without them there would be
no us no story

Poor Nietzsche’s Valentine

And then there was poor Nietzsche
who alone saw the wool being pulled
over everyone’s dazzled eyes
(our still manipulated lives)
himself torn down by his own
chilly inability to love
though he saw the cowardice
at the core of the human soul
he knew it was planted there
by fear and mass deceit
by powerful invisible forces
to which he finally succumbed
forced to sing for the enemy
his fight left to those who can see

Stray Valentine

Am I not to you o lord
as this stray cat to me is
lost and unable to know
how very lost she is
don’t you know me too
as this unstable creature
who cannot read or yield
to your clear presence
apparently in all he sees
but must be fed and loved
allowed to roam freely
the dangerous alleys
and who never seems
to want to come home

Island Valentine

A mile away there’s a fishing boat
that will take you to safety
if only that were true for all of us
but what would that island look like
largely an isolating folklore culture
with its startling pyramids and kids
once a week we’d row to the mainland
to get supplies and pick up the mail
quickly fading from little to none
to feel completely alone in the world
that's my idea of a summer vacation
for which I often return to the city
of my dreams to hear the new music
and walk the small parks and great plazas
where tomorrow’s poems are being planted