Wanted Valentine

Fish tacos at Rubio's outdoors

Because it's 72 degrees in winter

And the world is out of joint

And apparently spring can't wait

To tear open its Christmas presents

Yes just what it wanted

One clear warm day with you

With rice and beans and avocado

Not a cloud in the sky while you

Regale me with schadenfreude

And the on-going apocalypse

Dressing dripping from you lobster taco

None of your licked fingers lost to me

Nothing spring hasn't already tasted

Damascus Valentine

Through the mixed blessing of the internet

Yesterday's gift was to come across

Breughel's 'Conversion of St. Paul'

Because it was his birthday and all

His huge family of painters

Had come from every gallery

And warehouse of the world to celebrate

This one life-changing moment with me

All of us staring and searching

For Paul's small blue body 

Overwhelmed on the ground

As if at the bottom of a deep

Well of soldiers and travelers

Who had heard a voice but seen nothing

Seventh Generation Valentine

Boys who have only one mother

Often search out several fathers

Girls who have only one father

Often adopt many mothers

It's the missing pieces

In the collection of a person

That only a parent can give

Either a curse or a blessing

And not to hold them responsible

For our own self-creation

Sons who only know their fathers

Learning to father their own daughters

And mothers the dear lost mothers

With whom we are never done

Unfinished Valentine

There was a time back then

When I could have read

The whole Bible end to end

When I could have covered

All the 16th century sonnets

Or at least in the original Greek

Recite a Sappho fragment

Or a strophe of the Odyssey

Instead I took the survey course

Of life and dabbled at the feast 

Not really finishing anything

Craving only some of everything

And everything of some

Wouldn't We Valentine

I keep forgetting it's only

Curiosity and love

That keeps everything coherent

Without our skin and bones

Which hold us in one place

Wouldn't we be airy creatures

Somewhere between birds and angels

Between fog and rain

Wouldn't we blend into

Our surroundings of light

Surviving on darkness and dust

Somewhere between bats and butterflies

Between floating and blue sea

Between stasis and flight

Byzantine Valentine

Emperor of all for a few days

While still a boy the product of incest

Then his nose cut off and

His mother's tongue removed

Exiled to Rhodes where they

Lived a fairly comfortable life

According to all accounts

We have to go with what

We've got all this while enjoying

The art of the building of churches

I like to think after his mother

Died he became a monk

Having played his part in history

He could afford a better life

November Valentine

Today the wind arrives

Like a slow late train

Out of the north snow

Where it rises

Sweeping the stars

Out of history speeding

Past the stations

To darker sky destinations

Today the wind demands

It take you with it see

It shudders to a gate

Where you must board

Invisibility and soar

And brush the earth to gold

Life-Size Valentine

The blue rooster standing on my table

Has Jesus eyes that follow me around

A reject even at Goodwill

They let me have it for a dime

The kind of porcelain produced in thousands

Out of which only a few survive

But to have painted it blue

Spiky comb and rippling tail

Blue patches on a white ground

Makes me smile back

At the one who painted it

A young woman or an old man

Inspired by another blue sky

Dreaming of a dime a piece

And getting the eyes just right

Thanksgiving Valentine

Who will count the fields of pumpkins

The feasts and forgotten presents

The bell going off at the end

The hearts and flowers the fireworks

The funerals and beaches

Who will tally up the weddings the divorces

The car crash near misses

The bumpings into someone on the street

The shifting-shuffling of the feet

Who will read to us another story

Not the one we want to hear

Who will sing to us of glory

Not the song we heard last year

Not the empty hope of fear

Having It Both Ways Valentine

While time flies south in coach

Eternity prefers a walking stick

And a good pair of mountain boots

A cold fire in thick woods

And even if time arrives

Days before enough to spend

Lounging by the ocean

Reading books watching surfers

Eternity trudges on losing its way

Sometimes forgetting where it's going 

Free of destination full of purpose

Making steady progress every day

But we all just get old as time

While eternity stays young and fresh

Waiting Valentine

Sitting in the sun in heaven

On a cold day too hot

In front too chilly in the rear

I wonder what I'm doing here

In what appears to be

A roofless waiting room

Shivering and sweating 

Being drained of matter

The few virtues I have

Stashed away won't cover

The cost of the treatments

They say I need before

Ready or not they'll have to

Whisk me off to spirit land

Some hut on a distant star

My Two Loves Valentine

Even if it is all about me

An egoism that subsumes the world

Always placing itself at the center

Of things vaguely sensing the other

Ones standing there embarrassed

For me jealous for it to be

All about them I suppose

Even if it's all about you

Which I would equally enjoy

So I am blotted out

And completely taken in

By you so lit-up and fine

Saved from one love by another

Even if it's only mine

Or Not Valentine

When I have forgiven myself enough

For not having forgiven you more

For having opened up and slammed the door

And run off in a huff

For scorning and dismissing you 

And wiping you with the floor

Not kind not civil not polite

When I have torn you limb from limb

Excised your tongue and slit your throat

And left you in the snow to rot

And taken back your winter coat

Don't tell me there is nothing to forgive

If you have done me even more

Whether out of love or not

Are Numbers Beings Valentine

When you do the numerology of it

The roots the stems the flowers

Each taking about 1200 years

And all this springing up out of the minds

Of numerous minerals pure and objective

Who tear themselves apart

Silently dissolving you come

To develop a different sympathy

For trying to figure out the code

Your forgotten birthday password
But the added numbers only open up

To the astrology page the stricken stars

Your shy reflection shivering among them

Unknowable Valentine

My little meetings with the unknowable one

Go often undetected due to my absences

The forces of gravity pulling me

Out of myself and the revenge 

Of childhood pulling me back in

Everything can be known

So eagerly I take lifetimes

Weighing up what's small and big

Impressed by the light all around me

But he remains unknown

The only secret that's actually kept

Except he had a son in the end

And tried to be a good father

And hold his tiny hand

Dancing Valentine

Fools and little children

I have suffered

To come onto me

I scooped them up

And we danced around

Until we fell upon the ground

We suffered through 

Our crazy laughter we tried

Not to make a sound

Stay hidden in our places

But our fears grew into our faces

Spinning round and round

A future fairy-tale we wove

Out of foolish childish woes

Geographic Valentine

What landscapes attract what people

What people are deposited on what landscapes

What people prefer what season

What season has only one landscape

Twenty questions as I wind uphill

Through granite outcrops silent woods

And stop to catch the little town

Spread like lichen on the ground

Far below the castle ruin

Doesn't the climate like a mood

Give rise to a certain kind

Of mind or bird grown together

With the landscape doesn't the sun

Settle the seasons of the moon

Daily Valentine

If we can be anything it's stubborn

But the quandary is which

Stubbornness will win the day

The one we use against ourselves

Or the one that turns into persistence

Patient practice of the elusive

Perfection of our instruments

Even if no one is listening

To our ode to joy agonizingly

Insisting on each and every note

Nor pretending the recital

Isn't coming and there will be

Our parents and angels attending

Color Valentine

Color is language before it became words

Or music or a listener.  It is as close as the light

Can come before it turns into the sound

Of a person, all these moods a person can be.

Siblings who live in one household, quarreling

And loving, each with its own peculiar power

To stand alone or to give itself away. 

If we can speak of them objectively at all,

As if they were not our ancestors and

Ultimate destination, it is only because

They speak through us their own language

Before it was vowel or tongue or taste

When life was just starting up again

With only these colors to work from

 

                               

Far Valentine

Yes I was drawn to Rome

But only as a Greek raised

In Egypt among the tombs

Yes I love the Seine and the Rhone

And that holly-tree in Zurich

Red with berries by the church

But how can there be nostalgia

For the holy places I've never been

Here in the new world at last

Dissatisfied to repeat the past

But yes I still want that garden in Venice

Here in my wilderness backyard

And to see the hidden city of Great Kitezh

Lifting above the horizon like a sun

Upon A Time Valentine

Having expunged the busy fairies

From the fairy-tales and woods

Having blamed the step-mothers 

For the mother's sins and turned

Her into a witch who thinks

All the magic is hers even then

They don't stop at mocking

The gods and the little people

But put their daughters in cages

And turn their sons into stones

Until only a flower can free them

From the noisy spell of the world

The cowslip or the maiden's breath

That grew here once alone

Dependent Valentine

With just a tiny tweak

This could all be perfect

With just a little shove

We could come to love

Or in a sudden second

Turning on a dime

The sun could darken

Relieving us of time

It all depends

On what surprise upends

What settled notion

On what great stone

Is lifted from the ocean

And placed in the heart again

Alive Valentine

An amazing peacefulness descended

On my little street this morning just

As I was coming back into my body

Coasting between the houses and trees

Landing my rickety plane of bones

In the right warm bed and dream

And I could feel the whole street

Bathed in a yellow celestial light

A stillness lasting almost an hour

Then out of nowhere a buzz-saw

Started up down the way moaning

Attacking a palm tree and gnawing

And the thud of its falling

Sent the Seraphim sprawling

And raised me alive from my bed

Remembrance Valentine

Staring back at my almost eighty years

There is not a single soul I've known

From whom I would not beg a pardon

Nor a single one to whom I would

Not give my own I promise

In memory we meet again

Except I have forgotten some

Of your names and faces covering up

The harm too glaring I did you

Out of a sometimes evil impulse

I have still not learned to master

In memory we will meet again

But then for the first time

And I will get to know you better

My Bloody Valentine

There is no good place

You can cut your face

Where the blood won't stop flowing

These marvelous crimson drops

Your fingers can't clot

As your panic starts growing

But let's just stand here and bleed

And watch where it's going

This trickle that turns into a creek

And builds to a flood

And leaves you floating in the mud

What does it want

Loosed monster crying child

But to consume this world

Homeless Valentine

What really happened to the ancient gods

Who lived so deeply once in the souls

Of the strange people of Susa and Ur

Inanna and sweet Tammuz and Erishkigal

Finally forced to flee in every direction

Does a god not get to grow up

Swimming out further into a starry sea

To float back as a Venus or a Mary

Strolling the shores of Galilee

Hearing the voice of a Christ

The first of many Christs to follow

In his footsteps like sweet Tammuz

Who abandoned his temples and rites

Thrown out to the wolves

To live on in the fields and the breeze 

79 Valentine Way

Why can't I have my way

I can have my way

I start to question my way

How can I find my way

I can get out of my way

Having seen there are two ways

My way or the highway I chose

The way that runs through

The low ways and the by-ways

Where we stopped to live in the old way

In the old woods tucked away

To find a new way

A child's way

Why can't I have my way

Hardened Valentine

Sometimes the truth must seize

Upon the thing and shake it hard and then

Look up at you with pleading eyes

Sometimes a terrifying hurricane

Must rip the house apart

And leave you barely breathing

But it doesn't have to be this way

That I must do terrible things

Or you could just have loved me

When I came into this scary world

The worrisome weight of my existence

Needn't have led to this destruction

If you had only loved me

Motherfucker

I Call It I Valentine

Or what should we call

That little hole

That started out

So empty somehow

And worked so hard

To fill it with ourselves

Like a pocket stuffed

With gold coins or fool's gold

We stack in piles

Like in that bedtime story where a child

Is turned into a seed and buried

In a hole in the ground

Or in one of the holes of memory

So many to choose from

Cleaved Valentine

I found a stone from which

A heart had been broken off

It sat alone with its gaping face

All the blood drained black

An open mouth even the scream

Had abandoned long ago

Really it looked like a lost shoe

A tired old woman's dirty clog

Left behind for whomever

She was running from or to

I put my foot on that stone

And stumbled forward and fell

The way lovers part

Living without a heart

Contemporary Valentine

I get it how we were the Egyptians

In our former lives and loves

But the more I hear about the pharaohs

The more I want to meet the slaves

Or at least the ordinary people

Not since they imagined the hieroglyphs

Has the picture-language of our lives

Been more preoccupied with death

Not even counting the Middle Ages

Their empty tombs and temples 

We're converted into banks and

Celebrity events while meanwhile

Each trained scribe has his own

Unique style and nameless signature

But the story's still all about death

And the new mysteries of the after-life

Which still have to be deciphered

Catalogued and stored and lost

All Souls' Day Valentine

Once with a clairvoyant friend

We drove up to the spring at Hoteville

In Hopi-land because another friend

Had painted it and we wanted

To see the real one for ourselves

In the painting you could see

She saw it was a holy place

Where one could stand in reverence

As the sun rose or set

And the light blazed the water

As one could only do it in a painting

We wanted to see if we could still

Feel it too not the past despoiled

But the distant sacred future

All Saints' Day Valentine

Like a door closing on me in a womb

The warm blankets of my dark nap-time

Both bored and overwhelmed by this world

Settling into my sweet-spot in the bed

Like in kindergarten on my paper mat

Listening to the rumblings under the floor

Or reconstructing today's fairy-tale

How could that silly girl not see

The wolf in her grandma's nightie

Or what my three wishes might be

Right now as I enter that other world

In my childish death of sleep

But to run and greet my dead parents

Who come to get me just in time

To send me back to this hungry world

Just as I was getting used to theirs