Halloween Costume Valentine

When we last caught sight of the grail

Standing around in our armor and swords

Each of us in our own ruined castle

And felt the light descend into the lifted chalice

And the bell's toll echo in our blood

And then the long withdrawal of the angels

(Why can they not stay with us)

And after all this nothing more wonderful

Nothing more profound and sublime

How can our king still not be cured

We can hear his moaning miles away

How can we just be left to return

To our petty crusades and jousts

And watch the world burn

Facing It Valentine

I think the face must be 

The most responsible part of the body

It must receive the impacts first

Of everything that happens

So it all gets written down

And it's the one who has to turn

And tell the rest of the body

What can be revealed

About what it all means

Before the heart tastes it

Or the limbs try to struggle free

Or the blood dances joyfully

The last part of us to be born

And the first to bid farewell

Some Loves Valentine

Lots of what I thought was best

Turned out to be the worst

My double doubled back on me

Some blessings were a curse

Some loves got worse and worse

Until all love was lost

Which was no love at all

But turned out for the best

Our lives were crossed with crosses

And a sprinkling of stars

I found I loved

The ingenuity of love itself

Dance-master task-master

Who never counts the cost

Even Then Valentine

Last night I dreamed a strange

Documentary about ancient Egypt

With its 130 pyramids and Sphinx

How far away from them and yet

Entering their sunlit temples on TV

The serious business of mummification

While the narrator fingers their bones

Curled into a fetal position

A whole people without the fear

Of death this life but a preparation

For the next immortal one

Even before the Bible

They recognized resurrection

And that even in the after-life

You would need your clothes

Your jewels and throne

A Portrait Of The Air By A Lake In Autumn Valentine

The ego the I and the self

Three gallant brothers or sisters

Or one lonely brother and two beautiful sisters

Or one dull sister and two rough brothers

But who could mother or father 

Love or further them

Triplets born out of wedlock

One a long-legged princess

One an antiquities scholar

And the other the one

They both wanted to be

Someone finally free

Of a you and a me

A breath of fresh air

I Am In Me Valentine

Slowly getting over the sense

That all I am is me

When there is so much

More to be glad to be

Me and not someone else

And yet a little petrified

No pun intended I love

Making fun of me

Proud of my humility

Big about my littleness

Not serious but true

When it's hard to be me

An image but no likeness

Slowly becoming you

Catching Sight Of My Soul Valentine

Dark as my shadow is my soul

Thrown down before me by the sun

Walking behind me warming my back

And when I turn to face the light

It blinds and passes through me

Into that form that follows fast

The pliant image of my body

Pierced by the rays of light

The outline of the darkness I contain

Cast down and creeping on the ground

But then at noon and at midnight

My shadow absorbs or is absorbed

By a momentary eclipse of light

So my soul can step free from both

One with the sun and the earth

Stone Valentine

These multi-layered mountains

Of history pushing themselves

Upright from the interior

Of the earth whose outer

Surfaces we ascend and

Sleep in the crevices of stars

Or dig down into to explore

The shores of hidden rivers

Where great armies once camped

Until they were eaten by their wars

Or finally out of breath and helpless

Breach the summit of the highest

Things that can be known

And find the one foundation stone

Always On Schedule Valentine (for Mary)

Exercising their primordial rights

In the vast government of the stars

The great clock-keepers and tricksters

With their little hands appear

To shift the gears of Mars in fall

And trim the moon's bright sail

Tacking into the wind and rain

But always in sight of land

Ferrying off the dead with singing

Bringing back the barely living

While way out there in the cosmos

That only a mind can reach

A little door is swinging

Where it passes out of time

Blue Day Valentine

If clouds are really plants

In their first manifestation

Before they dive down headfirst

And get locked into the ground

And their ragged edges harden

Into leaves and secret flowers

If clouds are really animals

In their future orientation

As simply thirst and motion

The lost children of desire

Then there is promise for us stones

To resume our ancient burning

To cast again a molten sea

Into a cloud of knowing

It's Valentine

It's a Friday that feels like a Saturday

It's a dream that feels like reality

It's a fall that feels like spring

It's a dying that feels like being born

It's an urgent call from Unavailable

It's someone coming who never shows up

It's four birds flying together

Peacefully in hot pursuit

It's a child at a crosswalk

The light flashing red and red

It's just me honey turning in bed

Hearing you talk in your sleep

Listening to you proclaim to me

The garbled secrets of the deep

Veil's Valentine

Does she not spread her protecting veil

To receive the dead of her struggling people

Does she not attend every funeral

And sit at the edge of every mass grave

Does she not play with the children at recess

And stand in line with them for lunch

In their hungry schools surrounded by bombs

Does she not hum along with the old women

Folding laundry and pondering the mystery

Of evil and the purposes of cruelty

Does she not whisper in the ears of the generals

And shine courage into the soldier's blood

Does she not stand on every hill

No silent icon but her people's very soul

Now That Valentine

Now that we know you're really here

Living with us on a daily basis

Watching the films of our dreams

Observing our delusions and fits

Of conscience and thirsty hearts

All that we hide from ourselves

And you the most hidden

Other side of our lives

You who live now in the sunlight

And dark midnights of our minds

Explorer and pioneer of lost worlds

Co-conspirator of loves yet to be born

Now that our time has come and passing

Let us be conscious partners in our work

The restoration of the earth our home

Back To The Cave Valentine

Isn't it true in freezing fall

The human brain can burst

Into flame when the blood rubs

Two crazy thoughts together

And smoke and light bloom

Along the neural branches

Against the cold of reason

Which left to its own device

Draws us further onto the ice

But luckily the heart's a cave

Where the thoughts can return

From distant stars and planets

To warm their hands and feet

With memories yet to burn

What's Left Valentine

I'm afraid my red hibiscus

Has developed a black disease

While the yellow one not far away

Is flourishing and green

Purple flowers cover the yard

I let go with patches

Of matted grass and bare ground

Where nothing grew

Last night's storm broke

Summer's back what's left

Is just the dying

The cutting of it all down

The piling of it all up

And the emptiness shining

Sculpture Valentine

If you put yourself in the place

Of the central figure you can feel

What striding is the forward

Purposeful thrust of his will

And if you get behind those searching eyes

Maybe you can tell where he's heading

Looking neither right nor left

What his heart has fastened on

What one thing occupies his mind

In time for some apppointment

He must keep or cry

Of wolves among the sheep

Or is it you yourself his blazing I

Strides so eagerly to meet

Invisible Valentine

When he returned

She asked what treasure

He had found

The sea he said

But I couldn't bring it

With me so I plunged

Right through it

It refreshed me so

I emerged feeling immortal

Nothing and everything

Which lasted for an hour

But what about the sun

She asked my curious angel

Here I picked it for you

Just a flower

How Valentine

Because he ate the blessed apple

Several of them actually

It was their beauty he was after

And yes they tasted sweet

It came on suddenly the dreaded

Disease at four in the morning

Waking him with arrows of pain

Tearing in and out of his head

His body on the rack

He took two pills and woke

In the morning feeling much himself

But that was just the rushed overture

Of a whole symphony of suffering

With brief intermissions gasping for air

It was in the adagio movement

He wondered if disease might compensate

For egotism for how can we be good

If we won't face the evil we create

A Record Of Holy Things Valentine

We talked and laughed over lunch

A quiche and salad and cold water

In her marvelous blooming garden

Where three birdbaths and several feeders

Drew a variety of colorful birds out of the woods

I was amazed to see so many in one place

But she knew all their names and habits

And showed me the dog-eared notebook

She'd kept for over forty years

Of the dates of the arrivals and departures

Of I forget how many different species

Native to her mountain climate

Pointing out the days when the hermit thrush

For example would come and sing and go

Always about the same times each spring

But this year it didn't appear

She said it felt like a friend

Had ghosted her and took it as the end

Of all she held close and dear

Mistaken Valentine

In the fifteenth movement of his

Unfinished Fall Prelude and Fugue

In F# major I felt he had flown

Completely out of his tree

I mean the notes had taken over

And were playing him

The instrument of their urgency

Trilling and whistling compulsively

The emergency of his aloneness

The history of some catastrophe

Or maybe I listened all wrong

Taking for madness and loss

What was in fact no Calvary cross

But his most exultant joyful song

Fall In The Air Valentine

What is it in the fall we feel

When our bodies come back to us 

As if we were just waking up

After summer's lucid dreaming

Is it that the air is breathable again

Or that we'll be missing out on some

Important meeting we've been

Hoping for if we don't hurry up

We rush toward the world's

Unraveling with a strange enthusiasm

The more it fades the more alive

We feel inside ourselves

And slowly it dawns on us

The utter foolishness of death

Instructed By Stars Valentine

Don't you think it's a lot curious

That our earliest ancient families

Who lived so close to the starry worlds

Went to all that trouble to leave behind

These circular temples of stone

As if our species started out

With a great store of intimate wisdom

That slowly deteriorated over time

So now we dismiss them as primitive

But how could those stones stand up

Without schools of deep awareness

Behind them without knowledge

Of the secrets of life in carvings

That slip from their hands to ours

Still struggling to comprehend

Pushing Back On Time Valentine

This year we begin again

With the second seven hundred year

Cycle of three new periods

Of what began in 1500 with machines

And culminates around 3600

Even if my math is fuzzy

Everything in the mirror of history

Is exact down to the last moment

Doesn't something of an ancient two o'clock

Reincarnate today and dissolve tonight

A moon thrown out and then pulled back

Yet nothing repeating the same

Someone every second changes everything

As drip by drip love overcomes time

After The End Valentine

Hung for All Hallows Eve

The spider-webs fill with leaves

A gust hurls the red umbrella

Into the pomegranate tree

A tornado is sighted miles away

Shape-shifting dragon flicking his tail

Threatening to eat the children first

Who scurry home with empty sacks

Then hail-stones salt the fields

The clouds of doom descend

From heaven warriors sweep

The world is finally at an end

Except that morning comes again

And through it all I find I've slept

Michaelmas Valentine

It seems that yellow butterfly

I watched in summery California

Has followed me back to Arizona

Filling my yard with its huge aura 

The golden light of autumn

Arrayed in final purple flora

Aren't these the Easter colors

Having risen now must die

For nature is our mother-mirror

Reflecting then reversing fallen sky

Her likeness-given-life taken away

Her solitude resumed consumed

Bending softly toward winter's tomb

And leafless creatures such a I

Also Valentine

A marine layer creeps in

Over the continent of my mind

While a restless yellow butterfly

Floats hypnotically back and forth

And then dissolves in the darkness

To the after-image of a luminous blue

That pulls me into it to sleep

And wake alone on a distant star

A dream in which I am appalled

To view a living picture of myself

My fear my lust my scorn

Which finally my tears dissolve

But I have also loved I cry

And still hope to be reborn