On The Last Day Valentine

Our words are winter birds

That sleep in snowy trees

And burst in little flames

Thrown up against the sky

When I look up I see a comet

Carrying 150 people impossibly

Through pink morning light

The past century flashing by

I imagine them the last survivors

Fleeing the burning world

Or maybe another Noah's load

Of strange new animals and plants

Immigrants from the sun awaiting

A dove to bring them word

Coming After Valentine

Five days old at eight o'clock

The sun is split by the corner column

Like two arms reaching out around it

To hold a little darkness at the center

Where I am sitting in an old

Dilapidated barn bird thoughts

Fluttering in the rafters

Small dusty dreams thrown off

By their soft mutterings

Wondering where they've gone

Leaving only an impression in the straw

Where they curled together to keep warm

And a urgency in the brightening air

Three vaporous kings to follow

Mid-Life Earth Valentine

If the lakes are the eyes of the earth

And the oceans its churning belly

And the land masses and mountains

It sturdy shoulders and limbs

Where will we find its seething heart

If not at its fiery core its veins

Of lava from the sun at its center

Its roaming plants and animals the first

Manifestations of its soul unfolding itself

Which leaves us humans

To become its breathing thoughts

We dreamers of this earth

Still young enough to keep it

And too old to throw it away

A Christmas Night's Dream Valentine

Here we are when the curtain rises

Sitting on the couch watching Tik-Tok

A cute four year old Irish boy

Proposing to his mother

Promising never to live without her

Am I not your eternal child

To which she consents smiling

Then we're driving somewhere

How can you know all the songs

But I keep silent smiling as we pass

A little girl immaculately dressed

Who gives us the finger

And we gasp together how

Can this be Christmas Adam

Still Valentine

Each day a year encloses

Every morning brings a spring

A summer fills an afternoon

Until the twilight falls

And leaves turn into the snow

Of dreams drifting down

From nights of centuries

Covering our little cabin

Near to heaven in the woods

And I'm still breaking the ice

In the pail years later to wash

My old face in the fiery water 

Still kneeling to nurse a few flames

To light this brand new day

And wake my sleeping lover

Solstice Valentine

I know what it means to me

But not what I mean to it

The weight of the sun in my lap

This cold winter's day

Singeing me on one side

While frost creeps up behind

Urging me to turn like it

Done with our undoing

And go back the other way

But what if it kept going

Deeper and deeper into the dark

As left to itself it might

If not at the final minute dawned

Some stronger spirit's light

Why Birds Valentine

Some are given only a call

While others are given a song

Some are not fortunate at all

But must fight to carry on

While others skate and thrive

Circling a sunny sky

Some share a single soul

While others go without

Some bright and colorful

Others shiny black or brown

But all of this is just a play

The vagaries of variety

What matters most to me

Is they all of know how to fly

Finding It Valentine

What if you had a star

Walk into your life don't balk

I mean the being of a star

Preposterous but bear with me

Don't let even the thought of it

Crumble into fantasy

But putting everything else aside

Step into a shaft of total darkness

As you wait for it to arrive

Someone who has always known you

Someone you have longed to know

Of course you can barely believe it

And yes it was always there

The life within your life within your life

After Words Valentine

They say as soon as he was born

He spoke in a lilting voice

In secret only to his mother

A whole new language

He was composing as they

Rode through the dusty streets

She held him tight to her heart

Straining to hear his little words

Above the roar of the world

That came down hard upon them

With a night so heavy with stars

That echoed his words of light

They had to stop and stare

Alone in the silence there

If You Want To Know Valentine

If you want to know at any time

What's going on in the world

Listen for what no one's saying

Just buried under their words

About equality and human rights

Which can never come to be

Without the essential foundation

Of a real fraternity of all

For each and each for all

This one thing the world's wealthy

Always most strenuously avoid

The idea of a shared humanity

You no more in need than me

Each in each other's care

Once A Year Valentine

In the curious fable of the palm trees

Who all longed to be ballet dancers

With their long legs and swirling skirts

Arranged in lines along the beach

There came a windy choreographer

Who sketched a pattern in the sand

Once a year on Christmas day

It was where a baby lay

Cast up by the churning waves

A magic child who granted wishes

When the palms began to sway

And to their dancing added voices

That rose in praise from far away

Once a year on Christmas day

Just Take The Sun Valentine

What began in the will

Must end up in the will

After long traveling

Through my feelings

Just take the sun

First it was there

And then I appeared

Waving and wailing

Only much later

Did I start thinking

Of how all this

Leads me to you

That I am what I do

Not what I felt or was thinking

Promised Valentine

It seems the sun and I

Have placed the world

Between us as the visible sign

Of a certain understanding

We have reached together

Each year at this time

To adopt a newborn child

And then abandon him

To his mother and the cold

But the sun has promised

To show him how to shine

All the way into the earth

To suffer me to make him mine

And share with him a lasting birth

Borderline Valentine

We live in a new moon time

When the light lays itself on the line

Betting it all against the darkness

Let it be extinction or we say

Illumination if we must chose

To find out what we're made of

Let's finally call for the question

To argue ourselves out of existence

Or give ourselves more life

More and more life for everyone

On the razor's edge of the moon

We children of darkness and light

Taking from each what we need

And stop threatening ourselves with doom

In The Sign Of The Brothers Valentine

Only at this late date am I

Learning about the annual

Shower of stars that falls

Twelve days before Christmas

Seven days before the solstice

Only at this late date

Do I get to wonder about

What adjustments this creates

In the way we breath and move

Subtle shifts in our moods

From something stirring inside

As we come to the darkest day

When the sun stops itself to let

A greater light pass by

Willing Valentine

If truth takes up

All the permanent space

The ephemeral is all

That beauty's left to be

To stand without defenses

And be willing to fade away

But not without a fatal blow 

To what we call our senses

Which beauty itself installs

In our otherwise useless flesh

That we might helplessly receive it

Coming and going on the earth

Bit by bit opening us up

To more and more truth

November Valentine

Against the peeling wall

A single purple flower

With its few leaves and poise

Despite it is November

And the last dregs of the sun

No longer reach its corner

But still it wants its beauty

To be be numbered among all

The other beauties of the world

To suddenly be heard

Crying out in its final hour

I am what you could be

There is no eternity

Just purple purple purple

Play Within A Play Valentine

If the archetypes are always there

Hovering lambent in the air

Then by the logic of the stars

Our task becomes to let them shine

In us their greater lives

Take up our parts and places

In their fairy-tales and legends

Their deeper battles fought for us

Cold light against warm darkness

They too dance to a still higher

Imagination a music

Of whims and wishes

Dying for transformation

Playthings of the sun

'Tis The Season Valentine

Whoever stole the snowman

From our porch last night

Please come back and take 

The baby Jesus you obviously 

Need him more than we do

But I hope you know the star

That followed him now follows you

Please leave Mary and the donkey

So she'll get used to missing him

On the long trip back from Egypt

You must have children too

You want to cherish and amaze

But no gifts to bring no kings

These humbug Christmas days

Pursuing An Apercu Valentine

When I was nine a dog attacked me

Walking home from school through

Empty alleys to avoid the streets

Dreaming of who I could become

It sprang at me ferociously

Behind its wire fence

And angry at the fear I felt

I went right up to it

And started barking back

Which was when it leapt

And bit the corner of my mouth

Which is how I got this scar

Whether bravery or foolish pride

It was what woke me up inside

The blood was on my lips

And I knew that I could die

Which never occurred to me before

Her Name Valentine

I'm robbing Paul to pay Paul

Peter's pockets are full of holes

I'm stealing death to pay death

I can barely afford a soul

I call her Sophie darling

My dying little girl

And though she's lived

For a thousand years

She's just learned

To write her name

Next year she'll go to school

I'm working three jobs

To pay for it all

If she's not too ill

Past Time Valentine

In the many years you've known me

Have I changed and how and why

Have I plumbed the limitations

Of my capacity for love and fear

Or merely deepened my delusions

About what love can be

Did I love you for myself alone

Just so you would love me back

And when you did and didn't

Did I grow an inch or two

In letting myself go

Out beyond what love could be

To a taste for joy I've come to know

That has forever altered me

Alone Valentine

I can see its shadow tangled now

In the starfish cactus and tell

It's a dove wobbling on the roof

I can remember summer

When it had a mate and they

Would come together every day

And sit on the gate and wait

Till the coast was clear

To fly to the bowl and drink

First one and then the other

Sipping the precious water

Why do they separate

For love's long winter

When you'd think

They'd need each other most

All their children lost

And me alone to wonder

Christmas Lights Valentine

One of our neighbors down the street

Hired a crane to cover

His enormous ficus tree

With colored lights last week

It looked like a giant wig

Wearing a crown of sparkling gems

But as if that wasn't enough

He lit up the yard and entire house

Until it resembled that candied hut

Hansel and Gretel would soon arrive

To nibble on and wake the witch

And instead of shepherds and kings

He planted a skeleton tall as the roof

Whose eyes are glowing coals

Its hand lunging for a falling star

I Still See Your Face Valentine

The big blue urn is full of rain

From last night's crashing storm

The water's surface trembling in the sun

Throwing its reflection on the wall

A lively chaos of light and shade

Like the insides of a seed

Or the becoming of a soul

About to fall to the earth

When now and then the water stills

And sunlight plunges in

Igniting a fiery gleaming

In its gloomy depths

Who knew the big blue urn

Was such an alchemist

To Be Sung Valentine

After the rain when the sun comes out

The sweet syncopation of the rooftop-drops

And the gurgles in the alley

And the plops in the pail

And the garden shining

Like it wants to wail

And we sense some rainbow's

Not far behind when the firs

Stand erect and salute the sky

And the wind does wheelies

Round the plumped-up clouds

And it's all such a heart-rending

Quickly-passing parade

When the sylphs go dancing

And the undines rave