Friday, December 31, 2021

Why Did They Come To This Country Valentine

At the end of a broken line
At the end of another year
You find yourself besieged
Alone in a house of trouble
Uncertain whether to oppose
The snow or just walk out into it
An immigrant of your own recovery
The little bits of sanity you grasp
A squeaking dove on the roof
A circle of sun crossing your head
Sleeping with your boots on
And your gun in your hand
Who would have thought that this
Was victory this struggling bliss

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Placed Valentine

Where a massacre occurred
One of the holy places on the earth
After a few hundred years
The victims returned and built
A school of the living arts
Where flower arranging led on
To the geometry of the stars
Dispersing its students like seeds
In an explosion of gratitude
Into the general population
But a long time the killing will go on
Before some child can stare out
Her drowsy classroom window
At the whole world a holy place

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

But Not Of It Valentine

All of these parts of ourselves
That come from distant places
Or just across that field
Arriving and departing
I want to know them all
But how could I intrude
When we collide and coalesce
Into this world for a while
On our sacred honor
Each in our own way
To come to the spirit in things
Hidden in macaroon clouds
And in the smallest gesture
That you are alive inside

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

For Murdered Children Everywhere Valentine

Searching for a way to sneak
Death back into my daily life
It's hard to be natural with enough
Aplomb and tact to carry it off
Not my death but death itself
That it still goes on
This dematerializing earth
Eventually the heat
Congealed into the sun
It was a Sunday I remember
You were dying but the wind
Was just getting started
Just getting up on its feet
Ready to carry us away

Monday, December 27, 2021

Because You Asked About The Wind Valentine

Mostly it's snowing
Or about to snow
And the wind rains down
On the roof all night
Blow after blow
Artfully in the morning
It stands back to gaze
At its masterpiece you
Huddled under the wings
Of its brilliant whiteness
How long can you wait
If what you wait for
Is already here think of it
The heart is the only thing
That sustains us it is a lake
It is only three miles around
And deep as an archangel

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Just Asking the Solstice Valentine

Is it a minor curious thing
That when we say the word love
The O is silent we say uh
As if we're not quite sure 
Writing it one way
And speaking it another
We put it at the end of letters
When really it wants to be
In the greeting the salutation
Right after the place and date
On which it happens to appear
And how can we overlook that
Blessing O that goes on 
Sounding like a birth or death

Monday, December 20, 2021

Christmas Again Valentine

When I close my eyes I can see
The immensity of the darkness
And slowly a hole of light
Wears through and grows
Almost blinding but then
An inky wave rolls in
Completely covering it again
The darkness takes a breath
And then slowly the light
Creeps in again and plunges
Through the clouds and then again
The darkness easily consumes it
But all the while what great beings
Are pacing back and forth
And what new earth is being born

Saturday, December 18, 2021

Doubled Valentine

We get our mathematics wrong
Two is the first number
And one comes after it
But only when they unite
And then a third can be born
The one we usually place first
Is really only half of two
Searching for its other part
But by itself it can do little
And often leads a lonely life
It knows two comes first
And has merely usurped its place
But when two ones come together
Someone greater than either is born

Friday, December 17, 2021

Intervening Valentine

After many years of having my back
My angel finally sat down beside me
You know I love you she said
But let's get something clear
It's time for us to work together
In a closer more conscious way
How we used to when you were young
Before you pushed me away
And even though you refused to see me
And burned all my letters unopened
I never stopped holding you close
You were the brother I never had
But now it's time to let you know
How much my life depends on you
To finally let me in

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Practicing Valentine

I went out in my pajamas
But came back for my parka
It's very cold today
And since I was young
I've had a thing for sitting
Bundled up out in the cold
In the sun for an hour or two
I can be perfectly warm
Inside with a book when
Some strange longing
Pulls me out into the cold
It's like sitting in the fire
Of heartlessness and scorn
With only my angel to keep me warm

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Speaking Valentine

Something stops me at the surface of things
Is it my fear of heights as I look down
Into the deep darkness within
It's like all I can see is a blank wall
And yet my rejected mind
Thrown back upon itself senses
Movement behind the wall
I can hear a breeze speak
A few syllables like leaves
Enough to know there's something
Present on the other side
Like someone practicing the speech
She will deliver my angel
When she finally breaks through

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

How Buddha Comes to Christmas Valentine

His temple was only a step away
Having swept the paths clean
And thrown the doors wide open
He had invited his old friends
Plato and Elijah over
And all their children
For the festivities of light
When he would ascend with them
To release the soul of the world
Within the enormity of heaven
Constellations peeping down
Where they would drink wine together
On the porch and eat sweet bread
While they waited impatiently
For the little family to gather
And love finally be born

Monday, December 13, 2021

Our Fathers' Valentine

What a sad world you've grown
And we your children once
Just wanted to be like you
But you made riches your family
And we with our silly love
Abandoned chasing after you
Haven't you noticed the more
Wealth you reap the lonelier
The more desperate you become
Until your fame swallowed you up
But it was never about the money
The funny thing it never is
You were always that frightened boy
Mistaking love for worldly power

Saturday, December 11, 2021

Getting to Christmas Valentine

If only my angel so vague
Could get a word in edgewise
But finally she calms me down
We sit together in the open sun
While she reads from a book
Where it's all been written down
And down go my defenses
As her voice rises and falls
I barely remember a word she speaks
But the rhythm carries me on
Till we come to the heart of the story
And for a moment she can't go on
And puts the book down
She still can't quite believe it
That he would decide to be born
In the most forgotten town on earth
And leave us in heaven to mourn

Friday, December 10, 2021

What Is Christmas Valentine

Every Christmas we return
To the place where we were born
Called back by everything we touched
To forget everything we've known
And slip back into our mother's womb
As she walks through the crowded town
For a few moments we go back
To the comfort of being unborn
Not yet anything the world
Has ever known as if
We left something behind
That could link us to a crime
Some face we overlooked
That must be our own

Thursday, December 9, 2021

Funeral Birth Valentine

He upstaged Christmas
With his sudden death
The mourners sang carols
And the children carried
Lanterns to the burial
Or maybe he planned it this way
To depart on a festive note
And couldn't wait for the child
To come but had to run
Down the road to meet him
To be there at the mother's labor
And hold the father's hand
After all someone had to feed the donkey
Someone had to tend the lambs

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Advent Calendar Valentine

Examining the conscience of the sky
The great moral principles floating by
Frayed at the edges filling with light
Or rain refusing to fall
Ever-flowing reflections
Of what they see below
With some days the clear
Radiance of blue breaking through
So sincere and pure
Or piling up in awesome ranks
Ready to deliver the final blow
A rain of ashes
Or the peace of snow

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

Estella's Valentine

I wanted to try to understand
What she couldn't understand
About the longings of her friend
It seemed she had taken her words
Right to the end of reason
Where an abyss opened up
On the other side of which her friend stood
Waving a vision of another world
Was it a failure of imagination
That she felt such despair
How could they be friends again
One locked in intellectual torpor
The other reading things in the air
This seemed the central question of our time
Maybe the only question ever

Monday, December 6, 2021

Exchanging Gifts Valentine

To you in a vast blizzard
If you don't mind the dirt
I'm sending a clump of new grass
Dug from my desert yard
But only if you send me
Some of the crystal 
Silence you'll be rich with
And a strand of that blue
Morning after the chaos
Settles over the lake
Speechless of course you'll be
As Simeon having seen
This green falling from heaven
And rising from the earth

Sunday, December 5, 2021

Not Yet Valentine

If all the things that have happened
Are outnumbered by those that haven't
If everything we've forgotten gets
Its memory restored if we drive
Out into the landscape on a whim
Where one stream flows past us
And the other carries us along
If we are with the new trees lifted
While their other half plunges down
Roots in darkness leaves in sun
Will we come to the lost mountain
Where all that hasn't happened yet
Is born and find ourselves at last
Numbered among its stones

Saturday, December 4, 2021

A Right Valentine

Trying to put things right
You pick the wrong time and place
So all you saved to say is lost
What's true sounds false
Your love a contradiction in terms
A misunderstanding understood
Staring you in the face
Unforgivable love that comes
Too early or too late
A charm gone stale
A daftness with a certain grace
That strips you down and bare
All that can and can't be healing
In a warm embrace

Musical Chores Valentine

Doing the dishes
I put on Wagner
For the hoovering
I move to Mahler
For the dusting
Usually Nirvana
Or the nuns of Santa Ana
Making the bed I prefer
Rhythm and blues
Or the old Gospel tunes
Or taking a shower
I favor Satie
Or something cleansing
From Debussy

Friday, December 3, 2021

Sleepless Valentine

You can't be serious
Writing a poem
There's too much at stake
The frivolous must wake up
And sit in the front row
Watching itself being taken apart
Demeanor and tone must go home
The audience whittled down to one
Small child on a dark stage singing
To see one you must be alone
Where you might never come back
If you go there unprepared
With too few sleepless nights

Still Valentine

Six sad exuberant historians
I studied over the holiday break
Four evangelists and two fairy tales
As they appeared in the European
Middle Ages and nothing of what
Was going on in China or
The Yucatan Peninsula at that time
I mean where were you in 1492
Or 1942 never in the same place twice
It startled me how much the basic forms
We keep and continue to dress up
With new and interesting characters
All the old traditions of master and slave
And still Jesus comes and is born

Thursday, December 2, 2021

Birthday Valentine

Near as someone must be
Who lives inside of us
Yet far away as a touch
Or voice of greeting or goodbye
What are you dead making of us
With your invisible weaving
How will you rouse us
From sleep to see you again
Just slipping back into memory
Behind the locked door
Of your beautiful body
While we linger here
On the darker side of love
Haunted by your heart



Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Gratitude Valentine

They say your heart swells
If you're truly grateful like a balloon
It exits your mouth with a sigh
Of relief rising to join the clouds
And the birds going by slowly
So you can savor it
They say when a kindness
Comes home to you as if
From a foreign country
You start to breath again
The pure intoxicating air
Of our mountain homeland
For a moment if you dare

December Valentine

It's December here
Because November is gone
You can take it out 
Of the oven now
And let it cool on the counter
Some of the trees I remember
But most are bare as days
Largely a blur forgotten just
A few leaves saved
And those unfallen remain
To rattle on impractical
To try to save them all
Baked and eaten like bread
A scent I only recall

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Giving Day Valentine

Every morning now a mockingbird
Lands on my neighbor's roof
To get a load of me first
With her left then her right eye
Sitting here in the sunny shade
Don't you ever fly she asks
Her scolding is like an opera to me
Just lazing here in the shadowy light
Don't you see I say
You are what I dreamed of
The last bird in the world
Don't you see you conjured me
If I'm ever to fly
You must marry me

Monday, November 29, 2021

An Arborist in My Former Life Valentine

I've read all the bibles since a child
And studied the mysteries of all their trees
Oak and cedar and palm
Olive pomegranate fig
All descendants of an apple seed
But they only led me to a cross
His idea of love finally
Orchestrated as a single note ringing
When you strike the trunk with a mallet
A wooden stump on a barren hill
Or that white pine hanging from a cliff
Half-dead half-green
Greener than green has ever been
The perilous lives of trees
Who end up in a blossom

Sunday, November 28, 2021

Beyond Valentine

Will I be a murderer and thrive
Or a servant who can barely survive
Or caught between the two
Tetter from side to side
Will I find a family of theives
Or thrown down on my knees
And choked or shot or get
Lost among my options
I watched a seed float on the breeze
It looked alive and wilfull
Searching for a place to settle
I followed it for miles and miles
It led me on a merry chase
Beyond Cain and Abel

Saturday, November 27, 2021

Forgotten Valentine

If you put it that way frankly
If you tell me it's all
Very simple just listen
If you break it down again
From the beginning for me
Piece by piece I can
Get inside you maybe I can
Feel and understand
The outlines of a plan for us
What you had in  mind
Half a secret to yourself
When you said just trust me
Would I make you up and then
Just forget you love of mine

Saturday, November 20, 2021

Roaming Valentine

He sucked at sports
When he was young
Preferred the lake to sit
For hours reading by it
Or roaming the city streets
Entirely on his own
An old man in the disguise
Of an uncomfortably young body
From the first day he figured
There was something out there
Across the lake behind the faces
In a book or look that would fill
His heart with amazement
And prove he was no stranger

Friday, November 19, 2021

None's Lover Valentine

A call from None
What does None
Have to say today
It doesn't leave a message
And I don't pick up
Which says it all
None's non-commital
Echoing my hesitancy's
Dim hope to call back later
I don't want to talk
About it right now or listen
To None go on and on
Who could get a word
In anyway with nothing
Left to say

A Theory of Knowledge Valentine

The dead he knows
Are wiser than him
More useful more
Capacity for living
In a deeper way
They have gotten behind
Experience and thought
To the place they come from
Which they grow to become
They are not strangers like him
To one another despite the initial shyness
As after a long uncertain hospital stay
They come back home to regale us
With their survival and narrow escapes

Thursday, November 18, 2021

Tortured Valentine

All week he has been tortured
By the thought of an old woman
Excreting in the street one night
He stumbled on her coming home
He knew this was happening
But not to him disgust
And sorrow turned away
Did he behold her angel
In his tortured thoughts
Turning his back to her
Waiting asking can I help
Her angel answering with a sigh
And think about all the others
Neither your sisters nor brothers

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Evening Valentine

He sees now what morning is 
A metaphor for you
And for another morning
Just like this one
It stands between
Two other mornings
Whose hands replace
All other mornings
And who strive toward
The same afternoon
All that any morning
Can accomplish you are
A darkness to him
Brimming light so bright

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Returning From Heliopolis Valentine

Do you remember when you were four
Our long escape through the desert that fall
The strange excitement of the caravan
Sleeping fitfully under the stars
Our arrival at the already ancient city
Finding that little blue house and field
Behind the crumbled temple of the sun
The forest of the obelisks was gone
But the soul of Plato could still be seen
Pacing or sleeping under the palms
When we would go for walks
Breathing wisdom right out of the air
And then later on the hard trek back
So looking forward to having friends again
And to building a new kind of life

Monday, November 15, 2021

Phone Call Valentine

Later when she was older
His mother was a greeter
At a small funeral parlor
She smiled in a friendly manner
Though her heart was full of terror
When she led them to the door
And said she would see them after
But she wouldn't be going in
The dead body appalled her
She confided to the guests
One too many times 
So they had to let her go
Which she couldn't understand
She wept more than the grievers
Embarrassed to take her hand

Saturday, November 13, 2021

Better Valentine

In some prior life he must
Have paid the highest price
To deserve these beautiful days
Not without their own delusions
To compensate for the loss of heaven
For which he settled on the earth
Maybe the only place 
That would take him in
Rejected by every other planet
Apprentice his stubbornness
To the great Lord Courage
So he could dream in his old age
Of coming better days

Friday, November 12, 2021

In Which He Begs the Future Valentine

The time will come
When the woman of wisdom
And the man of love
Will dissolve into one
Self-generating person
After the long back and forth
The time will come
When there's no more hiding
Except as children play it
Much will have been settled
The days brighter the nights darker
What was matter will finally be forgiven
But the long beaches will survive

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Veteran's Valentine

He tried to keep a doctor's distance
Once he saw the world was sick
From his own disease he learned
How close to get to a diagnosis
Without turning the heart away
He lived every life he treated
In the firm knowledge
It was his own he felt
How to be nothing 
But someone else's 
Flesh and blood
How to hold the magnitude
Of healing in his hands

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Our Town Valentine

When loosey Lucy and hairy Ahry
Ran into the world to play
Wasn't it to escape their arguing parents
Weren't they both rejected as kids
Peculiar and fierce and brilliant
Twins stuck together at each other's back
Each plotting the other's surrender
Everyone knew them in the neighborhood
All their enemies were their friends
Until the day they left town
One to become a famous doctor
The other a great singer and actor
I've kept their autographs somewhere
In centuries to come
They'll be worth millions

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

November 9th Valentine

He likes to attend the fall 
Conference of the gnomes
Under the dying lantana
The ceremony of the seeds 
Being carried to their tombs
The unveiling of the Theotokos
The chanting of the drones
And then everything hurriedly packed away
Nothing emptier than an empty room
Where some mystery has been
He likes to come early
To watch the gnomes assemble
The king and queen carried in
Down the long dark corridors
And sit long after to remember

Monday, November 8, 2021

Up North Valentine (for Mary)

Earlier every night these nights
Following us around
The stars come to Arizona
To rearrange what's falling
As they must everywhere
Trying to get their story straight
From Michigan they stretch out
The absolute to the breaking-
Point and then turn up here
Hardly the worse for wear
A wizard in the woods up there
Sends me instructions and a map
That tells me what I'm seeing
Children playing on the shore
Venus still moving toward us all
 

Sunday, November 7, 2021

Lasting Valentine

Flowers come before animals or minds
They flow out of the sea of gemstones
Where the original fire is trapped
Ridiculous but colorful
To be worn or cast off
The world's first words
All vowels in a drone
Outlines of some personality's
Peculiar thing all its own
Some kind of justice for us
That the most fragile and forlorn
Be the sign and seal
Of what will last

Saturday, November 6, 2021

Mysterious Valentine (for Jess)

The mystery of the desert rose
That most surprising flower
Is that everything she touches
Turns to gold around her
She has the kind of power
That seems able to create its own
Conditions for survival
That have little to do
With where she finds herself
In the land of rattlesnakes 
And lost seas this time
Or just waiting to spring up
In the right dead heart
That could be yours or mine

Friday, November 5, 2021

Already Valentine

Those birds were already there
Swirling in the stucco air
And what looks like a sturdy bridge
Is really the back of a snake
Among waves and hills rising
On a day that's still to come
The wall holds the scene for it
So there's no need to paint it
The sun passes over of course
Bringing its ruins and palaces
Back into motion again
But those birds were already there
Coming out of nowhere 
On wings of attention

Thursday, November 4, 2021

Pretending Valentine

If you be Jacob I'll be the angel
If you be Hiram I'll be Solomon
If you be the shirt I'll be the shoulders
It won't always be this easy
As when you hid from him in shame
Your unsolved crimes fictitious names
Dividing your life into halves
Exposing its failures and lapses
But if you be you then I must too
Just in a different version
Don't worry it will only last
For a few blinding seconds
What never seems to pass

Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Left Behind Valentine

I suppose I could squeeze the planet
Into my schedule a half-hour after lunch
But when did we put the earth into a home
Early onset of dementia or is it us
Who have lost our minds
Who insist upon falling apart
Who wake up not knowing
Where we are or where we've been
When was the earth ever not us
As if we could go our separate ways
As if we were merely tourists
Trampling the ruins and temples
Of a lost people a forgotten tongue
As if we would never return

This Time's Valentine

A conspiracy of desire
Led to this fire in the mire
Where we camped out for a night
Where we stood love on a ridge
Among desolate things looked over
The one thing we had come here 
To accomplish in a moment
So secretly prepared
Through many lifetimes
Would not slip by unnoticed
This time would not be
Forgotten lost to us
We would be young again
And this time eternal

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Walking Valentine

He dreamed he was still walking
In the garden in the early afternoon
Considering that scrumptious apple
His beautiful soul was offering him
Lead us not into temptation
And yet you did just that
Weren't we still children
Sexualized before our time
But we had tasted beauty once
As an animal that lived in us
Or a plant that would return
Like a goodness after a long absence
And we would not let you again
Get away with it dear snake

Monday, November 1, 2021

Dancing Valentine

My angel keeps rescheduling
My death and then forgetting
To tell me about it
We dance around the very idea
That it matters in the least
If I show up that day or not
Or postpone it yet again
The appointment will be kept
All that's left to be done
Will have to wait in line
While they scan my passport
Ask me where I was born
And the purpose of my visit
As the secret service arrives

Sunday, October 31, 2021

Only Valentine (for Mt. Tamalpais)

His friend does not appreciate
The mockingbird's return
As much as he used to
He feels he is losing touch
With trees and says aloud
The mountain is only good
For hiking the parched gullies 
For crossing he is losing
Sight of any longing
To belong to all this
Mineral manifestation of the gods
He says only the sea can save him
His first and last love
Even if it's only a memory
Seen from a mountain top

Audition Valentine

A panoramic picture
Of the history of the earth
Hovers above his head
The not-yet stars floating out
Into the great sea space
And he can hear a woman singing
Her heart out down the street
In the background of the beginning
When the earth trembles into being
The youngest of her sisters
And the first to leave home
Defying the neighbors and the gods
With her singing alone

Friday, October 29, 2021

Pumpkin Valentine

 Brilliant.
A self-portrait? 
Where's that candle?

My Once and Future Valentine

You don't have to kneel
To plant the over-winter seeds
Hollyhock and sweet alyssum
But it is a kind of proposal
To assume a reverential posture
That the earth become a bride
A first promise to be faithful
To stay alive and loving her
Even if some of the seeds
Don't flower you planted them
It is good if your knees hurt
And your arms ache a little
That you live in constant anticipation

Thursday, October 28, 2021

Human Valentine

Every day he tries to get something done
Often not what he hoped it would be
For example to carry one word
And follow its thread so that
Whatever's going on outside
Something permanent is being
Sustained on the inside
Today's word is human
As it has been for many days
It all depends on the season
Whether the word is covered
With the snows of summer
Or the falls of spring to him
What is human is what can sing

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Overlooked Valentine

I skipped a page and had
To come back to it to find
Still nothing written here
Its blank abandoned gaze
Like the open mouth of a bird
Said feed me feed me
But I refused it words
How could I improve
The purity and silence
Of its several parallel horizons
So we just stared at one another
Blankness calling to blankness
Until suddenly the ink
Grew restless and the poor pen
Could do little to stop it
Like blood rushing from a cut
And expiring on the paper

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Whence Hummingbirds and Moths Valentine

Ingenious as a pocket
Happy as a banjo I try
To follow one leaf rocketing falling
Thrown up against the sky
With nothing to regret
It was just this one being
Among so many similar beings
Released from the cocoon of the tree
(how could hard wood unfold
Such fleshy wings)
Still every fall I have to turn
My tree around to the sun
So the side that died
Over summer can leaf again

Monday, October 25, 2021

Free As Destiny Valentine

All he could say was what he saw
Alone when he objectified himself
When he could take a striking overview
Of his life and stand in judgement of it
Among a rank of grimacing angels
Who had warned him not to go there
That the beauty and the evil of the world
Would overwhelm and tame him
Though he pleaded there was no other way
And in the end they had to let him go
Assisting from the sidelines
Crying over advice not taken
Sighing over the hard result
As when his heart was stolen
Just as they foretold it would

Sunday, October 24, 2021

Every Thursday Valentine

He wished he had a handy-man
Who every Thursday would come
And finally get something done
For this man of all thumbs
A worker bee for this drone
Who makes a list for him
Of where to dig or paint
The dripping under the sink
The gutters the broken gate
While he just sits and writes
About his service to the queen
His loyalty to the crown
His plans for a new kind of honey
Such as the world has never seen

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Transfigured Valentine

All he wanted was a little garden
Where wanting would go away
Re-absorbed into the green sheen
That keeps starting up again
Clay turtle under yellow Mums
Don't kid yourself he'd say
Mountains of years to get here
But you could still make it in a day
Dogs howling behind the gate
At a freight train creeping past
The moon for its caboose
Sitting late into the darkness
Drunk on the swirling stars
All his senses breaking loose

Friday, October 22, 2021

Mt. Tamalpais Valentine

Wide open for business
Mt. Tamalpais stirs
Enlightenment customers
An anxious queue of ants
With the sun for sale
Many fashionable colors many
Sizes with prices slashed
And planned surprises
When you reach the summit
Of the barely-climbing cost
Where kind Tamalpais moves
To give it all away
The light all wrapped and shining
Delivered in a day

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Wearing the Mountain Valentine

Don't we have work to do
And yet I find you staring
At the aspen or searching the clouds
(There are no clouds in the perfect blue)
As though you're trying to continue
Some lost dream now half-awake
What mountain are you walking
Around what old trails
Do you hope will lead you
To yourself don't you see
The one behind you and the one
Who runs ahead how your feet
Are wearing the mountain away
Old friend come home to me

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Re-Educated Valentine

So I sat in the first grade again
Our shouting valiant teacher drowning
Not waving in the tossing waves
Only the phlegmatics paying attention
I chatted with a smartly-dressed
Young man hiding in a corner
Behind a desk he'd toppled
I admired his vest and shoes
We talked of dogs and cats
I asked which painting
Of the sun coming up in the sea
Was his among the thirty
Each so wonderful and unique
Versions of it living on the walls

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Masked Madonna Valentine #2

What is the real difference
Between a veil and a mask
What keeps out and what
Keeps in protectively
The cloth on which your body
Was imprinted for example
Or the sheets where you
Were conceived or a napkin
Over the face of a newborn
Hidden one of my heart
Lady who stood for Isis
At the grocery store
One cool stare
Under so many layers

Monday, October 18, 2021

Masked Madonna Valentine

Between her floppy hat and mask
Her hearing aids and glasses
When she takes one off 
It all collapses they laugh
At her when she answers
A question that wasn't asked
The dim one in her family
Who aspires to poetry to read
To children and the dying
And the dead who are
Not really dead but earnestly
Present for her they laugh
Together taking off their masks

Friday, October 15, 2021

Seaside Valentine

A breeze rumples the umbrellas
Along the empty sunny beach
In one of those Hawaii moments
That drift in and out of my brain
The desert calls home to the sea
The desert rose drops its leaves
Until there are only a few
Pale pink flowers left
The bulbous root has eaten
All its dirt and anything
Can come into the mind
Is it because the sea knows
How to rest how to lay
A body down on sand
 

Thursday, October 14, 2021

More Day Valentine

I love how the days are in color
Thrown up on the golden screen
And the nights in black and white
Unfold their mysterious meetings
In the back alleys of dreams
I think of orange the cheerful one
Who at midnight grieves to gray
But at dawn comes streaking back
I put it down to the sun
That love does not stay
Wandering and searching for the one
Who will follow it all the way through
The darkness to the final day
Pleading for mercy for one more day

Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Song of Ascent Valentine

Some days I just have to
Make myself do things
The will of my will
Engages with some
Higher will softly
Urging me into action
I buckle with determination
Casting off gravity
Ascending from the chair
And I make me walk
Lovely from here to there
Getting something done
The table wiped clean
Something on the stove

Manifesto Valentine

The first nation I belong to
Seeks the dissolution of nations
It wishes we could have long ago become
One earth country
But clearly that will have to wait
My first religion is apocalytic
I mean just seeing one another
We are torn asunder
You invite me from myself
Or rip me apart sweetly
Until I learn to listen
Just shut up and listen
While you undress yourself
And we stand revealed together

Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Under Construction Valentine

I built my tunes on other tunes
Some stones stolen others borrowed
Taken from tombs and modern ruins
That they go not unsorrowed
And though I grinned when my towers crumbled
A crust of dust still coats my lips
From where their heights were humbled
Settling into a mound of bones
So I had to start again by touch
To read like flesh the lettered wind
And build an arch of whirling
Not of bricks but birds
Dragging my heart along
To its unwritten song

Monday, October 11, 2021

Her Valentine

Someone's motherless mother
Beautiful homeless October
Wandering and begging at corners
How can I be satisfied in the world
With the shopping-cart and rags
You leave behind the useless
Precious things you gather
The heaps of soiled grandeur
Let me sit on the side of the road
With you and ponder the asters
Let no one come to rescue us
Gone beyond words and gestures
Let all we own be scattered
It was only our love that mattered

Sunday, October 10, 2021

Beastly Valentine

Years later I still wince
Remembering how I cursed you
The lightening-bolt of my bitterness
Shocked even me
Exposing my self-satisfied
Complacency that I
Had put all that behind me
My hatred and my fear
Something demonic I still
Wrestle to contain
Poor self-pitying beast
Forgive him in your name
That through his suffering and pain
I learn to love again

Friday, October 8, 2021

When Valentine

I put my fortune back
In the cellophane wrapper
Where it said to store
The dreams of my youth
And put my chopsticks down
Friends are a valuable
Resource you read smiling
As I passed you the check
And boxed what's left
For later after a walk
It must have been a birthday
But I can't remember whose
When we had so much to say
And little time to lose

Thursday, October 7, 2021

More Valentine

With hardly any fuss or bother
Always straightening its fringe
The lake spreads out
Fresh carpets of morning light
For its amazing guests
The winged and the wingless
Who can enter freely now
The great vestibule of the abyss
Paved with amethyst and ruby
As one by one their names are called
Way out the fishing trawlers
Have already caught the darkness in their nets
But fail to see the derelict on the shore
Content to be left behind
But always wanting more

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Intervening Valentine

In the cooling narrow courtyard
Under a drooping pomegranate tree
Like a body heavy with bruises
We sipped coffee and caught up
While a mockingbird assaulted us
With its echoing repeating songs
Matching us word for word
Until we couldn't go on
It was so insistent and enthused
We sat in silent happy sorrow
For the scolding of our lives
And then it was gone
Having mended between us
Yet another wrong

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

The Beautiful Land Valentine

October is the kindest month
Turning the sky away from us
And then rushing back in a blaze
As if the sun were torn
Whether to stay or go on
Full of last-minute reminders
Intimate rains that crawl into bed
Like an exhausted traveler
Mumbling about the future
He found at the end of
What is it he says
The world and time
But here they lie down together
In sweet October weather

Sunday, October 3, 2021

New Moon in Libra Valentine

Not all leaves fall
Not all falls leave
God willing we think
But what about
Willing the good
Who fall like leaves
Loving the beautiful
Wind undressing them
Who having shone once
Are eager to fall
Remember me they ask
We went to school together
Have you forgotten it all
And everything forever

Friday, October 1, 2021

October Valentine

Our summers are like your winters
Great drifts of rolling heat pile up
Like your plowed snow and iced trees
And their silence is almost universal
As when only one bassoon is playing
And the conductor is crying
Not for the melody alone
But because he forgot to kiss
Someone on the way out the door
Your winters grieve for our summers
Our summer letters get lost in the mail
But come our springs and falls
You have to admit it's best
That everything collapses and unfolds
And finally the truth's exposed

Thursday, September 30, 2021

Reversed Valentine

Is everything on earth reversed
So as the body ages
More and more the spirit
Rages to be free
And younger and younger
It seems to grow inside
I seem at my best a child
Sitting in the circle of old lives
Explaining how the moon was made
Really from the rib of Eve
Leaving her husband behind
Until no one understands
How I could know
In her dying we stronger grow

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Toyohiko's Valentine (for Joan)

When Christ became the ruler of the sun
It was already a step down for him
But he took the ineffable with him
Preserving the legacy of his father
And found a face among his people
On which to place that gaze
His father wore waving from the door
Those confidence-bestowing eyes
Leaving all caution behind
To build a new beginning
He would call his Earth Beloved
And find a shack among the poor
Where he and his father could live
In their old age and more

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Forlorn Valentine

Out of our loneliness lust
Out of our helplessness rage
Out of our separateness fear
But still the children come
And the clouds and the sun
Still work on carrying and
Scattering the new dreams
And the cactus and the desert rose
Still speak of tender triumphs
Only the hummingbird knows
And the gods still live in the trees
And those hopes who become crows
Still caw and caw forlorn
In the hearts where love is born

Monday, September 27, 2021

Michaelmas Valentine

The two-headed dragon is everything
We don't want to become
But are unless we tame him
Or at least hold him at bay
Said the girl showing me her picture
Her vision of the angel was a red blob
Worked into a flowing cape
And the calm features of a face
Poised to strike the writhing monster
She'd scrawled in blue and yellow-brown
She's given them equal room
And drawn a thin horizon-line
Between them where
She wasn't sure the sun
Was coming up or going down

Sunday, September 26, 2021

Some Valentine

Having gotten in over my heart
Which was all about being young
I learned to steal small things
In times of need and lie
Not professionally but it
Could come in handy when
I was alone with nothing
I thought the world should share
Its reality and wealth with us
It wasn't like there wasn't 
Enough world to go around
Like that day I stole some courage
And lied like a coward later
I wanted some of everything

Saturday, September 25, 2021

Feeble Valentine

This morning's blue is so lucid
After last night's crashing rain
As if some argument had been resolved
Between earth and heaven
About going their separate ways
Is it obtuse to think of them
As lovers who struggle
To valorize each day
The blue is so pure now
The ground is so green
And me their feeble invention
Standing in between
Is it childish to feel
So grateful and relieved

Friday, September 24, 2021

Returning Valentine

When you have lived
In one place for a long time
But have visited Greece
And Paris and the Bahamas
There comes a morning
A chirping and a singing
Only you would recognize
When having crossed
The silent blazing desert
A certain insistent thrill
Returns to the empty tree
Of your mind just as you
Were ready to hang up
On the world it catches
On a twig and sways you up

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Stacked Valentine

I dreamed I was in a storage locker
At a storage site of dreams
You know one of those places
Where they give you a space
The size of a prison cell to stack
The boxes of dreams you couldn't sell
Too good to throw or give away
It's silly of us to keep them
Piled bodies sleeping in the dark
To throw good money at the dust
So old I don't remember what they are
But in this dream I was just here
To pay the bill and ask
For a new key and lock

Concentration Exercise Valentine

I don't need a real paper-clip
To see one in my thoughts
I can hold it in the back
Of my brain and move it
Horizontally around carefully
Searching for stray memories
And stacking them together
Or vertically stretched out
Like a needle probing for inspiration
From my soft spot to my throat
My mind will go anywhere it's told
But who moves it or knows
If the paper-clip will hold
Or once released from its grasp
Where its gatherings will go

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Self-Completion Test Valentine

I wanted to tell you about _____________
But __________ got in the way
It was only a question of ___________
And ____________ a ________ of a day
Or two it wasn't that _______________
At the  __________ I can say
I'm still not sure if this ______________
Is a ___________ or a __________
Our touching ___________ or __________
But I can tell you it _________________ me
Was it ______________ or
________________ you saw in me
The ___________ or the ___________
That gave me this ______________
          

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Forest Valentine

The dogs of fall return us to our noses
The smell of stars in the mossy air
While the taste of summer lingers
On our fingers the garlic and the roses
On the lake the ducks are late for mating
And the wood-paths stretch out
The promise of a yellow mood
A fading sound of wonder and relief
As represented by the rain and wind
Forcing us outside ourselves
How superficially summer lands
Now the skin is flayed away
Now we walk around the forest
Carrying our heads in our hands
 

Monday, September 20, 2021

Alone Valentine

Leaning forward head in hands
A seated woman weeping 
I found hiking in the mountains
She could have been the moon
Glowing faintly in the milky
Morning light or the crone
Of some misery following me home
But she was certainly no vision
Real tears issuing from stone
She filled a cup and made me drink
A sour flowery taste of dark loam
With bits of the bodies of bees
I spit out with racking sobs
But now that I'd found her she said
I would never be left alone

Sunday, September 19, 2021

More or Less Valentine

When I was an amateur genius
Arrogant as the river was green
And strode the polluted cities
Of my dreams I could still be
A timid student of the stars
Where lived my kith and kin
That I could read my way to glory
And still come back to my earthly life
Transformed by the example
So now I live in two worlds
So completely I can't chose which
As if between two children
I could love one more
Or tell one from another less

Saturday, September 18, 2021

Home Valentine

You ask if I can follow you
To the car-detailing shop
And on the way home we can stop
For breakfast or pull off and stare
At what they've done to the river
What river you ask and follow
It with that drive-by smile 
That still leaves me taken
You ask if you are following
Me to hell now we are lost
Haven't I taken the wrong left
No your other left you moan
We together forever
Cruising home alone

Friday, September 17, 2021

Aesopian Valentine

She had fallen on her back
Unable to right herself
A shiny black beetle
Waving her six frantic legs
In the air when a yellow
Butterfly stopped by to shout
I'll run for help but never returned
The red hibiscus watched all this
But couldn't lift a leaf or speak
Until at last a sparrow came by
To carry her to its brood
For which the beetle was so grateful
To be realized as food
To have taken so large a leap
On her way back to God

Thursday, September 16, 2021

Even You Valentine

To reach the point you begin to see
Death cannot be our real destiny
That death is the boogie-man under the bed
The part of us we love to fear
What is scarier than love
To love the thing you fear
To come to the place you start to sway
Between two worlds two dreams
Separated by your own personal abyss
Every morning every night
To have perceived the little man
Who hangs with his arms outstretched
Holding back the sun and the moon
So even you can pass

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

All You Valentine

All you I get to love
Who believed me as a child
When I made up the world
Sweet or stern yes or no
Who blessed me as a friend
And carried me through the waves
Forgive me in my old days
For not getting to know you enough
Full of my old lameness and doubt
You suffered through but thrilled
There is still time unlimited
And still space unbound
Where we can sit and talk
All you I get to love

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Dusty Valentine

Little moth of light
Combing the ceiling night
Little rainbow shards
Darting around the room
Dust of infinite stars
Settling on my face
Laughter coming from the furniture
The floor gets up to dance
Let me join you falling
And rising swirling beings
Airborne and looking for a life
And never still not finding it
And not ever quite resolved
To have just one brief life

Monday, September 13, 2021

Moon's Valentine

When the moon left the earth
And was caught in its orbit
It was like a lighthouse raised
A point of entry and departure
A little boat of glowing light
Carrying the dark sun
Growing brighter and brighter
As more passengers came onboard
Until it was full to overflowing
A deep brilliance free of the earth
With a pure longing to sail on
But when the moon returned to the earth
Its light got caught in the churning waves
Sinking all its cargo of death and birth

Saturday, September 11, 2021

Undeserved Valentine

It wasn't the war
Terrible as it was
But that despite
The enormity of it
No one cared
To face the causes
No one would own
How it began
Buried in the rubble
Each blow an excuse
For another attack
But one man just
Stood there silent
Letting death rain
Down upon him
What no one deserved
He accepted as fate
And knew love would win

Past Valentine

What can I do with my past
Stacked up like luggage by the door
Where do you think you're going you ask
Leaving this tangled mess behind
For someone else to sort your clothes
Having disposed of your body
Swept the patio locked the gate
And what have you forgotten to pack
Did you think you were going without me
Did you feel you would never be back
The past is so vast and small
And most of it hidden or lost
How many more lives must it take
For the future to remember it all

From Valentine

From the bottom of my feet joy
From the edges of my fingers anger
From the turnings of my eyes wonder
From the top of my head sadness
From the way you look at me levity
From the way the world looks back gravity
From the crater of my heart a cup
From the river of my brain
Overflowing or dry as dust
From where you are listening to me
Tasting me on the tip of your tongue
From where I am touching your face
From where I am unafraid undone 

Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Childish Valentine

Riding the body with my airy thoughts
And trying to cultivate a big heart
For whatever seems to be going on
And at the same time feeling secluded
Here on the tropical island of myself
Where supplies run short
And no boat comes sometimes
I rarely sleep at night anymore
The stars next door loud coupling
Or arguing about the future
My unhappy parents
Forgive me if it's not too late
To grieve for your childhoods
And to thank you for my own

Monday, September 6, 2021

Reflected Valentine

Beauty proves the body
Is a transitional object
A bridge or doorway to the mystery
As it unfolds through the centuries
How it invokes the eye and ear
With its flashes of lightening
The still evolving blood
Touched by an inner light
With planetary implications
The body mirroring the body
Of the stars and sun as one 
But how the body loves the moon 
The first place love can happen



Sunday, September 5, 2021

Whenever Valentine

At nine I met a beautiful boy
The one I wanted to be
But he rejected me
At nineteen I married my ideal
A wooden statue of the Virgin
At a time in her life when
She could still understand me
At thirty-nine I parked the car
Lost on some mountain road
Overwhelmed I'd got this far
Some time later I saw
How easily overwhelmed
I had been whenever
Beauty approached me
I was who I wanted to be

Thursday, September 2, 2021

Blue Paper Valentine

Some thought-knots
Are so tightly tied
How stupid can I be
Only the heart-knife
Can cut through them
Or working its deft fingers
Carefully ease it apart
Like a present I unwrap
Wanting to save even the blue paper
And the immaculate foil stars
Lifting from the layered box
As from a tomb my life in pieces
And there at the bottom a little
Tube of glue to put it back together

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Neighborly Valentine

How can we fetch ourselves back
To sanity all couples ask
Where will we find the place
Of agreement beyond all
Disagreement families want to know
Is it kids not listening to their parents
Or parents not listening to their kids
At midnight the paramedics showed up
To take my neighbor's body away
Two policemen whispered outside my window
I only spoke to him or saw him
Actually a few times in twenty years
He was a man who lived alone like me
And did I once think to bring him cookies
Or he once to bring me a beer

Monday, August 30, 2021

All Photographs Are Lonely Valentine

Today is so still so strict
Breathing seems intrusive
The clouds concrete slabs
The trees transfixed as paint
The stop-light stopped at red
And I alone walking the empty streets
Where have you all gone
Following the crying out of town
People of the earth
To some festival or grave 
And left me in this photograph
Where calm has finally come
Where nothing moves or needs to
And nothing can be done