One Mind Valentine

What if the world is so constructed

Just to keep us all distracted

From what's really going on

Red herring clues and subterfuge

We endlessly pursue

Thrown back upon the wall

Of ourselves meager and alone

And yet we sense it's there

Combing through yesterday's debris

Where the bodies are buried

Alongside the treasure of their lives

What if we are so designed

Never to be satisfied

With just one mind

Reader's Valentine

For the time you'll take

No matter how you find them

To read these words I bless

You though I don't have to say

Anything you don't already know

I admit something in me

Wants to disturb you for a minute

Call your attention to what's

Happening right now between us

Our little words touching down

The ones you speak to hear me

Silently repeating them in your head

And ask you unknowable reader

Having been one in thought with you

How can I thank you for your time

Unfolding Valentine

What we know of one another

You could put on the tip

Of a mountain in clouds

Waiting for the sun to break through

You could build a little monument

A tent of stones at the peak

Of all that's been

Forgotten in getting here

Just to find more mountains 

Folding down like wings

Maybe only there at the edge

Of one another can we touch

What knowledge cannot bring

I could love you that much

Progress Report Valentine

I think I've got my greed in check

But I'm still craving time

I think I've got my hate in hand

Still useful for certain sins

I think I've paid off all my doubts

Though some interest still remains

I think I've reached the point

Of no return each moment

Sailing in with smiles

I think I've cracked the safe

Of secrets where there's no

Holding back I think I've stolen

A whole hoard of love

And now must give it back

Each Night's Valentine

Doesn't the sun at night

Still permeate the earth

With light from the other side

The living-corpse of the moon

Trailing along behind

Don't the planets stop in their tracks

And the fixed stars start to dance

When the earth sends up

Its daft and dreaming souls

Tossing and turning in our beds

Each night sleep slips us

Another life among the spirits

So real and so mysterious

It takes a sun to bring us back

Solstice Valentine

For a long time it takes

Like a little shepherd's crook

Its skinny greenish stem

Its bowing head passing

Like a question mark in the grass

From which dangle loosely

Seed-like flower-heads

Still in their fetal stages

If I remember rightly it only

Blooms at the end of summer

When everything else is dying

And the garden looks like

Kingdom Come it comes

Having overcome its dangling

With the luster of its bells

Love Is A Bedtime Story Valentine

Always susceptible to drama

My old childhood friend Lucy

Just one step past reality

Sailing kites loving horses

She married young

Seduced by her own theories

Of power to a much older

Wealthy businessman

Locked in a love-hate bond

Over their countless children

Who as she describes it

Turns out to be me right now

Listening attentively and smiling

How she first met her Ari

And their great plans for me

All Here Valentine

That huge segment of the dead

Assigned to the wind and sea

Slaving in their cloud factories

Reconfiguring their debts

And those on the welcoming committees

For the new arrivals on the moon

Or in the crowded emergency rooms

How many can they save

From a second death

And those still homeless in heaven

Assembled in choiring ranks

Isn't this heaven on earth yet

If he alone is here

Living in light and air

Scientific Valentine

We could divide the world

Which would explain so many things

Between the loved and unloved

At any given time or place

We could try to look more closely

At the amount of light

In their faces and how much

Of it flows out of their eyes

Or if they're clouded over

Refusing the love they're offered

We could surmise how many more

Feel unloved than seen

We could be frightened by the facts

But love has even seen to that

Actual Valentine

May I ask you a personal question darling

(I pretend whoever you are

You're my darling but don't worry

It lasts only a little while)

What do you make of memory

Is it the foggy country

Where we all actually live

And here just the places

Where it all gets filmed

How is it darling

That I love you there completely

While here I am not so sure

Of loving you enough

Two Sightings Of Love Valentine

Today's unofficial report includes

A single spider thread

Hovering above the grass

You can only see when the sun

Catches a small arc of it

Against the shade its lightening

Coalescing back and forth

Into two blazing wings

Wandering in the dark grass

And then suddenly two small birds

Rush in circling right above your head

One chasing the other

Round and round they go

Then out over the burning grass

Empathy For My Two Angels Valentine

One so fine and free

It makes my eyes water

The other so loose and clever

It makes my eyes water

Together both my parents

And my two quarreling kids

Who keep switching sides

Leaving me to sort the mess

But who do we thank for sleep

And to sit up after they're all

Tucked in and dreaming fast

Late into the night writing

Their brilliant biographies

Bringing water to my eyes

Transactional Valentine

If you accept the idea

That someone perhaps unknown to you

Knows all about you back and forth

On a day-to-day and night-time basis

If you consider that this someone

Has nothing else to do

But take care of you

If you only let her through

And only if you can suffer

A good scolding and

The silent treatment for a bit

Do you think she's prepared

To give you all of herself

And not expect some conscious effort

From some part of your heart

Staycation Valentine

Way out way out there

Is there a way out of here

Or is the passage further in

Until you completely disappear

I live to travel back and forth

Between perfection and annihilation

And vacation in the middle

Of the ocean on an island

Listening for those few moments

When the whole world pauses

Stops to catch its breath

For four days and nights

Where you can finally touch the stars

And pick which one is yours

Already Valentine

To soften the blows

A beauty comes

A bird leaps in the grass

Waking a yellow moth

Or something less metaphysical

Like scissors-paper-stone

To guide and spur us on

What does your gut tell you

About beauty you already know

How proud that bird seemed

And that yellow too slow to escape

It turns out beauty has the last blow

But the moth already laid her eggs

Secret Safe With Me Valentine

All I remember of Eleusis

At least what's left of the place

Is sweating in a holding pen

For our late-sleeping guide to come

And open up our prison gate

And lead us into a large open space

Where the fearful neophytes

Once gathered in silent darkness

Vowing not to breath a word

Of what they were about to see

And then I remember an empty cave

Really just a hole in the rocks

Where once spoke some Persephone

And looking up I found my group

Had hurried on far ahead

To ruins where they were blessed

Our guide's mouth moving but

I couldn't catch a word

Unrecognizable Valentine

Not the woman at the well

Nor even Mary at the tomb

Nor his friends at Emmaus

Stopping for food and drink

Recognized him at first

Nor do I so often passing

How do we not see

What is right before us

Must be the first mystery

I mean like water into wine

When you first taste it

A pause in the conversation

As you take a mouthful

Looking over at the bride

Seeing what love is worth

That Word's Valentine

The game is to remember the word

In three seconds or you lose

But my brain has a minimum

Thirty minute delay so time

Lets memory keep score

No points if the following day

The missing word arrives

In some passing conversation

But then slips off again

That word with yellow wings

Perhaps the origin of its species

Think of it as the last living word

The word that starts the world again

Come on you know you know it

Once Valentine

On the other side of our house

A large plot of lush grass

Inside a pointy iron fence

Forbidden but unstoppable

Our naked feet loved to run

Catch and fall and roll around

In that cushy watery green

From those days I must have sent

A postcard just arriving in my

Broken mail-box of a brain

To remind me as a child

I spent some days in paradise

I once was free and wise

And will be once again

Getting Back Valentine

Now I've got the funds

I've lost that pressing need

To set out for the world

Traveling so far that only leads

To another temporary homeland

The world is like the richest bank

That only loans you so much

To pay back the debt of fate

With a variable interest rate

But how account for the miracles

You can only see by sitting still

Once in Samos we struggled

Through the soaring heat

Combing the ancient streets

But now I can only imagine the relief

we felt getting back to air conditioning

After All Valentine

So much is loaned to us on earth

That when we have to give it all back

In heaven will it have to be

Wrenched from our hands

Will I bargain with my angel

To let me keep a few pieces

Of paper and a pen to write to you

Now and then as I pass through

The seven stages of healing

So after all the bandages are removed

And even though I still can't see a thing

And have to shield my eyes

Against the light I still can

Write to let you know I'm here

Whoever Valentine

Whoever you are in this breeze

Spirits roaming the world like tourists

I thank and welcome you in

Even if you won't take a seat

And regale me with your travels

I know you have somewhere

Important to be and must swirl

Only once in my garden

In a hail of leaves and petals

And then rush off to greater worlds

It must be cool to be

Wherever you want to be

To be full of yourself

But in a good way

As when you brush my face

And give yourself away

Satori At Big Sur Valentine

Clothing landscapes

Was a mountain stolen

You could feel it there unseen

Like a limb that wasn't there

How it floated in the air

Let loose from its moorings

If I could catch it I would

Climb it but it hurries off

Resting and then sinking into

The sea promising to return

I watched it from the path

Of another firmer mountain

That led me to a fence and sign

Warning of bears ahead

My bike not there

I miss it like a limb

Sara’s Valentine

Yes Sara there really is a salvific sense

Of humor (which may be all that saves us)  

Still in your blood and bones real laughter  

That can only come from real pain 

Or else it will be beauty that saves us

For two or three minutes every day

Usually a child’s face if you’re lucky

Or rain or even some inanimate object

If such exists everything in motion

(Hardly a pause for death or breath)

Or maybe it will be the sea that saves us

But only if we go there every day

Look for the seals at twilight waving

Or the stars as they enter the bay

 

Picking And Choosing Valentine

Something's in cherries

(Though it's true of everyone)

That's not in anything else

Bite-size edible rubies

Another divided world

With its bitter stone the teeth

And tongue separate

Savoring the meat

What disease was it made

To cure or since some

Are bittersweet at least

Ameliorate the sweetness

I lack in my bones 

Something straight to the heart

To make it juicy and fresh

Literary Criticism Valentine

If I loan you my 'Confessions

Of St. Augustine' will you

Loan me your Boswell's 'Johnson'

I haven't actually read Augustine

Yet but something tells me

To read the Boswell first

And then hear what you make

Of how a saint is made

I'm afraid I read for style

More than substance

And since I pay the writer

For my time I want to know

I will at least be moved

By some singular verbiage