Now Valentine

There's a gap in my faith

Where my hope falls through

And I'm convinced only love

Knows how to fix it

But when he's with me he's

As tender and stern as a god

Must be to be believed as a friend

Who respects our separate lives

But shows up when needed

He takes me on long walks

Or used to before he came to stay

And we are neither falling into the past

Nor fleeing into the future

We're just sitting here right now

7. Holding Her Hand Valentine

Isn't it only the will of mothers

That brings life into this world

Here she says have your life

But as usually happens

Someone else steals it away

All of us kidnapped children

She lays down the first mysteries

Of feeling and speaking and then

Comes back for us in the end

Who has not cried out for her

Embattled seeing her approach

Death was never your father love

She was just putting you to bed

6. One And Many Valentine

The way the sun goes

Up and over us is him striving

To relieve our blindness

Spreading himself on things

The light of the life of love

And he is not afraid to say it

I am a musician of the heart

Unkindness worries me deeply

I'm not sorry for the lightening

It was of your own making

Here's how it goes - think

Of me as both the dancing

And your partner and we

Will dance till dawn

5. The One With The Spear Valentine

Our first real thought was a woman

At least that's how they imagined her

Emerging from the primordial mind

You could feel her thinking about you

When you approached her shrine

But you can still find her in the streets

Every now and then a woman

Sailing like a vision in the crowd

Striding fearless toward some

New adventure can't you see

It in her musical eyes

Someone who knows

Who she is having considered

Everyone else and asking you

To do the same thoughtfully

4. Never Helpless Valentine

If your first act in the cradle

Is to strangle a snake

Winding around you

You know you are a fighter

An army of one poised

To obey without rancor

The will of the gods

And clever enough to bend

Them to your will with barely

Enough time for family or friends

So focused on the work at hand

Valor accepting its defeat

In its shroud of glory

A momentary flicker

But our hero stands alone

The first to enter heaven

3. Hindsight's Valentine

At twenty he invented fire

Or claimed to afterwards

But it was already there

Something you came upon

Under the pillow of a sleeping god

A fire that doesn't burn

Except the fingers of a man

To warm his nights cook his food

He forced the gods to share

Though it wasn't from greed

But fear of what he with foresight

Couldn't see they saw

Looking back from their eternity

The fire that would come

And sweep away them all

2. Son Of The Sun Valentine

But things got serious

With ravenous Dionysus

The life of the party

Always wanting more life

Joy descending into chaos

The theory was to fall apart

And then reassemble oneself

From the remaining pieces

A regenerative heart

At the basis of it all

But even the gods grow old

Leaving behind their fictive

Lives for us to follow he said

For we are gods as well

THE SEVEN BIRTHS OF THE SOUL - 1. Daughter Of The Sun Valentine

It was their own chosen fate

The watchful almost fleshy gods

To start with beauty

Their endless story

They had suffered so

But it all came back to them

In the body of a young girl

Happy as a field of flowers

Who wandered into town

Searching for a boy from hell

Some Hercules or Hades

She could love and hate

Sharpen her courage on

That beauty have her hour

Though all her shrines are gone

To Be Read On A Plane Valentine

Every day a new dose

Of reality is injected

Into our brain and blood

The hypodermic sun

Willing everything into being

And then putting it all to sleep

With her little stepchild Reality

Too much to take in at once

But doled out in clouds

Beauty gets broken down

And then built up again

What else could be holding us up

We who are still learning

To leave ourselves behind

Midstream Valentine

When I remember all time

Is divided into before and after

That a certain line is crossed

Sooner or later in all beings

When time seems divided

Against itself one stream

Pushing into another going

In the opposite direction

Where you have to decide

Which way to succumb

Or stand there in the turmoil

Salvaging the present moment

Which has nothing to do with time

Relieved of before and after

Back And Forth Valentine

I don't want to die do you

I love the earth and you

Home away from home

But we kinda made this

Bargain I wish I could

Remember how I agreed

To such high interest rates

We will never pay it off

But I'm assured we return

Our debts in process of forgiveness

So much paper work red tape

Just to get back to a womb

A small apartment on the east side

Enough light to flood a room

Past Valentine

Memorial statues photos make of us

Until the movies came along

And now I have a video of you

On my phone for easy access

And a whole record of the world

Uploading our success and our

Falling short of one another

Repeatedly and stubbornly

But not all the pictures lie

Some you have to pick out

The electric field around us

From the experience itself

To see right past the picture

To the angels standing there

Coming Close Valentine

Close enough to touch

But never touching

This went on for months

Filled with long walks

Silent or speaking at the same time

No you go first I forget

What I wanted to say

But now fifty years later

I remember it your skin

Pulling me in us cowards

Of affection geniuses of delay

How could it be we never spoke

The truth we wanted to say

You see I still blame you for not

Going first but yes it was me

Death Is Always Early Valentine

Death falls in little pieces

Like a large fly lying on its back

Just here on my table

Under the brown lilies of Easter

Its legs folded its wings

Still catching some sun

No one to annoy or marry

Hatching little ones

No elaborate funeral to follow

Which no one attends

Which dandelion shall I

Place you under or feed

You to the lilies until

Our resurrection comes

Eighties Days Valentine

I usually start with yesterday

Without which no morning could come

Looking back over what was said

And done testing my memory

That certain gestures certain looks

Not be entirely lost on me

By which time it's afternoon

When serious work gets done

Listening to the Verdin sing

Worrying about the world to come

Doing the dishes for some fun

And suddenly it's twilight

Just enough time to catch

The button moon slip loose

The virgin dark undress

Conjugal Valentine

I watched your thoughts

Coming through on your face

I caught you thinking

Which doesn't often happen

Not the thinking but me

Catching you thinking

As in 'lost in thought'

Your eyes seeing both

Inside and outside of you

Stopping time so it all

Got quiet around us

And then you turned to me

And said, 'I was just thinking....'

As if I hadn't a clue

Always There Valentine

Some sixty years ago today

I took the habit of a monk

Face down on the floor I lay

And spoke a cloudy vow

I shortly couldn't keep

The sixties intervened

Like the sunny Renaissance after

The dogmatic Middle Ages

And I was given a small farm

A wife and a child both fine

A whole precocious heaven

With a woods where I

Could roam the rest

Of my life away

But you had other plans for me

Whoever you are

Carefully and patiently

Still homeward urging me

Except Valentine

What does the length of a day

Have to do with its width

Or its depth as you travel

Out farthest deeper down

If you let go of time

Except time to unravel

If you think of it as cubic

Transparent and alive

What does the length of a life

Have to do with what survives

If time doesn't matter

If after all it can't be taken

With you to the grave

Except what's saved

Some Days Valentine

Though I live in a small town

In the middle of an enormous city

At the bottom of an evaporated ocean

I am always conscious of the desert

Surrounding all of this which starts

To boil and bubble in early April

While we fearless frogs enjoy

These cool spring days before

(The tenderness that came back

After it had been given up on)

But what will we do with all these

Steep hills and deeper valleys

Some days I picture my life

As a mirage in this desert

The mirage of an oasis

I am crawling toward

Some days so vaporous and fine

Her Valentine

Just yesterday I discovered

There is nothing

Inside of light

She holds nothing back

But herself transparent

And up for anything

And willing to tell you

Anything you ask

And give it to you for a song

But it's darkness who holds

A place in her heart 

See how she sinks

Into his arms how she

Rises again even more herself

Novalis Valentine

Each poem of his is its own book

Of poems each line a corridor

Each word a room a door

You pass by listening

For something unexpected prophetic

Informative and thrilling

Wondering who speaks so

Urgently from so many mouths

All saying the same thing

Come I've something to show you

You won't believe her

Even when you meet her

My little suffering Sophie

Madonna of my love

It's Still Early Days Valentine

For a long time

We could only see time

Passing in light and darkness

So we called it Change

The god above all gods

Who ruled the weather

But then it happened

In the south of France I think

The god was captured

In the clock of the heart

And we could finally hear it

Ticking and tocking

The metal hand slipping

From second to third to fourth

Through us like a shiver

And then the bell would ring

Tribal Valentine

I think I've finally found my tribe

A school of red-headed finches

Who like me for my dandelion feasts

The gold I've turned to dusty seeds

Laid out for them each morning

We are a serious studious lot

Even if we hop about

From text to text precisely

Studying the light ever watchful

Of the dangers of being on the ground

From which we now and then

Ascend as one into the harboring tree

Our fears transformed to prayers

Our longings into lusty songs

Hear Tell Valentine

The grim reports from the far reaches

Of the human mind stop short

The lost armies of thinking

The last weary survivors

Set up camp there

On the cliffs above the river

Dreaming of bridges and boats

To float across this impasse

To the beautiful world that must

Be there on the other side of pitch-

Black darkness and cold

Where they light their fires

And tell their ancient stories

Of those who traveled there

And brought back word of gold

Quite Valentine

Have I settled for the shadow

Of my tree against the wall

Just now coming into leaf

In small bunches protruding

Into uniformly gray flowers

Nothing left of the tree

But the lines of its branches

When the sun sketches them

Gray on the gray block wall

Stripped down to its floating

Soul when now and then

Wind ruffles the light

And I can feel the real tree

Just there behind me

Pass through me quite

Trying To Get Down Valentine

So what's going on this morning

In that resting pretty head of yours

Leaving the tunnel of dreams

Sweeping up into a body's

Heaviness a befogged city's

Nervous energy becalmed

By the blue of this harbor

A bed's perspective on the day

Ahead where you lay your scene

Or might it not be better

To let life go on dreaming

That it's the real thing

While you sleep deeper and

Deeper beyond all dreams

My Own Best Patient Valentine

Anger keeps vulnerability 

At bay I heard you say

Which angered me even more

And if you said I love you

It would throw me into a rage

Which is why I never say it

Love is a treacherous word

If it's been used to control

And can't be trusted again

Love breaks you into pieces

That go to war with one another

You lose your sense of humor

Cancel your appointments

And forget to pay your fees

Coordinated Valentine

She didn't look that crazy

And wasn't one of the workers

In the book section with a cart

Picking out books at random

And throwing them into it moving 

Along quickly from row to row

But I caught her later

Putting all those books together

She had sorted them by color

A shelf of red and yellow spines

Began to shine on a middle row

It had taken her all of twenty minutes

To make literature and history

And even the romantic novels

Into the beginnings of a rainbow

And off she went to the women's section

Unpunctuated Valentine

Does every life end

With an ellipsis or a colon

Or with a question mark

Rhetorical or ironic

Or with an exclamation point

As in the beginning as in Spanish

Reversed like an announcement

Or a warning of some surprise

Buried in the story

To get ready for what's coming

The placement of a period

Must be rare sparingly used

Whoever writes the text

Lest it seem to pause what's next

All Fools Day Valentine

I try to imagine what beauty

Is up to today where her imagination

Takes her into the actual world

A thought as useful as a flower

Fed up with blooming

Let's bring something new

Her idea of a seed

Has run its course

Let's make a tree that walks

An animal that speaks

New French new English

But beauty balks

Hearing how humans mock