More Valentine

I listened to the old men

Speak what they had learned 

As young men eager and afraid

In the temples of longing and love

What stuck with them

Through all the vagaries

And unexpected turns

The stones and shells

They would take back with them

To lay at the feet of love

Their hearts like begging bowls

Their eyes brimming with tears

Their silent wish in the end

To be sent back for more

After All Valentine

For one to get to three

It must endure duality

It must break the soul

Into an army of opposites

Warring in the will

While all along

It is only the heart

That can mend the mind 

Torn apart its cities

Laid waste its bodies

Screaming for their mothers

What is the heart after all

But a hovering thing

Our only true power 

Does Life Live For Itself Alone Valentine

My feet are burning in the sun

While a cold breeze swims 

Around my head 

Never more alive

And in between

My gathering body sits 

A shade in shade 

At one of death's bus-stops

Far out in the hills I suppose

Where it rushes past me

Forgetting to stop again and again 

I heard someone say

He didn't want to be here anymore

He thought his life a shame

To be relieved of by some peace

And he was right

But it's not that simple quite