Gino's Valentine

When he was only twelve he happened

On a bookstore and drifted in a trance

To a dusty shelf of titles he knew at once

He 'd stumbled on the mother-lode of wisdom

He was far from his native language

His family torn apart barely enough

Money for keeping alive let alone books

But whenever he could he'd come

To that little corner in the back of the shop

And take down one of those books

Smoothing the dust away with his fingers

And open it randomly and read

Just a paragraph or two letting it sink

Into his soul like drops of water

His parched lips slowly drinking it all

Garden Valentine

Last night asleep I planned a flower garden

For a large rectangular empty space

Out of all the gardens I've never made

This would be my masterpiece

Isn't it really all about the timing

Of the colors and the weaving into

One another of the local seasons

But nothing too contrived

The soil is the soul of things

I leave the weather to the gods

I imagine a few hidden rooms

Along a path leading to a clearing

Where a few loaded apple trees

Await our eager choosing

19th Interview For Death Valentine

Now that you've completed the external screening

The background check and required blood-work

And met the upper echelons our shining lights

And somehow satisfied their endless questions

Though a few of your responses seemed

A little sketchy and I must tell you

There's an archangel on the fifth floor

Still demanding we re-review a few

Of your obvious qualifications

But now the process can proceed to states

Of anxiety or indifference as you wait to hear

Just know that our communication is slow

And the competition stiff and constant

But just between us my dear I'm sure

You'll knocked it soaring out of the park

Once Friends Valentine

Out for my walk

I stop to wait

For a finch to drink

Some leftover rain

A cautious nervous thing

Is it ever sure it's safe

To bend and lift its head

To take a single drop

Out of the brimming pail

Another and another

Its existence is such a marvel

And yet I'm hurt that we are

Now estranged once friends

And fluttering and helpless must

Insist upon such distance

Paradiso In Exile Valentine

I think I write these verses

Because I'm too embarrassed

To remain still or silent

In the presence of beauty

And just start to babble

I drop my glasses and step

On them doing a stifled dance

To make her/him/it smile

I try to change the subject

I try harder not to stare

I wonder what Dante would say

When even he was speechless

When his love sent him away

To speak more than a passing glance

Thinking Valentine

To think the world swims through my head

And then turns to look back at itself

Pushing aside my narrow view of it

So it can behold its entire self

We keep changing places with one another

Like children spinning till they're dizzy

Throwing off their bodies and falling

Wide-eyed helpless in the grass

To think the world is so much younger

Than I look more comfortable

In its body like a mountain or an ocean

Falling through my thoughts

To think we fit inside one another

And what I make of it it makes of me

So precise the soul's geography

Some Angels Valentine

Some angels among us 

Are never tactless as I can be

Black-belts of calm and courtesy

They try to set a good example

And because they keep

Their fears in check

Rarely see the need for anger

Mostly they are sober

And cheerful their visits

Brief and to the point

And leave me feeling both

Chastened and heartened

Like just right now a passing finch

Scolded me with his lovely song

And showed me how to get along

Let Us Valentine

Let us lift up our flaming swords of love 

Into the heights of the farthest stars

And into the depths of the darkest moments

Let them sear through our grandiosity and pain

That even such a sword exists

If we can just imagine it ourselves

As heroes of some childish play

Our armor a black cardboard box

Our tinfoil helmets flashing in the lights

Standing in the silence of forgotten lines

But just then we remember to lift them up

Our flaming swords of love

And for a few moments we are good

And everything around us better

Inside Out Valentine

Here we have sweet oranges in winter

Instead of snowflakes and frozen lakes

Tall palm trees that glisten in the sun

Instead of icicles and blanketing gray

Billowing clouds that come to stay

Your white winters are our green springs

Struggling to survive on chilly nights

That rise to blooming afternoons

While you descend to darker depths

But woe come summer here

When the heat evaporates our souls

And we are caught between bliss

And despair praying for rain

To plump the oranges up again

Some Say The World Will End In A Word Valentine

Is there a hierarchy of words

Where some are more powerful than others 

Or are all words slaves to saying

Out of all the languages aren't there words

Longing to find a common voice

A new speech free of constraints

Words that shape the bodies 

That speak them words as beings

Bestowing life on death

Words killed by too much speaking

Words lost with no one to speak them

Words not afraid to finally be spoken

Words we can never hear enough of

Words that dare to speak of love

Brief History Of Words Valentine

Words were born as simple sounds

That outlined pictures in the air

Before they grew up to become epics

Back in the day only the gods

Had words often the same

Word endlessly repeated

While we mute animals

Could only listen to their babble

What a human is to a horse

An angel tries to teach a name

But if you give us speech we said

You'll take away our innocence and passion

But the words wouldn't listen

As they fell into our mouths

And words became the flesh of gods

Unforgettable Valentine

How will I ever remember my former lives

If I can't even remember what happened last month

Out there on my ocean of forgetting

A few fishing boats still gather

I can only hope for from the shore

That it will all come back to me

The last time as a surprise

The faces with their lost names

The yes that's it exactly

No longer blurred or hazy

And not just what happened

But the hidden workings

That went on behind them

So nothing gets forgotten

How Long Valentine

It occurs to me that if Africans

Had never been brought to the Americas

By so many ignominious means

And the native peoples weren't already here

White people would never learn

What real democracy could be

And even if by some soul alchemy

The colors were switched I wonder

Would prejudice still survive

Brotherhood still evade our grasp

The original myth that I am better than you

Or can be made so by money or power

At the basis of all violence and hate

How long will it struggle against common sense

Because Valentine

Because the sun was in the sky

Flashing his ruby breast

A hummingbird came close enough

To look me in the eye

And fly off unimpressed

Because the sun was in the sky

And the air pristine

From yesterday's rain

And I had nothing to do or say

But startled and under arrest

By that peculiar bird

Who lay no claim

But took me as I am

And left me feeling blessed

Spring Valentine

How rain and snow are distributed

In the brain how heat and air

Compete with them in the blood

How this arrangement into veins

Urged to swell their banks

Is held back by the dam of the heart

So the winters are warmed

And the summers cooled

And the soul can live apart at times

From the weathers of the world

In its little cabin of rainy thoughts

And fiery feelings and wait

For the sun inside to arrive

And the real greening to start

Bird Hitting the Window Valentine

It's hard not to be continually thinking of yourself

Carrying this body around when the voices

Keep saying your selfish when some of those voices

Don't seem to have your own best interests in mind

Like standing in the middle of a stadium

With thousands of languages coming at you

Trying to tell you what to do

All of which you have to blot out

Until you can only hear your own 

Poor heart beating calmly

Having overcome your fear

Of being who and how you are

Enough not enough

A bird that comes and goes

Often Valentine

Often these dreams I'm standing on the shore

Looking out on the glittering body of the sea

Wondering how I'll ever get out there

To that island hovering just above

The cloudy edge of things

And wondering why I would want

To go there so much and how

I'll find a boat to take me there

Or an old man who speaks the language

And can lead me to the little town

Where I must have been born

To my first family and friends

Wondering who I can be to them

Curious stranger so long gone

Finally Valentine

Today I've got the blues for the world

But only the golden yellows for you

Why does it insist on madness

Mocking my gladness over you

If I forget there are millions of you

Being loved beyond sadness

Or solace or the strife on earth

If I grow impatient with love

Wasting its time on the world

When it could be so much

Greater than life or the mind

When you know it has it in it

Having entered the world

To finally take it as its own

Coming Through Valentine

I have a small round hole

In the roof of my old hut

Through which the sunlight becomes

A small full moon in that dark space

As in the first caves and temples

It strays back and forth on the walls

Striking off the seasons

And I have a small round hole

In the back of my head

Through which these thoughts

Like torches come and go

Searching the dark walls

For the lives I've lived

The bright horses of the future

Both Of Us Valentine

Putting aside all this living and dying

Let's go walk on some water

I mean what are you doing today besides

Laundry and what's for supper

Let's take our small boat far out

On the freezing and choppy lake

Despite that dark cloud coming

Toward us let's do some fishing

For the health of our spiritual selves

Let's indulge in some eternity

I mean the one standing on the shore

Watching and waiting for us not to drown

Then walking home through the quiet woods

Feeling both lost and found

Esoteric Interview Valentine

Tell me where you are strict with yourself

And where and when you let yourself off easy

How do you deal on a daily basis

With knowing so little of who you are

But persisting on a whim or a prayer

What affection constitutes a crisis

In your neural conscience

What is your favorite flower or weed

And which gives you more satisfaction

Does your life have a focal point

That has nothing to do with you

How often do you see a doctor

Do you currently have a lover

Can you work undercover

In Pursuit of Life Valentine

I can confess now I'm old

I hardly did anything I was told

Oh I made it look like that

But always secretly or not

I thought I had something hidden

On my own to add and went

My way as a double agent

Spying on my life from its other side

Susceptible to mysteries and codes

Following your trails gone cold

Elusive ghost of my nights and days

I tried to tell you once

Don't play with life but listen

It's not something you will ever solve

Human Love Valentine

The sweet apples of human love

We're still picking and eating them

Or do you prefer the sour biting kind 

Some chew like corrugated cardboard

All texture and no succulence inside

Corpses dressed up to look like apples

Beautifully arranged in market stalls

But we were only eating love

In those days dripping from our mouths

Each other's muse for the art

We were making of it the happy

Mess the heaps of brown cores

The pails of seeds gathered

Our plan was even more orchards

Even more apples of human love

Epiphany Valentine

There must be all kinds of angels

As there are all kinds of human beings

Aren't the evil promoted to high places

Taking up authority in our minds

Just as the good is given its reward

Like a proofed bread rising

To become food for the gods

Those who have scaled the heights

Outdistancing destiny and yet deigning

To weave us into their schemes

Holy and unholy but thank God

There was one with enough courage

And sense of self to combine

A human and a heart divine

Small Valentine

You mothers and fathers of the sun

You sisters and brothers of the moon

All you numberless out there in the world

Your will that works in consequences

Your heart always picking up the pieces

Do you think I feel nothing

About what you think of me do you

Feel nothing of what I think of you

That when I look at you

I feel both particle and whole

Mountains filled with snowflakes

The gratitude of feeling small

As you are small my love

Held up against the stars

Only Hope Makes Things Happen Valentine

Two dreaded phone calls

But they both went better

Than I imagined them

Each day grows hungrier

And I fear will soon devour me

But every night restores me

To the conviction of forever

I don't let things as they seem

Trouble my dreams anymore

Even when by twilight

All faith is gone like birds

No one notices when they die

Someone in the night puts everything

Back in its place and I wake up somehow

Even more hopeful than before

New Year Valentine

I double-booked heaven and earth

I found I could be in both at once

Angels strode over my crossed veins

I stranded myself in a crowd of clouds

Rescuing my face from a drowned tree

I texted Li Po my sympathy

For his lost children and swollen feet

But he deleted me immediately

I buried my books in a red-tailed hawk

Who reduced their words to a single squawk 

A sound the Seraphim tossed her

Little pieces of light on a quiet lake

I was enthralled and appalled by myself

I was thrilled and filled with the world

I could feel you waking inside me

Love I have yet to deserve

 

 

Guardian's Valentine

Overwhelmed by all the ordinary cruelties

I have amassed all the shameful episodes

I have been part of or stood silently by

And for which I beg forgiveness for myself

For the presumption it could be forthcoming

If I'm to tame the marmoset I am

And learn to love you one at a time

You masters and great teachers

For which it will take eternity a lot

Of long walks off short piers

As a distant friend used to shout

After the terror the laughter

At the foolishness of God

In giving us the freedom

To reform his heaven

By bringing it down to earth