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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 ______________

          

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 

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

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

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

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

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