Classic Valentine

I put on my repertoire of silence
And sit and stare at the world
Or get up and dance and sing
Just to know it's there
I have a few classic silences
I could drag out for you
But I've worn the records bare
Over a few quick years
You've probably heard them before
And our bodies are so fragile
They could easily switch places
Sometime during the dance
It would be all we could bear
If we could get to peace

Medicinal Valentine

Nothing will do
But we must go to the opera
It doesn't really matter
Which one the music
Will plummet into us
And if we're lucky contrive
Real tears and laughter
From the hardening corpses
We're becoming lately
The old wind will get dressed up
In the horns of love duets
And the sun will sweep across
The faces of instruments and singers
And we will finally
Get to our feet in praise

Whispered Valentine

The visible portion of reality
Where we mostly live and die
Turns out to be so small
Compared to what we do not see
The mirage of the sun in the sky
The empty desert of stars
All arranged so movingly
The passing and the permanent
Moments thrown together
So it's hard to know what's meant
But we have a little chance at freedom
Every third night I've noticed
The guards aren't watching
And soon we will escape

Poor Earth Valentine

Even the most materialist of Martians
And the loftiest of Venusians
Wants to return to the poor earth
To rescue it from itself
The council of the Cherubim
Are distressed to weeping
He who must be obeyed
Rustles his Exusiai
That Jupiter send out his thoughts
Through the galaxies and streets
Even our angels tremble
Struggling to comfort us
But the Lord just stands there
Ready to receive us
Whenever we're ready

Everyday Valentine

Now my time's my own
I tend to want to structure it
With centuries of silence
Between chores and news
I tell the stray cat to stay
And eat the food I leave
But even he doesn't believe me
And even the silence is too platonic
After a while so I wander outside
And try to create a small free space
In my thoughts where you
Finally appear and of course
I'm dazzled and write down
Everything you say O you

Forgone Valentine

I believe it's love
We're most afraid of
Which is the strangest thing
Of all the strange things in the world
That we could love one another
But chose not to for long
Stretches of time we live apart
The future is a suture healing
Over time the scar of love
But what will it take
To overcome our fear is love's
First proof of its existence
As if the end wasn't already
A foregone conclusion

Interdependent Valentine

Having broken all ten
Of the commandments
Except the sixth
And all seven of the rules
Of the road and even if
I can be an arrogant prick
Always taking the devil's side
Some angel's always floating
Witnessing the scene
Either the words command me
Or I command the words
Or something in between
Sooner or later I'll come
To what they mean

Healing Medicine Valentine

There must have been something
That has always existed
It's only reasonable to assume
Avicenna said Abu Sina back then
I love his idea of 'The Floating Man'
If we take away all sensation
Still something remains
A soul perceiving itself
It's only logical to presume
His book of medicine persisted
All the way up to the time
Paracelsus healed by magic means
About which he dictated many wise books
Tramping thanklessly through Europe
Which no one reads today

Gutteral Valentine

Now it's all in the gutters
That last big bout of rain
Like a renewed resignation
That still maintains
Its crystalline repetitions
Among the leaves and hills
That kind of cognitive rain
Working desperately into everything
Until the bricks turn green
And your skin grows mossy
And your hair falls white and thin
And you're old again with new life
Cantankerous and bossy

Far Valentine

You can tell it's getting colder
When the heater rumbles on
Or if it's getting darker
When the lights creep in
Having just imagined one morning
You're loath to give up all the rest
Though somehow you manage to
You can tell you're remembering it
When it seems completely real
You can see it's not the end
Of the world you can feel
You're just another soul
Who has gone too far
And further left to go

Murdered Valentine

No one wants a yellowed future
But it's the way the day is threaded
On the hook like a suture
Of light over a dark wound
'Of course he must be murdered'
The mystery resolves
But who murders who
It turns out is not perhaps
The determinative thing
Every day devises another clue
Which every night dissolves
What must have been the sequence
Of the motives of events
The sun was shining on the blood
And the sad earth was eating it

Yesterday's Valentine

On my knees I pray
For the weeds as I pull
Them away from around
My young lantana
For love of its already
Opening umbels of yellow
And red which remind me
Of raspberries we grew
And from around the blooming shrub
Whose name I've forgotten
Grayish leaves and flowers a blue
I've never seen before
A shade I can't decide if it borrows
From evening or morning more

Meditative Valentine

What is the point of meditation
If you don't believe in a spiritual world
At death or in bliss
Where did the Buddha go
He was not Krishna or Kali
He was just a man who slowly
Thought his way to the things
Behind things a philosopher
Of desire and Plato's
Other half whose hearts
Were open to instruction
Who learned at every moment
They were just recreating themselves
Out of an ever greater creation

Traveling Valentine

One day while traveling you recalled
With three angels in your car
One said let's tell our favorite jokes
How many angels she asked
Can fit inside a Toyota Camry
A pause of silence thinking
An infinity! she finally blurted out
And we all burst out laughing
They thought that was so funny
We laughed for miles and miles
Do we have a different angel
For each stage of our lives
Now older you said you were
On your third but wished
The second had stayed
She was a real wit and always
Made you laugh somehow

St. Valentine's Valentine

Carnations for reincarnation
And roses for rescue from the mundane
It's like a second Christmas
When the sign of love is trotted out
Santa now St. Valentine
But who would mock the heart
In whatever form it takes
It's like a mating call
Whether the friend is gone
Or just arriving
A silly gesture
To get the ball rolling
The bells tolling

Penny Valentine

One doesn't become one
Until there are two and then
There's always a third between them
Death must come first
If life will follow
Then thinking can begin
To subtract the cost
When everything is doubled
And the heart is hollowed
Not a penny to its name
One is always less than one
The way two is always
More than two
If love would follow

How Old Is Spring Valentine

The so-called weeds come first
The buttery dandelion
Melting on the tongue
The scotch thistle
Don't touch me there
The shy hepatica
Like a girl undone
It all just keeps getting drawn up
So gently so strongly
You hardly notice
You've been beguiled
Things have begun to flower
Though the hour is old
Come sit with me a while

Young Man's Valentine

So crumpled the pillow
It looks like it's still asleep
But the cover is thrown off
As if the sleeper fled
Naked into the night
Betrayer of his dream
Like that unknown young man
Who tried to intervene
Did he see what was to come
The murder of the sun
What could he do but run
And creep back to the scene of the crime
And let the mystery begin
Which no one would believe

Muscular Valentine

We pile the pressure on
To build up our strength
To see how much knowledge it takes
If we put another weight on the bar
If we go further into the ground
To pull up the last dregs of it
And further up into airlessness
Until we feel the stars
And the body becomes
As weightless as the soul
And it takes nothing to lift
Another thought from the ground
Against the safety of our limits
If we would get beyond

Tangerine Valentine

While I was falling asleep
I dreamt of the color orange
Can you see yourself surrounded
By an aura of orange
Which everyone feels
But no one sees
It's not a color you would wear
Like those tangerines you love
Like that 10 min. at the end of the day
When the whole atmosphere is veiled
In an ochre light
And whatever is frightened
Is calmed and deepened
As the fire goes out

Will You Valentine

If you think of history at all
As a personal responsibility
Its panorama miniaturized
Corporealized in each of us
If you take an intimate interest
In its moods and rhythms
Its geographies of light
And darkness warmth and cold
Will you come to the place
Where the sun entered the earth
And the fulcrum wobbled
And slowly very slowly
Everything started back
The other way

Always Valentine

If plants are the dreams of the soil
And animals the dreams of the plants
We must be the nightmares of the animals
Or at least what they often see of us
Before there were eyes searching
They were leaves stirring
What the light has made of us
And goes on making
Which means eventually
We must become the light
Invisible and yet it falls on things
So we know it's there
Always touching and moulding us
Out of thin air

Clear Valentine

Something slides in between
Me and the mirror
My body that eclipses
The real picture I am
A sense of myself
Which is more than I see
The three of us just happening
To look up leaving the room
At the full-length mirror
Adjusting our clothes a bit
After so many years together
Having gotten beyond love and hate
To a clearing in seeing

Finer Valentine

It takes a muddled man
To know he's muddled
'criminally' as Margaret said
The beauty of the natural world
The infant innocence it preserves
From the time before desire
The vulnerability we admire
And exploit for ourselves
Maybe the original couple
Weren't so much thrown out
As walked away from that garden
All that easy finished world
In search of something finer

Lunch Valentine

Over a bowl of Udon noodles
We caught up with time
And after all the words were said
And most of them laughed over
We walked to the park and sat
On a bench in silence
Watching the current of the river
Swifter than we remembered it
So this is the earth you finally said
This torn-up mess another body
Floating by I couldn't tell
If man or child and how
Despite it all you still
Loved me and the world

Lost Valentine

A man with ice in his veins they said
But it seems his conscience
Has burned him up a bit
To say he's had enough
Found the place where he's stuck
And can't abide this tyranny
Do we listen to our conscience
Too selectively too personally
If we have one and we do
I mean if true freedom
Can only follow the truth
And we say that's what we want
Why do we keep recreating
The same old story of its loss

This Body's Valentine

I'll be back in a flash
Don't go anywhere without me
A hundred years
Happens in a minute
And this happens every minute
I'm without you
Meanwhile I'm fine
And whatever I'm doing
It's all just filling time
Trying to be useful
In honor of you out there
This body you made up
Out of your dark stories
That can't go on without you

Promise Valentine

I said every day
I would say a prayer
For you I would close my eyes
As if I was sleeping for a moment
And I would remember you
Wherever I was or you were
Where are you now I would
Remember for a minute
I promised every day
I would write something down
I just recalled about you
Every day I would try to reach you
And every day you would be there
As if I was dreaming

Observation Valentine

When we get to the point
Where we can see
The other side of the mountain
Up this path I know
Which is a struggle I admit
So much beautiful around us
But if we keep following
The creek you'd say up
Here without a paddle
Avoiding the suicidal cliffs
And the increasing cold around us
And crouched by camp fires
Observe the eternal flame
I know we'll make it

Surviving Valentine

One looks like a dolphin cresting
One looks like a rabbit resting
One looks like a ring-necked quail
Running across dear life some trail
Now they're whispering together
Their secrets for survival
And think I cannot hear them
The dolphin listening while
The other two compare
The differences of earth and air
No idea they're just stones
I've carefully placed on my table
It was their tenderness when I held them
That made me take them home

Ultimate Valentine (for James)

A window into the world
That each one of us is
We would like to have
Ultimately an intimate knowledge
Of one another freely
Within the limitations
Of having to make a choice
And live with it for a while
In a mood of agitated gratitude
Ambitious for one another
Not to have to worry about a thing
To stretch out in your bed
As if on that first day
Open to everything