Passion Vine Valentine

It’s hard to accept
That love lives in all matter
So most people don’t
 
That it lives in what poisons us
And in what builds us up
That love can do both
 
That it can be beautiful
And wear an ugly face
That hate is also a form of it
 
That a green bird can come
To the passion vine
And eat its fill
 
As if love were waiting
To be loved
In all things

All Souls Valentine

There can only be
Three ways it seems
To get to the goddess
 
While the stars move
Through all the possible
Postures of war and love
 
There’s the hard way
The easy way he says
And the royal way
 
It all puts me to sleep
I want to walk outside
And not think about it
 
All this business about ways
When you know goddess
We’re already here

School Boy’s Valentine

As a school boy I would write
JMJ at the top of every page
Now it’s OMG
 
We want to go right to the Father-God
If there is a God we know
He must have a father
 
We want to tell him
Like misunderstood children
It can’t be this way
 
Or we just want to ignore him
Let him have our lives
As we want them to be
 
We know he had one good son
Who stayed at home
And never learned to be grateful

Two Angels Valentine

We like to think
There’s an evil angel
Standing to our left
 
And a beautiful angel
Standing at our right
But pretty isn’t always
 
Right posing as perfect
What if what’s good
Stands in the middle
 
Of two opposing evils
Two necessary friends
Who go everywhere with you
 
One always building you up
The other always tearing you down
Past a size you recognize

Black Madonna Valentine

'Keep these wounds for me'
The one in your foot
And the one in your head
 
But you can keep
The one in your heart
For yourself to ponder
 
It’s all a misunderstanding
She meant to say
You can keep your feet
 
Somewhere under you
Waiting for patience to arrive
Always running late
 
But your head is mine
And sometimes
I trundle out your heart

Her Valentine

Everything we do
Interests the earth
As much as us
 
She’s always walking
Toward us with a look
Then slipping through us
 
And striding past
As though she’s afraid
Of getting tangled up
 
And caught too tightly
In some rib-cage
Or some skull
 
Diaphanous and wrinkled
Grandmother earth
Where we lay our hearts

When Valentine

When out of the light
Came movement and sound
There was no speech for it
 
But still one word
Kept on singing itself
Always the same word
 
Like something you can’t
Get out of your head
Feeling the word forming
 
And shaping its contours
Giving it life and purpose
Or drifting away from the shore
 
But the word can only go so far
It stops there to stare
At the lonely soul

Cat Walking Valentine

Have you ever walked a cat
My ex and I had one
Who’d accompany us on long
 
Treks through the neighborhood
Evenings after supper
Sometimes we’d encounter
 
Other cats who’d sit
And stare at her as if to say
What the hell are you doing
 
Walking around with them like a dog
Putting us other cats to shame
But she’d just laugh at them and ask
 
What are you complaining about
I’m just herding these two-leggeds
Before they fall apart

Mary’s Valentine

Forgive me if from time
To time I struggle
To put a smile on your face

In the midst of the sadness

Of a chosen and deliberate madness
It can seem a sin to grin
 
And hard it is to differ
Even slightly from the stars
Who urge us on
 
Their stern beckoning
Still promises release
For those who want it
 
Meanwhile we suffer
For one another and either
Remember or try to forget

This Day Valentine

There’s always something fallen in the night
Waiting to be picked up after
It is today
 
A small green orange
Or the busted-open brain
Of a ripe pomegranate
 
Most of which are rotten
Though they’re still so proud of themselves
Having fallen after all
 
From such a great height
This day this day
Is clean-up day
 
One is always
Getting ready
For some wedding

Heart’s Valentine

Right where the heart would be
If it had a heart
The tall hibiscus
 
Bloomed a single red bud
In the midst of so much
Confusing green so hidden
 
It made me smile
As if a plant to please his master
Made a subtle joke
 
A painting with a mirror
Where you can see the painter
In the background smiling
 
Hidden in his masterpiece
Of another disastrous family
Right where the heart would be

Hymn to Her Valentine

The Sophia of the Aromas
The breath of heaven
That lasts a moment
 
Is in the breeze this morning
As she is every morning
Waiting to be followed
 
Always patiently waiting
Like a rose to be inhaled
To have its soul extracted
 
And set free
From self-slavery
Self-love
 
Like the scent of marigolds
Grouped around a white
Bird of paradise at dawn

Bodily Valentine

Being of bodies
We want the proof of bodies
In our beds and in our heads
 
To fall into a body
And to fall again
Into another body
 
We want the perfection of the body
As proof of the soul
Constantly turning and sculpting
 
Clutch and release
Touch and relief
Aren’t all bodies lovers
 
Steadfastly of one another
It’s just their love that uses them
And gives them away

Easily Valentine

You could easily see
He was not yet free
Of worldly drives and passions

Though wrinkled enough

And scourged enough
To have overcome the notions
 
Of a youth spent dreaming
He was still a boy of twelve inside
Or what felt like a girl of ten
 
Stupefied by the world
Another simpleton waiting
To be deflowered
 
But it was then that he felt
Most empowered
Most himself most in love

Herstory Valentine

If a stem can manifest and corrupt a flower
Then anything can happen in real life
What’s true stays true for a tree
 
As for the two-legged mental millipedes
Who are overwhelming the world
Humiliating the earth
 
Hardly waiting to get her clothes off
To speak in the rank
Materialism of our time
 
Yadda yadda sis-boom-baa
When the Elders peeked in on Susanna
She was bathing in the courtyard of glory
 
But to the left behind the tired musicians
Some young scribe was scratching down
Her true story of their lives together

Sorry Mother Valentine

I keep trying to imagine the Archangels
Trying to deal with us down here
What their reports must say
 
To the higher-ups about our inner grasp
Of the situation of limited space
And time the larger question like
 
What is that lighthouse doing over there
Or that cavity where the ego like a boy’s
Laughter is carried across
 
The canyon of confusing words
I feel sorry for them
The Great Mothers who labor
 
So their children can play
And maybe even learn something
At that uppity school they pay

Autumn Rendezvous Valentine

When Mars and Venus get together
They don’t talk about us kids
Though Mars is a talker and rants
 
Around the rooms and hallways
Led by his flailing arms
While Venus gets more comfortable
 
Curled up on the couch
Pretending not to be listening
Until at one point he lifts her
 
Into his arms and we here
On earth feel strangely exhilarated
And suspiciously joyful
 
For a few hours or a whole day
But it’s too good to be true we say
They will never make it

Dug Valentine

The token of their return
Was the first red bud
I saw hidden in the leaves
 
The ground had been pounded down
All morning long
The workers’ voices drowned
 
Out by someone whistling
As he shoveled gravel
I could catch the smell
 
Of stones and earth
But was it grave or garden
They were digging right outside
 
My window hardly light
Hardly time to struggle
Upward from my dream

Reunification Valentine

Turn back the stars
To the pages you don’t understand
The parts missing from the jigsaw
 
Is sentimentality a necessary step
As you descend to the subway
Or take the elevated train
 
When it’s tenderness you’re after
And a sense of the real trouble we’re in
Because of one another
 
How to rearrange the stars
Into a more accurate perception
Of our true intention
 
And return to them the impulse
To reunite all light
Into a single body and soul

Venus in New Moon Libra Valentine

Mine the earthbound
Yours the starry worlds
Strange how we met one night
 
I wanted to study Venus
Sensing her at the center
Of the mystery of this world
 
That woman who wants to know
Everything about you
Without letting on she does
 
That sympathy with all things
So she cries freely
And laughs freely
 
She with the freedom to laugh and sleep
A whole new body
Into the earth every night 

 

Alone Valentine

In my next life when I’m a woman
I want to remember the women
Of today it’s not easy
Being the object of desire
Even when you understand
The longing of the wills
In your sons and daughters
To align with the stars
But a woman is always a mother
And a child assaulted
By a dragon in the old pictures
And audible in the first music
Her praise and her torment
Praise for her child
Torment for her child
Who alone can save us

Questioning Valentine

We clearly intend as Nietzsche knew
To take the earth to its limits
Starry and otherwise feeling
That evil can only destroy not build
And ultimately will destroy itself
With a little help from the good
That it matters if your innocence
Is given or taken from you
If you can trust the earth
If you don’t spend your life
Constantly questioning its loyalty
It undying faithfulness to you

On Being a Language Valentine

When I said yes
I had no idea
It included no
Down the road
And so much letting go
From the other side
A whole different
Muscle group
That loves to talk
And the joy of listening
To a language you love
But don’t understand
And trying to figure out
What they’re really saying
Behind the words
From just watching the eyes
And the accompanying gestures
Of lips and sounds

Secret Valentine

My secret meeting
With the smiling moon
At four in the morning
So much darkness to say
To the keeper of heaven
And the sailing swan
Knowing the time is short
And the dragon just sitting there
As the child of some woman
Falls to the ground
I will lift it back up
Replace it with my own
If you would just wait
And stop laughing moon
I too could be light
I too will be dawn

Enter Valentine

Yesterday was a hallucination
Today a delusion tomorrow a dream
These records our broken memories
So we can get our bearings in space
And not keep doing the same things
So courage becomes a more flexible star
In the face of forgetting so much
At least that’s the hypotenuse
Thinking offers morning waving
From the window on its way to work
More in the heart than in the head
Like the old man who stumbled on
The naked Venus sleeping
And felt both ashamed
And deeply inspired

Nuzzling Valentine

She’s an outside cat
For an inside guy
We rendezvous on the patio
For a nuzzle but love too
Much our independent lives
She’s full of conspiracy theories
Between the trees and streets
But says she doesn’t need me
To survive anymore
Than I need her to think
Of me as confidante and friend
Our private relationship kept private
Our quiet meetings
Involving only those involved

Around Valentine

The liquidity of angels
And old people
In children’s eyes
Who’ve been around
And who hasn’t yet
Not enough times
To grasp the mystery
You are already gods
But that’s not enough
Now you have to be
Responsible as well
Not just for yourself
But for the whole
God-blessed world

Shot Valentine

When an instinct becomes a passion
And a passion an obsession
That feeds upon itself
And the will surrenders
Slavish to some idea
That turns out to be a grifter
When devastation comes
When you spread the sheets
Out in the sun to dry
And walk miles for water
What’s the point if nothing’s
Learned about the weather
Do we just keep getting beaten up
Or watching others getting shot

Afterwards Valentine

Sometimes I didn’t lift
Things up and do
A proper job I just
Swept around them
Gathering the dust
Into the center
Of the room
Into smaller and
Smaller circles
Into a craving
To be gone
And the floor
Cleared again
For more dancing

Somewhere Valentine

I can hardly wait to see
Some future age
Look back on us
The way we look back
On medieval darkness
Or Alexander’s days
I don’t remember the future
Ever looking so bleak
One blind man to another says
Yet this is somewhere
And you are saying this to me
I can hardly wait to see
From where it’s all worth it
What looks like nothing to me

Threshold Valentine

Once I put my whole head
Into a large spider web
Where my face could feel
How carefully it was made
Before I recoiled in fear
Luckily the spider wasn’t there
But miraculously the web
Snapped back intact
You could hardly tell
Something terrifying
Had recently happened here
The design unharmed
The little baskets of food
Still waiting on each floor 

My Country’s Valentine

My country has always been a joke
To its elders a jackass to its neighbors
And now it’s become an immense cartoon
Documentary film noir of itself
And this has spread to every country
In the world virtually virally
About a group of high school students
Who wrest power back
From a deranged family of killers
And then replace them ruling the world
Fire the writers of this schlock
I want to see a plot
That thickens into common sense
About a poor country alchemist
Who finds the cure for this madness
But no one wants to take it

Alive Valentine

Do we know what we mean
When we say goodbye
How foolish it sounds
As if we won’t be back
With our superfluous hellos
As if we weren’t always there
All of it whenever recalled
As if we could lose touch
As we do with one another
Now I can see I was dead
A minute ago but now
I’m alive with the imminence
Of your arrival yet there
We are saying goodbye