Unprepared Valentine

After a period of researching my dreams

Of writing down their curious dramas

And carefully comparing my sketchy notes

With other serious dreamers

I can tentatively report

The majority end sadly

The sleeper waking relieved

Rescued at the last perilous moment

Like a traveler who has vanished

Into a nameless dangerous country

Innocently curious but ill-equipped

Who doesn't speak the language yet

Or see how everything's reversed

So many report getting helplessly lost

Or being driven around by a friend

Searching for something familiar

Dropped off finally at the border

Waiting Valentine

Can I have a coffee first

A waiter brings a steaming cup

In what appears to be a waiting room

People chatting on comfortable chairs

I'll be right back I say to no one

And enter an empty public restroom

So filthy it looks like all

The toilets have exploded

But I still have to go and when

I get back still breathing a large

Dozing woman has taken my seat

This puts me out on a busy street

Frantically searching for something

Rifling through a stranger's car

Until something tells me

I shouldn't be doing this

And walking off before anyone sees me

I become aware of cameras everywhere

And when I get back the coffee's cold

The room empty the doctor gone

And I have only myself to blame

Waiting for someone to call my name

Simply Valentine

Coming back from an amazing dream

Depending how far out you've gone

Into that other more fluid world

Last night I saw two silver birds

Merge together into a distant sun

Have you noticed there's a space

Between there and here as you return

Where things get muddled torn apart

The closer you get to earth

And you feel a little like screaming

Caught between two opposite worlds

This hard one you walk through

In a body tightly wound unraveling

And that other where you simply fly

Climbing Valentine

Climbing a steep mountain path

I met a stranger coming down

And stopped to chat to catch

My breath and laughing ask

Was it worth it to go on

Would I make it to the view

Before darkness beat me back

I don't remember what he said

When he offered me a bottle of wine

And a small box of biscuits

And a couple of other gifts

He hid behind a little bush

But immediately distracted I went off

To find a sack to carry them in

And found one ridiculously large

Unsure now how to get back

To where I'd left them on the path

And worried would they still be there

And wondered did I really dare

To climb back up that narrow track

Lives Past And To Come Valentine

Reading is better than sleeping

But dreaming leads to a deeper reading

Of reality's hidden meaning

Of the world's secret text

Here eyes ache head hurts

But there eyeless and headless

Words tremble into beings

Take up their beds and walk

Out past language and thought

Into a single silent flame
Where we moths are caught

Waking in death's little dream

We hover sizzle are consumed

We children of the sun and moon

Returned to read the earth our home

A Bus Named Terror Valentine

Caught on a crowded bus in the middle 

Of crazy traffic hordes of people

Rushing around I had no idea

How far I was from home

But pushing panicked toward the opening

Door I bumped into an old woman

And turning to apologize

Her gray eyes peering up at me

She said don't hold yourself

Too tightly to the minute

We're going nowhere and we

Will surely get there

And immediately my terror

Fell apart and calmly I sat up in bed

Night Passage Valentine

A low moan in a tangled bush

Your path obstructed by a stream

Thin clouds lapping in the breeze

A voice shouting in a dream

That wakes you up and makes you walk

Through trees to a rocky beach

Where the moon's sleek raft

Crosses over the starry lake

And again you've arrived too late

To catch a passage on its light

Stranded here and half-awake

And turning back you find

A woman weeping in the woods

Her face the first pale trillium

Brightening the fading night

After The Play (for Glen)

It was only in the morning I woke up

With a renewed respect for evil

Its cleverness and sheer hard work

Its dedication to its intentions

I still believe it all begins

With some fundamental misunderstanding

A sense of injury envy fuels

At not being appreciated respected

Which finally leads to violence

Leaving the good stunned and silent

Their only weapons reason and love

Unsure how far those will get them

Each one standing alone on the stage

With only forgiveness to protect them

Exiled Valentine

An empty mountain and an empty sea

With an even emptier house between

I went there in a remembered dream

I climbed the mountain where nothing grew

I swam in the sea and came out blue

I made a small fire in the house

And fell asleep waiting for you

And woke to find you'd come and gone

I could tell because the sea was warm

And the mountain loomed taller in the sun

And I knew I'd been abandoned there

With nothing to do but climb and swim

But every night you'd bring me food

And one day you'd return for good

 

Historical Valentine

There's something about human history

That reads like a good murder mystery

The real murderer still at large

The mastermind pulling the strings

Who could be the wily detective himself

Making sure the case goes unsolved

Appalled as the bodies pile up

Announcing to the press he's hot

On the trail he will soon be caught

He's following several persons of interest

His agents working day and night

But the centuries roll by

While the real murderer smiles

Passing right under our noses

Skinny Valentine

When you showed me an old photo

Of a beautiful young couple

For a few uncanny seconds

They were strangers to me

Though I knew I knew them

We were so skinny back then

My daughter and me with

One of her old boyfriends

They'd been living together

For a while and she had

Wanted me to meet him

He flew planes and soon

Flew out of her life

Ephemeral as memory

Rainbow Valentine

Every now and then for us refugees

They lower another rainbow bridge

The angels who work for a living

So we may bundle up our sins

And hurry across before it melts

Often we only see it from a distance

And wonder-filled are strangely

Grateful to stop and stare

As if at the birth of the colors

Those hard laborers of light

Drifting in their little boats

Just to know they're there

Still lowering their nets

To catch our night

Meditative Valentine

More and more I feel my mind

Resembles a static radio station

Receiving two opposing signals

One that wants me to wander around

Going from thing to thing

Until I finally fall asleep and one

Who returns to push me awake

And tells me to pay attention

To put my life in my open hand

And watch what happens when

I am not the center of the world

But immediately that reminds me

Of some other thing I have to do

And off I go chasing some distraction 

Until suddenly you intervene again

who are you anyway to yank me back

Admonished and momentarily redeemed

Eastern Valentine

Sometimes crowding in on me

So I can get out of myself for a while

Impossibly I circumnavigate the world

I fly east over great harbors and towns

And somehow even from this height

I can see the most intimate things

A girl blowing her nose on the way to work

A man carrying the dead body of a friend

A rainbow crouching in a lost valley

And sometimes I feel I won't be able

To come back so absorbed I get

In the trillion lives we're living

Out there in the middle of nowhere

Where I feel I might be found

Still Here Valentine

I'm still here trying to figure out

How the ample sunlight is a kind

Of thinking up of the world

A mind full of eager ideas

And penetrating meditations

How it feels its way along

Researching through the night

Coming up with yet another

Clear theory of the morning

Filling in and painting out

Pyramidal cities and mountain paths

Until there is nothing it hasn't

Thought of considered touched

No creature it hasn't come to love

Promised Valentine

In a little while I promise

I will ascend from this chair

And go and take some pictures

Of my narrow yard to send you

In return for the ones from yours

Is there something in our blood

That cannot live without a little

Color in our lives that needs

Taking care of watering and such

Or is it just nostalgia for the future

Which the flowers represent

Our green hearts slowly turning red

The scent in the air opening up

To a whole other life

His Gaze Valentine

If even his most intimate friends

Don't recognize him at first

When they meet him again

Only a few days later

Wearing so youthful a face

How will we not look

Into a stranger's eyes

Passing him on the street

Sensing only later it was him

And we have missed our chance again

But luckily for us he's dissolved

His gaze into the air and earth

An ocean that stares back at us

Or a tree awaiting our arrival

One Who Made It To The Other Side Valentine

Pass me now your Easter eyes

The flowering ones you use

To illuminate the fields and woods

The light that pierces through

From inside the earth

Finally released and felt

The world as it really is

Spread out your risen smile

Over the mountainous sky

Give me your leafy hands to kiss

Let me stop to cry

Whisper to me your secret

Of how not to die

Holy Saturday Valentine

There is something there

But I don't see it

And then suddenly it appears

How could it be there all along

But I didn't see it

Unless seeing is layered

Like sedimentary stone

Laid down over centuries

Of noticing one thing after another

Is this how memory lurks

Unraveling the future

Now I see it now I don't

Built up from successive blindnesses

I slowly perceive a cup

Little Apocalypse Valentine

The classical bust of Adam

In my romantic garden

Is looking a little post-modern

And droopy today with dew

Because the lantana have overrun

The dead orange and the branches

Of my blue-flowering 

Backyard tree keep asking

Why you must make it harder

Than it needs to be

Hanging over the roof when

You will all have to be cut back

And hauled out to the alley again

Spring has such eager hands

Inspired Valentine

I have an idea

I've retrieved from a dream

Let's get dressed

And I'll tell you about it

Over breakfast and we

Can drive to the beach

Just a few hundred miles

Through the blooming desert

To catch the sunset on the water

And lay together in our tent

In that little grove we found

And renew our vows to the stars

To the whisper of lapping waves

And sleep at last content

Unplanned Valentine

We showed up on the wrong night

All dressed up and eager

To a dark and empty theater

How could we have confused the date

Speeding here not to be late

We looked at one another and laughed

I trusted you to get it right

But it wasn't entirely my fault

Had we missed the performance

Or was it still to come

You found the announcement on your phone

Two weeks from now

When we won't be home

So we had some time to kill

And that was the night

We first made love

As if the universe had reserved

Just the right space for us

We were bound to fill

In The Spring Air Valentine

I don't know what kind of flying bug

What name it goes by not a fly

Greenish and in constant motion

But every morning now as the days

Fill with more and more light

It comes back to hover and dart

About as if feeding on something

Catching bits of sunlight a few feet

In front of where I'm sitting

And then another of its kind

Comes to join it and they roll

In the air coupling and uncoupling

Desire woven with suffering

In even the smallest things