Evolutionary Valentine

Something not quite real in us
Poses as sex and gender
The way we keep trying on
 
The bodies of other men and women
In alternating lifetimes
According to the rhythms of the moon
 
As if willy-nilly all these bodies
Were working to evolve
Just one perfect one

With scars on her back

From master time
A body-artist who only paints his wife
 
A wife who wipes out all her other lovers
When all along it was only these bodies
Something not quite real in us

Is Posing As If Valentine

If I die before I sleep
Or sleep before I die
How will I know that it was I
 
Perhaps you’ll be there
To shake me softly
To wake me up in you
 
As I did often once
Inventing dreaming
As a way past dying
 
Several times a day
But still in you
I was usually trying
 
I could be so trying
As you knew
To find a way to you

Body’s Valentine

I understand how the Platonists felt
About the flesh and its compartments
But it’s not the body’s fault
 
No body wants to be sold or bought
Yet every seven years
We receive a new one
 
But what body builds itself
Clearly each is a construction
Using the ruins at hand
 
Blending in the beauty learned
The leaning towers of perfection
From which the soul has fallen
 
Maybe the body is our noblest part
To which the soul and all
Can only aspire or distort

Its Valentine

It was somewhere in the old tobacco shed
It was somewhere in the woods
Or on the road to town
 
Or out by the smoking dump
Or somewhere around the peony bed
Or inside the rusted truck
 
Or in the pink bedroom’s glow
Sometimes blazing in the stove
Backed by nightfall gone by dawn
 
It was often in the raspberry rows
And the crowns of Queen Anne’s lace
And chicory its favorite blue
 
Slowly it seeped into our bodies
Reappearing years later
As me and you

Nursing Valentine

I nursed an impulse
Into a desperation
To see you again
 
Until it became a constant
And pervasive mood
Of expectation and excitement
 
A whirl of drunkenness
In which I was never
More sober or clear
 
So much could get settled
At that hundredth meeting
As at that first
 
Now I see you a young mother
Alone with two small babies
And the world at war

For Paul in the Apple Tree Valentine

The moon in the puddle
Isn’t very subtle
All yawns but no sleep
 
It rests right foreground
On the empty wet street
On the left a row of row-houses
 
And on the other side a crush
Of stately skyscrapers
Ominous as always
 
The air is moist and soft
So you can feel the colors
Before you see the shapes
 
Of a rush of children
Still in their pajamas
Come crying down the street

No One’s Valentine

Whenever a statement begins with I
I have to ask which I is speaking
It could be anyone or no one
 
Sometimes I stops being me
It has that kind of fluidity
And I can speak for no one
 
Not even myself for a while
A peace is with me
A knowing I am no one
 
The wave of I
Pulls back from the shore
Preparing the wave of me to crash
 
But that pause between the two
When I am no one
And yet something more

Tonight’s Valentine

Somehow bringing beauty
Into the world tonight
The spirit veered off course
 
In one half of the story
The full moon in majesty
In the other lightening and rain
 
Must we choose a sky
When we can stand in the rain
And the light at the same time
 
Or run back and forth like children
Between being a ghost
And a million leaves dripping
 
The beautiful darkness of rain
The unreal shine of the moon
That says the sun is still there

Subterranean Valentine

Deep into the earth
Of my body I don’t find
What naturally occurs
 
But a hall of raving mirrors
Reflecting back the world I’ve made
Leading to a roaring blaze
 
Of some ultimate will
To go on being
I cannot kill
 
At the very tiniest
Center of my body
Must be a molecule sun
 
So distant and so near
Its light just begins
To touch me here

Delusional Valentine

If I start thinking of myself
As a whole nation
An abstract civilization
 
Or that my body is the world
And that my heart can only live
In one country at a time
 
Of peril and universal complaint
And if all my governments collapse
One day I’m out fishing
 
And the peace comes back
To start it all up again
Toward the eternity of spring
 
As tulips lean
And my mind’s snow melts
In darkened drifts

Masterpiece Valentine

A new book to crack
A new cartridge of ink
A freshly washed floor
 
To look out over
All the old fields
Of helplessness I possess
 
To scan the doubtful horizon’s
Few quick lines to learn
If it’s still working for us or not
 
It would save so much time
If I could just cooperate
If we both could just
 
And take down some new book
Not this masterpiece
Of gloat and gloom

Documented Valentine

I send you a voiceless text
You send me a blurry pic
Of permanent loss
 
I send you a pdf of grief
With blind carbon copies
And endless attachments
 
I’d ask you out to the sunlight
But it’s dark where you are
And you’re probably sleeping
 
So let me read the novella
Of your immigrant dreams
Wandering from night to night
 
And when you wake frightened
Let me be there to hold you
Where words cannot reach

Game-Changing Valentine

If reincarnation is really true
Then I have always known you
And we have chosen our mistakes
 
And the only mystery and suspense
That left’s is in the question
Are we listening
 
Since it’s clear we cannot do this
By ourselves to those angels
That also must exist
 
And who are whispering
The answers and the list
Of choices we can make
 
Now that we’re here on earth
And not floating around
In some useless heaven

Bethesda Valentine

Sometimes I’d rather lean
On my cane than walk
All by myself
 
Somehow with a crutch
I’m not lonely
Not entirely on my own
 
I’m not so sure I want
To rush into that pool
And lose the comfort of friends
 
Sometimes I just want to bemoan
The world and do everything
To keep it that way
 
To lie in the pool
Of my own waste
And get cleansed

Unwritten Valentine

You can’t write about blue
The way you can about red
It’s already unearthly
 
You can’t write about disparate things
Circling round a specific moment
It’s already rooted in you
 
Hammered down into
The glimmering mineral world
Or enticed back up by the sun
 
You can’t write about love
The way you can about nature
It was already present
 
And unaccounted-for
Like the blue
That takes us away

Unforgivable Valentine

I wonder about the hard feelings
That give rise to devious
Ideas of revenge
 
The man so lost and hurt
He kills his wife and children
Things that take centuries to work out
 
I see all those families gathered together
In the courts of heaven and hell
Where a temple once stood
 
Now a vacantly staring lot
Next to a pizza parlor
You remember such places
 
When we too visited hell
Saw how much of heaven
Was still burning in their faces

Because Valentine

It’s because you’re such a good person
You suffer the not-so-good
It’s your gift to have an animal
 
Live with you to quell
The animals inside with laughter
And long talks they know
 
Something about goodness
Even a parakeet can teach
You about the time before speech
 
Before whatever goodness there is
Opened and closed its mouth
Startled by the arrival of evil
 
As it came to be called
That great sea in which
The waves of your goodness unravel

Pestalozzi’s Valentine

Like the sun around a gnat
The Verdins I love to watch
Circle above the cat
 
This morning comes burdened as a child
But there’s always another nest to build
Despite the darkening clouds
 
Always another tiny pocket
Of twigs and leftover things
To stitch together at the end
 
Of a branch a hidden space
Only the morning light can find
The future of the world
 
In a few small eggs
Even the cat acts surprised
How much littleness succeeds

Former Valentines

I simply got too caught up
With her raw exuberance and wit
Until she started taking it
 
Seriously ending up getting hurt
Which was my fault and not my fault
But never my intention
 
And that other beauty I offended
Bears a striking resemblance
To something I could only take too far
 
Thus have my lovers condescended to me
As I to them but briefly
Our lives were not a candle
 
But the burning that goes on
Rushing past us
In a forest or a song

Visitor’s Valentine

Venus comes for a visit
Stays for a day or two
We talk about rue
 
Over supper we shoot the shit
Come to no conclusions about you
The things we used to do
 
We stay up late for the laughter
While she straightens the stars
I clear the dishes
 
Freed from the soul’s confusions
Then comes the tender moment
When she confesses her incompleteness
 
Crying together in my arms
Still just a skinny brown girl
With so much love to make

Muse’s Valentine

Of all the things I have devised
Having finally become wise
To mine and the world’s ways
 
Of all my technological achievements
The one most highly prized
My source of praise
 
The machine of all my lamentations
Like a son to prodigal me
To count your absent days
 
This calendar of crises
Interspersed with flashes
Of your calm face or hand
 
Still holding on to you
As at that first sighting
Dazzled and amazed

The Song of the Duck Valentine (for Teri)

It’s clear each person
Is unprecedented an original
Rare and exotic species
 
If you sit in your blind
And calmly observe them
Though brothers look alike as ducks
 
They all fly in on different stars
Landing in the same lake
From year to year
 
Each person is a duck
But not every duck is a person
Until you hear them speak
 
They float around the lake
Each searching for a song
But settle for a quack

Animals Valentine

I love to talk with them sometimes
They may be the only ones
Who truly comprehend our feelings
 
Like the orangutan who held me
Asking what I was really up to
Staring out from my cage
 
Or the dog who bit my face
When I got too close to his rage
You know the top dog
 
Not so much left behind
As transformed they maintain
Their hold on the other worlds
 
Of sound and taste and scent
And though they see our murderous hearts
Still they try to restore us to ourselves

Preventable Valentine

All that prevents us
From really seeing one another
Up close and personal
 
That we desire it all
To keep going
Downhill and uphill
 
That we are carried along
Almost snatching the shore
In our bright canoes
 
The current throwing us
Into a startled embrace
Of fear or love
 
While others topple
All around us others
Break into a smooth lake

Part Valentine

The part of me
That always objects to things
As a first response
 
The part of me
That yells out ‘Horseradish!’
In the solemn classroom that
 
Nothing that can be measured
Is worth knowing
To the stunned professor
 
That Cassandra in me
That Hannibal and Eric
The Red that Rubicon
 
Yet how many times
Has she saved me
From burning my bacon

Time’s Valentine

My brother’s sin I bring
To your attention
It is my own as he is
 
Was and will be
We do the time
Or I’m no rapper
 
And have I even mentioned my sister
She’s so brilliant and brave
It makes me shiver
 
We’re all locked
In these family groupings
Where we first learned to love or not
 
And where we’re all drowning
And being saved every second
By some sister or brother

Native Valentine

The light is in the ink
With which we write
More than the words
 
There are demons in the letters
The native peoples recognized
When presented with the Bible
 
They saw their souls
Could be hypnotized by cameras
But patiently sat for paintings
 
Even as the whites
Corrupted their children and themselves
They blessed the land
 
Before anything was written down
They listened to the ground
Could hear it celebrate and groan

Abandoned Valentine

If we abandon the birds
Of reality and song
It won’t be long
 
Before the air itself is gone
Reduced to mostly words
We no longer mean
 
We think we’re flying
Sitting in our seats
When it’s the plane that’s flying
 
Defying the laws of common sense
When they prove not too reliable
Arriving at their destinations late
 
But dreaming in my seat
I feel a further flight inside
A new bird lifted into night

Lucky Valentine

Distilled by the light it catches
The last drop of night
Falls from my roof each morning
 
I should be so lucky to see it
Just like me it’s building a new body
Accumulating what evaporates
 
Into a new night
Where the real growth
Makes itself felt
 
A plea is sent out from a list
Of pre-existing pre-conditions
By themselves laid down
 
Slowly a drop is formed
That sooner or later must fall
Into and out of the light

Grown-up Valentine

Adults can understand divorce
Or not but for the children
It isn’t always incomprehensible
 
You can urge your mother
To leave your selfish father
Not accept what he’s doing here
 
You can willingly suffer
The imbalance the peace
Of his withheld blessing
 
Or spend your childhood
Rescuing your parents
With the sins of your youth
 
The choices grow narrower
As does the gate
You must enter

First Valentine

They say the great teachers
Come from beyond the zodiac
That tentative construction
 
A garden wall around the gods
Who were their instructors
Before they arrived on earth
 
They cultivated wrestling
With the soul and the sacred arts
Of listening to the stars
 
Not as a fail-safe
But as one way
Of getting things done
 
While they waited
Expectant as mothers
For that first day

Not Mournful Valentine

You can see where I missed places
Where the broom didn’t reach
The sunlight grasps
 
And where there’s a hole
In the garden longing
For me to plant something
 
And that tree I had to take out
Picking up twigs for months
I miss its angles and oranges
 
And then there’s what was here
A hundred or more years ago
That still hasn’t been understood
 
So you can see how I can be comforted
By a single white flower
Or a drop that falls from the sky

Dancing Fool’s Valentine

Wait a minute
Wait a bloody minute
You said you would
 
Or you didn’t say you would
You just looked
Like you would
 
A fool in every minute
But you passed
For great
 
And yet if I had never wanted it
So much I think
My suffering would be greater
 
The thing about dancers
Is that they dance
For the dance alone

Queen of Moods Valentine

I assumed their music would be
As compelling as their myths
But I had never heard a note
 
After all music is the next stop
After you leave the station
Of imagination
 
And they stood at the fount
Where it began to bubble up
Sonorities of a forgotten speech
 
When we sang to one another
In the original recording
Of the first version of the opera
 
Music is such a diva
And it’s grace to know
She started out divine