A Day For The Books Valentine

Do we really need this many books

You smiled with a box in your hands

Let's cull the ones we've read

And don't really need to keep

Even if only for room for more

And it was interesting to see

Which ones we couldn't part with

Just to have them in our possession

Or to be in their presence is it

But we managed to fill a satchel

To re-sell at the old bookstore

For which we received a measly

Thirty pieces of silver just

Enough for a Mexican lunch

And two new books we found

Starving but so delicious

Unsolved Mysteries of the Neighborhood Valentine

Do you know who tied red roses

To all the posts and fences

Along Hermosa Street and why

Do you know what dark angel

Stole poor Hector's ten-speed bike

Now he'll have to walk to work

What could have caused

Those two great booms last night

No one seems to have heard

And that screaming sobbing woman

Four doors down I couldn't make out

What she was trying to tell the cops

Who finally took her away

And Flora's cat named Sunshine

Gone where for the hundredth day

I Am Valentine

I am to the world

As this tiny ant is to me
Together alone we're crossing

This vast plaza by the sea

Stopping here and there

To turn in circles wait

Searching always searching

Sniffing the warming air

For our lost colony

And if I were to follow you

Will you lead me to your caves

Deeper than memory

And if you were to follow me

Will I give your back the world

For an ounce of your bravery

Trial By Fire Valentine

When her blood pressure soared

And the doctors could find the source

The hospital so crowded they put 

Her in a bed in a busy corridor

where she lay for a day and night

Unable to speak or lift her head

To eat first feverish then freezing

Until they finally found her a bed

In a room so small and cramped

You couldn't fit a chair in it

Next to a demented woman

Who screamed constantly for help

For four days all she could do

Was try to remember everyone

Who had ever loved her or she

Had ever loved and somehow there

Hovering between life and death

Between the light and darkness

Pouring through the one window

She found her way back home

To this heaven we call earth

Same Old Valentine

Of course it's the same old story

Freshly disguised every century

Of that poor brilliant scholar Lucifer

If you don't love me I will kill you

And fuck you in your grave

Of course he's in love with power

And envies the bodily beauty

Of those two naked ones over there

Representative of all slow learners

But doesn't the fact that it must

Be repeated over and over again

Imply a new unwritten ending

Not even the author can supply

Garden Scene Valentine

And then there's this

Thirteenth sense that comes

After the other twelve

Have been dissolved

Crouched over a stone

In agony seeing what

Must be said and done

And cannot be avoided

But it was still spring

And you know how spring is

The first flowers unstoppable

In their willingness to be born

So-Called Valentine

Even on cold gray mornings like these

The dead who have been busy

In our dreams all night

Slip out into the meager light

Resuming their work and restless play

In wings and leaves and rocks

In the very colors of things

But mostly in the eager wind

Where they push through tirelessly

Mining our minds more coal than gold

Unrecognized appearances

They make piercing the invisible

Darkness where we survive

On the starlight of their love

If At All Valentine

I think the true history of human beings

Can only be found in small circles of friends

Who weave together their dreams

In pictures and music and talk

Women and men crouched together

Around a shared sense of their 

Particular moment in time

Who reach out to warm their hands

Around the central fire of life

They can see it burning there

An incision in the surrounding dark

While the rest of us unconscious

As children only catch up

Centuries later if at all

These Last Days Valentine

There must be birds here living still

But strangely I haven't seen

A single one in the three days

I've been wandering these woods

Of a hundred species of trees

Just the croaking of crows

Who come to harvest the nuts

For a few days in October

And then gone as suddenly

As they appeared leaving behind

A silence that's shining in the fields

And even the full bird-feeders

By the house haven't lost

A single seed the beautiful trees

Just stand there purposeless and dumb

Not a bird left in the world

A Meeting Valentine

I sat in a wide circle

Of eighteen great souls

Artists scientists explorers thinkers

Who wanted to see what is really there

And in my imagination

Went around and stood

In front of each one and said

I would like to be you

If you would let me

I would like to share

Your deepest longings

And the things that trouble you

Because I feel certain

Somewhere in all of you

I will find my lost self

But in the morning I woke

With a dream of several deer

Emerging from the edge of a woods

Who seeing me rather

Than running off lay down

Peacefully in the tall grass

And invited me to join them

Baptismal Valentine

You are a deed of the gods

A word in their language

Summoned to mind

When they speak to one another

You have been given your own darkness

And your own star to extinguish it

Longing calling to longing

Light to light

In you the gods create themselves

Their deeds your body

Their words your soul

On loan till you create your own

Our Mother Valentine

Give us this day our daily lies

That we may discern the truth

Forgive us those

We have not forgiven

That we may forgive ourselves

Tempt us into your kindness

Give us the strength to behold

The ravenous beasts we are

To threaten them with mercy

To scold them with compassion

Remind us of your victory to come

When all is said and done

That we be present when your love

Lifts us from our oblivion

Perfect Valentine

I think secretly everyone knows

The goal is grace and perfection

Whatever that may be for us

To try to attempt it

The perfect throw and the perfect

Catch but failing and failing that

Fall back on being merely good

Not nursing our discouragement

And envy with some lame excuse

Pretending not to want to be perfect

Pretending it wasn't really grace

Our whole purpose and plan

In coming to this earth

And not to settle for less

By November Valentine

First my keys go missing

Then my wallet then my phone

Without my crude identities

I enter the unknown

This happens every fall

To my deciduous soul

I let go of it all

Hopes and dreams

Needing and wanting

Becoming and being

I feel my I dissolve

In the bliss of nothingness

Blue snow on an open field

Let me be this

Words Are Not Material Things Valentine

You know how the same word

Has as many sounds as there

Are languages doesn't that mean

We still haven't quite captured 

What it's trying to say

Like when you listen

To a foreign language

Grasping a few words here and there

Or notice how it all sounds like

Some kind of strange singing

And speechless we fall back

On pantomime and pointing

Our poor words stranded there

Between music and meaning

Trying to make up their minds

Passing Valentine

We bump into one another

And turning to apologize

See something remote we recognize

In one another's eyes

In another life did we clash

In battle who killed who

Or was this just a reminder

Of some future rendezvous

We introduce ourselves

But I'm no good with names

And you're no good with faces

You remind me of someone

I was about to get to know

I look like the brother you never had

We preserve our stranger's gaze

As we embrace and pass

Going On Valentine

Something I wish I'd said

Before I woke to find you dead

Something I wish I'd done

When it came into my head

To take you in my arms

But I was too tired and slept

Or had somewhere else to be

Returning to find you'd left

Unable to wait for me

Now we will have to meet

Across memory's abyss

And you will have to use my voice

To tell me in your own words

How life can go on for us

In this and other worlds

Someone's Valentine

Someone had to tell him he had died

When he woke up on the other side

Still sick and drunk someone had

To help him sober up for a long

Time he thought he was dreaming

Struggling to get back to his body

Already rotting where he left it

He thought this must be some hospital

For the insane where every morning

They showed him pictures of his life

Each one more astonishing than the last

Until every day lay spread before him

Until someone had to come to release him

And carry him into the fields of light

In Another Land Valentine

What sounds like a distant party horn

The cat snoring in the late afternoon

She wakes embarrassed revels ended

Looks around with famished eyes

To find me staring back amused

'What? What is it?' she tries

To speak the words but turns

Bored by my dumb replies

And burrows back resuming her dream

Hardly knowing this from another

Leaving me to wonder if she goes

To some land where all the animals

Gather after they ascend from the earth

To be consoled I hope having suffered

So much to prove their worth

Teach Me To Burn Valentine

Aloe Vera Palo Verde

Blue agave prickly pear 

In a forest of saguaro

All assume the form of flames

Imprints of an old volcano

Incited by a blazing sun

That sips the water from the rocks

And leaves me panting dumb

Fires within fires unless I find

I too am burning blooming

Casting off sparks that rise

Out of my desert mind

White as Cereus flowers

Beauty that strikes me blind

 

Death Dream #101

After the hard schools of innocence

And the planned collisions of experience

A period of slow enlightenment

Was supposed to settle in

If you hadn't lost your mind yet

If you managed to preserve

Enough love to live on longer

Then things would be revealed

You had no way of seeing earlier

A sense of overwhelming gratitude

For life itself and its permission

To die with a smile on your face

Having learned nothing and everything

About the mysteries of the heart

An die Musik Valentine

Words are like chords in music

Or like leaves on a windy tree

Every sentence is a song

Every branch some melody

When the sun taps his baton

Or the moon starts waving her arms

And the world falls dark and silent

And listening grows long

When the horns of autumn sound

Or the strings of spring creep out

Their leafy recurring theme

And the words give up their meanings

Fallen helpless to the ground

And the music of their silence

Enfolds us in its dream

Where all is light and song

New Light Valentine

I'm told that there are ancient

Teachers who live inside the moon

Who when it separated from the earth

Went with it taking all their magic

To form their own circle of light

A doorway for the in and out of souls

So we could keep hold of the sun

At night and know it was still there

The intelligence falling from it

The pure warmth of the stars

Intermingling with the moonlight

Which is why we call her mother

Isis Sophie Queen of the Night

And pray for her return

Past Time And Space Valentine

Hands on your hips

You stand in the darkening yard

Proud of your progress so far

Things still to be done

But even without a plan

It seems to be coming together

At least by the look on your face

As I watch you through the window

Just standing there and you turn

Our eyes meeting and you smile

My hands on my hips

Mirroring-mocking you

Turning away with a shy grin

Love finding us out

Death Dream #87 Valentine

I suppose nearing the end

I dream back on the beginning

Because I'd love to start again

This was just a first sketch

Begging for revision

Next draft I'll be more conscious

Of others' feelings and more

Honest about my own

Next time because of you

There will be more diving deeper

And more sitting in the woods

More speaking your language

Less hesitation less hurry

When we meet again

On All Saints Day Valentine

I would like to arrange a tour

Of the thirteen obelisks of Rome

To see what old Thutmose was up to

What was so important he had

To write it on the finest granite

Monuments to the fathers

Who were gods and kings

Their fingers still pointing us upward

To a world we no longer see

On one there are doors carved

And windows as if someone

Lived there and on others a wish

That he would come again

And the gods speak to men