Mindless Valentine

How many minds have I 

As many as there are

But mostly it comes down to two

And a third like a child 

Running along holding on

To his hurrying parent's hands

Who frequently lose their minds 

Shouting and quarreling over him

Refusing to take sides

But the mind being a prime

Number travels on and won't

Be stopped by dull infinity

It can only come to rest at last

On some human savior's breast

Now Valentine

Every drama is divided

Between the performance up front

And what's going on backstage

The years of preparation it takes

To insert a few moments of mercy

And your mind will never 

Be the same dull thing

You start to feel each day

As the culmination of events 

That happened long ago

And each night with its onset

Of stars clamoring to be born

What waits to wake you

Now you know it's there

Some Dove's Valentine

Some dove in deep distress

Keeps cooing and cooing

Or it could be a love song

Is there really any difference 

And then faintly in the distance

I hear the same four notes

Come back uncertain

If an echo or another dove

Compelled to repeat the same

Love-moan the same old groan 

First of pleasure then of pain

Four notes and then a pause

The same sounds wording

Beating out a groping heart

In love and in distress

Roses For His Birthday Valentine

From the rear of the class

I want to thank you truly

For coming back dear teacher

To give us another chance

To think the way a singer thinks

And learn to read and dance

To sow ourselves as stones

In the warm earth of Christ

And spring up leaves in his sun

But all of that is still to come

Indeed has already happened

And we are always just catching up

Losing our way every dreaming night

If it weren't for your faithful light

Struggling Valentine

This colorful world seems everything

Yet nothing if not limiting

It hems us in and shuts us off

From knowing anything for real

This world becomes a giant wall

Under the guise of rolling hills 

We settle in with the literal stars

Forgetting the darkness

That makes them shine

Those stars that cling

To the darkness those faces

That haven't forgotten us

Struggling to break through

Though we have forgotten them 

Yard Bird's Valentine

I know my lizards

The way my lizards know me

Fleetingly and confidentially

Flames that dart about the yard

I see my plants

The way my plants see me

Objectively and enviously

I think of my tree

The way my tree thinks of me

Deciduously and aspiringly 

Little ego of my garden

We suffer any winging thing 

To come unto us

Mockingly and mysteriously

And we together sing

Thin Valentine

I think we only really see ourselves

When we stand in the thin line

Of dawn just before the sun

Has risen in the half-darkness

Before the brightness overwhelms us

And the darkness goes underground

That thin line that divides

Our bodies into two warring sides

Where we can feel a few moments

Of equilibrium and peace

Neither light nor darkness

Neither arrival nor departure

Creatures of this at once

With some of other world

 

As Yet Untitled Valentine

A painter has to be

A bit of a chemist

A musician has to be

A bit of a mathematician

A dancer has to be

A bit of both 

Time spent planning

Your next life how else

In galleries and concert halls

Waltzing between the statues

With your love at the feet

Of greatness learn to be a poet

Of your life perennial apprentice

To the masters of love and light

The Way Valentine

The way the English

Love their gardens  

I love you the way

At least in films

The Russians loved

Their troikas dashing

Through the snow

I love you the way

You deal with space

And time and me

So nonchalantly

Careful of the hours

Counting  and not counting

On mere eternity

Exactly Everywhere Valentine

A large white seed-head

Atop a leafless stem

A periscope risen from the dead

A single dandelion stood

Confronting me when I came out

So exact and self-possessed 

It held my eye in judgment

Of my envy at its imminent

Dispersal just you wait 

I will be everywhere

This dying you see dear friend

Is just a dress rehearsal

For a hundred thousand flowers

Out Shopping Valentine

Wandering back over yesterday

I did not get the weeding done

I did not find the rose

Nothing in the house I drove

To the store unsure of what

I wanted but it was there

I found two genuine smiles 

The first from a three year old

While his mother stared at the flowers 

Our smiles went back and forth

A radiance that fed me

And later checking out

An old woman's eyes brightened

As we passed to a smile

Still blooming today

A freshness I have stored away

Weeding Valentine

I suspect today will find me

Kneeling before flowers

Whispering to the gnomes

Weeding the narrow border

Some come up easily as thoughts

Barely holding on to reason

While others insist on feeling

And putting up a fight

Releasing with a sudden jerk

So I take a tumble laughing

But I will not be stopped

I'm searching for a briar rose

I planted years ago

Blooming hidden here

In all this thorny bramble

Waking Valentine

Let's start with something simple

Something physical as a kiss

Let's lie here for a second

While our spirits reassemble

Let's quickly speak our dreams

Before we can't remember

What it felt like to be vapor

Wafting on the breeze

Then rise and dress ourselves 

In tattered gaudy souls

Like birds returning to their nests

Who knows how far they've flown

To call these bodies home

Together and alone

Only Valentine

Every morning I wake to pray

Thank you Father for this

Beautiful day you've given me

Help me to make of it

Something worthy of your love 

In all I do and say

And though I know he's occupied

With more important cosmic things

Hurrying through the darkness

Continually unfolding beings

I know he hears me

I feel him here inside

Has he not trusted me

With his only child

Siesta Valentine

Come three in the afternoon

I start to swoon a little

And must crawl back into bed

For my rendezvous with the dead 

Who prefer the secrecy of dreams

Where they can let themselves be seen

Alive in their neighboring sphere

Under the cover of sleep

Where a parallel life persists

In mysterious pictures and moods

Of something truer realer

Struggling to break through

To this harder thicker side

Where dreams must live and die

Again Valentine

Wondrous terrible love

Pulling us apart and putting us together

The gods have given us to play with

Like children with fire

Why put us in an orchard

And not pick the fruit 

It took courage to defy them

But love came first

The juice on the lips

Our overriding desire the flesh

Of being human

So now the only way those gods

Who loved and then abandoned us

Can get back into this world

Is if we could learn to love them again

Voices Valentine

Whoever it is who's using me

These eyes to see the world

These legs to stand and walk on

Who slips in at the last minute

To keep me breathing 

Feeding me words

In endless conversation

You soundless voice I feel

Working your way through me

No not one but several

Ranks and ranks of beings

Helping me question me

If I be sane and worthy

To be of use to them

Holding On Valentine

I don't want to be the vessel

I want to be the drink

And from the other side of me

I don't want to be the drink

I want to be the drinker

It takes both hands to lift 

The cup between the two

To be both bread and breaker

Word-made and word-maker

In my inmost being

Which is how I think of you 

Between the poseur and the faker

One nascent word that's true

Looking Up Valentine

A curious flock of small V-shaped

Clouds heading north this morning 

Like check-marks risen from the list

Of things yesterday accomplished 

With four white porpoises pursuing

And then a gray whale looming near

A fanfare of thunder and lightening

From a distant war but no rain comes

Then nothing but a surfaceless sea 

Of blue endless into evening

Surely the gods must be planning

Their next move having dragged us 

Into this suspension of disbelief

This wondrous terrible world

At The Foot Of The Tree Valentine

Comes the day the first greenish leaf

Appears on my old pomegranate tree

Tiny as an infant's fingernail 

Emerging from a grave

My gnarled tree still hung 

With a few dead fruit

The dried blood of wounds

Cracked open by their seeds

Comes the second day

A second leaf deepens
That reddish glow

Destined for the flowers

And for all I know right now

A third day must be coming

Conjured Valentine

Like someone rushing past the windows

The rain ran on as brief as that

But just enough to shine the air

And deepen all the colors

Green greener and red sharper 

A rain dissolving to a mist

Itself a kind of spirit flower

Unfolding into nothingness

No rainbow but a rainbow's

Evanescent power to stir
The world into a glowing blur

Of fiery water earthy air

As if to conjure another world

Too beautiful to bear

What Is Romanticism Valentine

Is it a living science of the heart

Is it Persephone is it not

Experience of the hidden part

A longing for heaven or hell

Is it not how you remember her

Growing up between the living

And the dead often mistaken

For a statue or a slave 

Of passion and of beauty

Is it not the theory of Mary 

Imagine if she'd not been there

She and her best friend Magdalene

Rushing to the empty tomb 

Never Valentine

By the way dear Gayle

Your coconut cake was quite a treat

A sweet secular communion

I ate half that very night

And saved the rest for breakfast

But it was your words I savored 

Drawn from long researches

I felt the toil of your love

That somehow you were summing up

Your life what it had come to

That castle in the woods

That hut where a man lay dying

You saw and said it how this world

Would never be the same

Sure Valentine

Bring me some cogent words

About destiny my friends

On the invisible side of things

And suddenly like a flame

A hummingbird appears

And stares at me and a small

Scroll unravels from its beck

Bearing a single word

Dissolving on the breeze

Gone before I've time to grasp

It but it puts me on my knees 

To praise the sure

Fulfillment of our days

Rescued Valentine

What are you up to today

Devils and angels of the world

I rescued a golden grasshopper

Drowning in a water bowl

Pouring it out on the open grass

And sat with it while the sun

Dried its lovely back and legs

Asking if in kind return

It would teach me how to leap

Right up out of myself

For all I'm worth

Even if only a moment's flight

Like it in the airy light

Not to drown here on the earth

Pieces Valentine

Broken like a beautiful jar

Seem yesterday and the day before

It slipped from my fingers

Now in pieces on the floor

Just as I was loading it with water

And seven tall sunflowers

Trying to amaze you 

Now on hands and knees

Gathering up the pieces

More and more of them missing

As I paste them back together

I hardly can remember

The faces of those flowers

Until only you are left

Just as amazing as before