Cloudy Valentine

Caught between

the stupid and

the greedy

as the poem falls

overboard swept

downstream shortly

was it the Azores or

Amsterdam when

you lifted your head

above the horizon

of my thigh

the map of love

written all over

your face?

An Emblem of the Human Soul Valentine

You have to look out

across the drama of the world

to see what’s also going on

in multiple realities

here and there overlapping

tongues licking shores or

simply sailing out to the edge

of whatever you think

about the word cosmic

as only a mind can do

what is glimpsed

and grasped there

glimpsed and grasped

again of you.

Wittgenstein's Valentine

The record of one

man’s perceptions

going to and fro

over the ground

of thinking when it

split in two

before and after

the ice cream slurping

that we don’t but

want to trust even

our own thoughts

a dead face

can begin to breath

again always

there’s a heart-beat

long before any

heart shows up.

Changing Valentine

What doesn't change me
doesn't leave me
doesn't deceive me
then what do I do
to care for that part
oh yeah hat 14
more color therapy
a new mystery drama
you are thinking
aren't you
I suppose you'll call me
when you settle in
on your side of death
will you see me
any clearer
than I see you now
yet we know
we're both here
and there.

Furnished Valentine

Time did enter

the picture

merely as a further

gesture of space

matter subsequently filled

the river imagined its banks

so if maybe it doesn’t return

it’s still a river

and we’re still waiting

on the banks

after the earthquake

furniture sales soared

in all the other countries

people rushed to the stores

what did that portend?

Barbie's Valentine

If I had known

love more as

an object and less

as the thinly-

disguised subject

of my life would I

not accept only the

work I set myself

and be a free face

gently gliding out

onto Southern Avenue

I can hear the birds

loudly protesting

the sun going down

the sky all tourmaline

and tragic

your eyes two garnets

in the darkness turning

to undress me.

No One's Valentine

I think my heart

got buried

in your couch

while I slept

it must have slipped

out small and pink

stone someone

gave me I kept

it in my pocket

vaguely oyster

shaped veined

and stained little

axe head

slippery and

hard call me

if you find it

or just let

it rest.

Ingenious Valentine

Nothing rhapsodic

at this late flowers

but why do we recall

so little when we

get back here

where it’s clear

we occupy at least

two beautiful spaces

one with and one

without time or reason

how is the one

more or less imagined

by the other would

take us farther

down the Ister

than a Friday’s

meant to stray

but then you’d find

a way to do it

anyway.

Clear Valentine

The clear sky

shouts we haven’t

that much time to

move our minds

if we expect

the precipitous

to overcome the

inane in bed

or on the street

where we go to

dream or cuddle

following the honey

you call sweat

the sweet labor

of being licked

and held but

in one vision I

saw you destitute

living in crazy land

down the street

from our first place

I had already been

dead some years

wearing my blue

jacket but weeping

when I saw you.

Witness Valentine

Aren’t I always

calling myself

out I mean

when was this

mistaken ident-

ification going

to end this

concern for

myself I must

be there

to witness

your recall

of the accident

which couldn’t

possibly have

gone down

as you describe

it or how could

I also have

been loved?

Farmers Market Valentine

Four éclairs

molested by

a bag of carrots

I am mental enough always

to have you in mind

what is economics

on a lofty holiday

my mother’s curse word

was ‘phony’

(the way she said it

there was nothing worse)

what is the evolutionary

task of shame

is the point of

science when mercury

returns Wednesday rain

as far as it works.

The Sorrow of the Sanguine Valentine

Only a target

moves that much

carries that

much sorrow

the attentiveness

of a head-lit doe

with Bambi

another Bambi

the end

of knowledge

run and run

or the beginning

of death

as confidante

and friend.

Tree Valentine

If we could only

see the shadow

would we have ever

imagined the tree

the whole tree

I would have said

long darker streaks

emerging from a dark wall

a stain or crudescence

and these grouped

together on top of

a gray border the way

science does it

not seeing the tree either

so caught up

defending the outlines

and occasional markings

but then I did see

the tree it was

the tree of desire

it was the wish

to do better.

Slowly Clearing Valentine

You are free

because you do not

see your cage

I am free

because I do

see mine

flight of a flicker

yellow-shafted note

perch in the open

nest on the ground

we can feel these dark

clouds go on for years

when our eyes reach

out for them.

Unshared Valentine

This idea of sharing

has us stuck

we can’t get

that into it

we don’t want

to have to

in the idea of war

the idea of death

the idea of a physical

body our best idea yet

except for the idea

of truth-in-movement

the idea of color

the idea of ideas

right

who invented that?

Dark Valentine

This is not to say

how I expect

to see the place

when I get back

from wherever

it is I’m going

I regret my harshness

in the morning

in the face of

your neglect

the night it

rained all night

cats and dogs

refrigerators

and horses

I was just horny.

Tangerines Valentine

After the earthquake

I started arranging tangerines

and two apples in

a painted bowl

as if for some painting

I started to think of

planet earth

as a suicide bomber

explosives strapped

to her chest here

and there a catastrophe

leaking through

I started to think

if we could all

think of ourselves

actually

in that position

lying athwart

one another

in a broken bowl.

Homeless Hummingbird Blues Valentine

Dear pseudo-

arch enemy

my faux foe

I write to tell

you all things

are reflections

of some higher

thing or being

relax this is delicious

something I can kiss

on the lips

not mere information

but how can things

be well if the world

is still in the hands

of madmen?

Original Valentine

You are a whole environment

but I have planted

ore in the ground

of my being to your form

thus spoke the youth

of Corinth once to Artemis

goddess of farmers and the arts

so how did we acquire

such cruelty to one

another over time

and come to believe

in some original murder

to explain it when

it was always about

not sharing or sharing

if what is seen is real?

Tomato Valentine

Just because it

can’t be measured

doesn’t mean

it can’t be weighed

by the mind what

this would feel like

what it would

set in motion

the year I had time

to spoil three

tomato plants

like they were

my whole childhood

imagine that

a tomato plant

one of the nightshade

family.

Antiques Valentine

Old furniture

is more valuable

than old people

fine art

is more precious

than children

all this was yours

but you pretended

to refuse it

I wish I could be

in the here and now

not lost in reverie of it

the flourish or

the grimace

all we know we’ve

had to think about first

not memory but

knowledge of

you first.

Folk Song Valentine

Hands washed

with the blood

of chrysanthemums

overnight the city

becomes a forest

in the queue of

disasters the thunder

favors the poorer

flowers whose

medicine is his

illness what number

are we to have

invented death

but to have kept

it for ourselves

as proof of power?

Restless Valentine

Like a website error

message you shut

me down but I simply

check back later

how will we get through

this pattern the gauntlet

of its trigger-points

where blind or inept

spontaneity no longer

accurately reflects

our need to find support

in drab or commonplace

responses to the natural

world we’ve relied on

for however long

when to obey one’s

thoughtful self alone

is love is freedom?

Abandoned Valentine

These general

statements

our lives make

of one another

as if kissing

was a speech to

one’s favorite

street or trees

our friends among

inanimate things

the people next

door moved out

we fatten on

their roses.

Early Morning Valentine #3

The unloved

parts of hearts

get cold first

hands and feet

ears and bits

of ice particles

rain brings

resignation

pounding on

the rubble

you go for food

but don’t come back

I leave this note

for you written

on the air.

Early Morning Valentine #2

Around nine

sun comes

galloping up

drooling a blinding

path of light

hey are you

ready to run

jump fuck sing

I let it rub

my neck and back

I drag its flashing

robe across the

burning tile to where

you’re waiting

with a smile.

Early Morning Valentine

It turns out a flower

is a kind of nose

and a nose a kind

of flower each

sniffing to see

if there is any future

in the air and what

darkness draws near

in our thinking

feeling its way

along the perimeter

cities of another

waking self.

Cyclamen Valentine

That I see you as a shy

and gravely alert person

every leaf in your possession

and as a great being

in the process of bleeding

using the blood

great streams of it

to shape these ruffled

crimson petals

bomber squadrons

over a green delta

in the endless war

mineral plant animal

human angel archangel

but not until each one

of us has a whole lifetime

and silence is heard

except for your breathing.

Rocking Valentine

Slowly fucking

back and forth

we wake up empty

shells of ourselves

on the opposite

shore of dreams

at last alone

where are you

more a constant

angle I can hold

and take of thinking

there’s no beginning

without as rocking

is to creeping

having scratched out

ourselves now we

reinstate me.

He Said Valentine

I was among the timid

timeless children more

than the restless depressed

smaller in similitude

I forget what we were up to

nine year old touching

hungry for holding withheld

before we felt extruded

into the moon-lit room

the body of a child

no one will care for

how could this

still be happening

on the earth?

Dessicated Wing Valentine

Think of it

as a mural

or a moving

sculpture all

of us work on

all the time

our immediate

detail in part

itself the thing

the whole body

seeks to com-

prehend the

mood behind

the catastrophe

we listen for

what we don’t

want to say

we slip away.

Epiphany Valentine

One must act out

both disorders

male and female

for a long time

both glories

in successive

passes practicing

down to the vagaries

of thinking alone

with others

in the desert alone

pondering what

manner or device

yelling and yelling

the heart craves.

Caller I.D. Valentine

Direct Insight phoned me

but I let the machine

pick it up

a pause and then

they hung up

that was it

the message

upliftingly brief

and precise

the silence

secondary to

the empty space

waiting sailed out into me

not immediately

filled with ocean.

Bronk's Valentine

That we may be unreachable

who long to be reached

unrecoverable who ache

to be recovered

each in our own century

and waste

one romantic boogey-man

after another under the bed

who have abandoned

childish as despair

if it is you who puts you here

guided by more

intelligence than sense

what are light and

darkness to you

if not gods to be

worshipped

and then overcome

what about imagination

don’t you get?

Life Valentine

You have just come along

just grazing along

and you find

a large red stone

or seed lying in

the grass and you

know immediately

being a bull

you find it

curiously provocative

and you know

immediately this

is a picture of

my life this stone

or seed what it thinks

it’s doing there anyway

and I knew immediately

how little my life

is my own

or anyone’s

I know.

Voice of an Electric Asterisk Valentine

The aloe offers

tubular flowers

out from a tall

stem an opening

or a letting go

to which it comes

anew in winter Eckhart

like Ezekiel

perceived it as

The Madonna of Humility

where are her clothes

into which a long time ago

how long do you think

we’ve been thinking

like this as reflections

in these patterns

the very highest ones

I leave to the wind

to topple to sink

in the furtherance

of something further

not even a god

can escape serving

some better idea.

Abstract Valentine

That the best among us

must look forward

to the most terrible

sufferings which some

regard as weakness

was Buddha wrong

about suffering

I mean the way

fear leads to courage

desire to compassion

we don’t want to

talk about these things

in poems openly we

let our old ideals

intimidate us

but love isn’t

that stupid.