What Fall Is For Valentine

Narrow my yard

Weedy my head

The flowers final hours

My two trees stare

At one another lovers

Tearing off their clothes

Let's make a child

Let's make another world

Let's sink our teeth

In the pomegranate's flesh

And lay our bodies down

Exhausted in the grass

Now we know that death's a ruse

And only love will last

The Phoenix Valentine

The Phoenix is a made-up bird

The fierce head of an eagle

The brilliant colors of a pheasant

The wide wingspread of an angel

Can't you see it's love's emblem

Bathed and burning in the fire

Of its own freeing destruction

Every evening smouldering to ashes

Which the earth gladly accepts

And carries to its central source

Every dawn it's sent

Aloft again however love

Construes it even now

It's kindling its assumption

In your heart's imminent flight

Peering Valentine

On one of the pick flagstones

A cricket is leaping and leaping

As if it was a trampoline

And it a little girl bouncing

Bouncing and laughing

Or bouncing and weeping

I can't tell if it's joy or woe

Thrown off with each ascension

But for a moment they relinquish

Their bodies and hang suspended

Defying the will of the world

A little higher and higher each time

Peering over the edge of something

That feels sublime

Taken Valentine

On this blue morning sky

A child of chance has drawn

Behold a five-pointed star

From contrails and clouds

Slowly forming slowly fading

Each of its lines breaking off

In different directions 

The way a soul falls apart

Disappearing over the entrance

Of a deeper world

Someone has taken his star

And gone back to being

A clear blue sky

Another morning making

Earth's Valentine

Now we come to the part

In the twisting mystery of man

Where everyone meets

Everyone else even if only

In a mute introductory way

After our long divorce

We are starting to come back

To this sweet earth

With fewer and fewer

Misconceptions about what

We are doing here

It's still early days

But darkness can only deepen

Into light what else

Was it born to be

Stillness At Last Valentine

What the gods had in mind

In their enthusiasm and confidence

When they decided to hurl themselves

Out of the darkness of blissful love

And dissolve in a fiery mist

Was us and not just us

Even this day they thought of though

And how far their light could travel

Into falling leaves and dying flowers

Until it reaches the flesh and blood

I get to call my separate self

I turn back to remember

Those first few days of being held

That first sublime October

Boundless Valentine

The sequences of slavery

Are not mocked they fall

On to limbs these chains

No mercy for the blind

The first is merely the delusion

I can rape and kill you

Terrorize you into a submission

So complete you thank me

But there are so many other ways

Of binding and being bound
The appearance of this world

Just the last frontier last gasp

Where freedom takes its stand

In seeing I was always free

Mythological Valentine

The first time I saw the Mississippi 

Was from a hillside above Genoa

Wisconsin on a visit on a whim

To my genius friend struggling

For a place for his brilliance

To land he had found the story

Of Gilgamesh and planned

To make a modern movie of it

He showed me his first magical slides

And played me the synthesized

Music that would accompany them

All I remember is one

Of a wheelchair flying over the moon

Whatever that could mean

He had a flair for irony

A startling wit and a taste

For drinking me under the table

He traveled the country until

We lost track of one another

But then years later he called

Drunk in the middle of the night

Lost and crying incoherently

Until I had to hang up on him

And weep for Enkidu dying

Finding That Book Valentine

I had little time to read

Another book already

Leaning stacks of them

Loomed on several tables

Must-reads before I pass

But as soon as I glanced

Over the first few pages

I couldn't put it down

I felt immediately it knew

And implicated me

In the single most important

Question we all carry

How not to hold my life too dear

How only love can stifle fear

Finally Valentine

With a single unexpected gesture

Surrendering to his sadness

He leaned his head against the wall

Feeling it was all for naught

The one thing he was good at

No longer wanted by the world

Outnumbered by his failures

To have learned to love

When the offer was there

Finally he had come to the one joy

His whole life could afford

And picked up the phone

To call his granddaughter 

Just to hear her voice

Left Valentine

While I slept

A brief rain fell

I'd left the window open

So the room was filling

With the cooling air

Softly prodding me awake

But something deeper

Was pulling me under

And I vainly struggled

To retrieve my dream

We were so real and rushing

To catch some train

Love had just entered us

And then it started to rain

All I Know Valentine

Metal screams at metal

Turned against itself

In the forges of heaven

Actually just across the way

My neighbor in his garage

On the first cool day

We've not bothered with names

But I've watched his wife and son

Grow older with us over the years

He's built a private business

Mending cars and drives around

In his black Mercedes

That's all I know of them

And they even less of me

And screams carried on the breeze

The Happy Debtor's Valentine

Justly my debtors need

My just debts be paid

So they can pay their debtors

But the debt is never paid

More added on along the way

All my life I've taken

Trying to pay it off

Often building to the brink

It can no longer be forgiven

So let's just get this straight

Once and for all forever

You owe me nothing right

And I owe you everything

Across The Yard Valentine

Vatic with a grin

Buddha baby death

Sits across the yard

Nervous as a secret

Shrouded in flowers

We generally agree

On all the details

But he's a little squishy

On the dates

When he signed his last will

He included a codicil

Stipulating preparations

For another fall his final

Burial and entombment

Never admitting for a moment

That had happened long ago

October Mind Valentine

His burial came in the spring

When his body became the seasons

So in the fall you could feel

Him weaving in the air

And you could almost sense him

In the dead leaves lifting

Almost palpable where the last

Flowers embrace the first frost

In love with the earth

As he had always been

I have watched him stand

For hours in a shorn field

His thoughts so still and magical

Even if only in my mind

Dancing Valentine

If these words weren't wood

I could carve your face

On a cane and hobble

Around the yard dancing

To make us laugh

Which is not always easy

To be silly children together

I remember that picture

When you slapped a bunch

Of carrots over my waist

And made me blush and laugh

At the camera's click

'The juxtaposition of the incongruous'

That's what love is

Alexei's Valentine

No one would be more surprised

Than him if he had not returned

To his own country knowing full well

What would happen to him there

He was a person entirely himself

Who must be restless in heaven

Away from all he loved

Remember he left them all

Behind in the end

Left death itself behind

For those devils to test him

Because he thought not much

Of himself but loved his family

He knew he would return

Searching for his own country

In their faces

Two Skills Valentine

Soft blows of a hammer on wood

Tapping it all perfectly into place

My neighbor's always making crosses

Or working on his salvaged cars

Two skills I never mastered

Though I did lease a little factory

Of words on the outskirts of town

Until I filled it up

With useless fictions and had to

Burn it down to stay alive

One bone-chilling night

I had yet to learn the carpentry

Of invisible things

How to set the heart humming

Seasons Of Heaven Valentine

I imagine our earth

Must have filtered down

Out of heaven the heaviest

Silvery pieces of sand

Reflecting everything above

Cascading down to the bottom

Heaven's soul birthing these bodies

From the rain and the mud

Into such marvelous creatures

But it must have been we

Ourselves who were clamoring

To be alive on this earth

As if only those who've known the depths

Could create from bodies a new heaven

Leo's Valentine

When Leo Tolstoy compiled

His own holy gospel

Weaving together selections

From the other four

He bypasses the whole

Bethlehem story the shepherds

And the stars followed

A mother's worries for her child

And at the end there is no

Resurrection no Emmaus

It all stops suddenly at the cross

Was it his melancholic nature

Blinding him to the best parts

The good was it made a small book

Soldiers could carry over their hearts

Ceremonial Valentine

All we know about the past

Might be divided

Between awe and loss

If you look at the hand-prints

Emblazoned on the cave wall

One miraculous event after

Another and another

And at the same time

A skipping broken record

When all we had was our hand-prints

We had to put them on the wall

Where it was not lost on us

You would certainly find them

In the fellowship of the heart

Thirsty Valentine

He too lived in a desert

Where the heat of summer

Can get so intense it starts

To melt the soul

Forests turning into flames

Burning sand with a single lake

Who knew when I got here

Geography was fate

Climate an arranged marriage

Which could be why he

Only spoke of flowers once

In words that sound like

What you might say

To soothe a child

Last Stop Valentine

Having sown themselves

They spread around the yard

But why do I want

To tell you about them

They are just purple flowers

Tall trumpets blaring

Their silence in the sun

Because I know you too

Would admire their stature

And their tact each bloom

The last stop on the road

To the invisible world

Their thin skin separating us

And yet offering us a way in

The Limits Of Language Valentine

Yitcon Stein Victim Sign

Vidkin Stein Vet Constrain

Victim Stain Vince I Am

Drinken Stein Thicken Stein

Rickon Stein Pitkin Stein

Veteran Stein Vetcon Stein

Vilkon Stein Vat Contains

Vidkin Stein Victim Stein

Victor Stein Fit Con Stein

Vector Rhyme Wit Gen Stein

Victor Shaw

The New Eleusis Valentine

I've been reading Plato's Proclus

And the other sacred masters

Alongside the latest poems and novels

Until it's all a fine muddle

Weren't the first hymns

To Chaos and Bewilderment

The god Ignorance

Who is torn to pieces

By the intervening years

Of conscientious study

Of moods and words

Connections we know are there

Now more and more begin to hear

The call of that first human being

Who looks exactly like you

Recognizable in all the stories

Sky Harbor Valentine

I imagine a little bag we all carry

For stuffing things we really need

To hold on to and I don't mean memory

Or maybe it's just a pocket

Where you keep a still

Unwritten note to yourself

Always ready to present it

To guarantee your flight

Or a purse where you know you put

The password somewhere in here

Emptied on the counter

That little bag of necessities

Waste and treasure saved

You imagine will get you on that plane

Invented Valentine

After marvelous encounters

With great personalities

Clearly not all of this world

After long conversations

About why so many languages

Long gone or just coming into being

We finally invented a speech

Of our own an affection

In the air dividing the light

Between us which myself

Would be the first to relinquish

If I can only keep one promise

Let it be to trust you completely

My angel and real friend

If not for my sake then for yours

Not Totally Eclipsed Valentine

The unheard voices of the past

The silent orchestra behind the world

Stone words of the amphitheater

Still as muted roars

The stark cargo of deeds

Stuck just above the horizon

Hope like a blinking child

Your own sleeping in your arms

But he had a solemn voice

That went back to the bards

You could hear the swish

Of dresses dancing

You could feel the breeze

Of it all still happening

Love Story Valentine

In my supposedly October yard

I found the natural world

In a state of humming suspense

Summer keeping its grip

Forcing its flowers

Into a second bloom

And still it dreams on 

Like a sleeper in a house on fire

I could feel the heat of other worlds

Flames turning us into flames

And what if it never ends

Never finds its lover in the fall

Only to lose it all come winter

Cast out here in the desert of desire