Unnatural Valentine

Did you just see that yellow leaf

Hop down to the ground while

All the others fell or are falling

But that one clearly leapt

Upward at first casting itself

Out as if to catch the wind

Not merely succumbing to it

But working it to its purpose

To land at a greater distance

From the branch that had

Already lifted it as far as it

Could go its direction was the sun

But the ground still wanted it to fall

New Moon in My Sign Valentine

I've visited heaven many times

The Lord has often been my guest

Such as I on earth can know him

But he keeps his visits brief

And often we sit in awkward silence

Listening to the movements

The bird voices of the world

Me trying to think of a question

Him shining his Buddhist grin

Always arriving at leaving

I can't take too much of heaven

And he can't not take the whole earth

He says one day

He'll come to stay

 

You Know Valentine

You know how memory works

In family groups and curious

Hard-won associative patterns

 

The truth is we have to run the world

And throw it away at the same time

Sensing the onward flow the moon

Behind its iron scrim

 

But there are those who want

To stay behind and the question is

Who will go back to fetch them

 

The dead are our children

We suddenly realize

One day walking along

 

We find a further life in them

If we take them seriously

If we trust them as friends

Passion Vine Valentine

Will you dear angel

Remind me of the name

Of that vine over there

 

I forget what year

I stood it in its hole

And pruned and watered it

 

And waited for it to cling

Like a body to its bones

To make the trellis ring

 

And now you're dying

And I've forgotten your name

Numberless leaves I have known

 

But now I take from memory

Whatever it provides

Vast in its elisions

Balanced Valentine

The plants are surely breathing us

As we are steadily breathing them

You'd think we'd get better and better

 

But the carbon keeps building up

And we struggle to hold the balance

Between in-breath and out

 

It takes a whole year

For a tree's single breath

So secure is its faith in life

 

Its dying is almost more beautiful

Than its being born

And there are those among them

 

Who never lose their leaves

But go on breathing the light

As death whispers past

 

Mixed Valentine

I don't want tacos

I don't know what I want

So we end up with tacos

 

And because fall here

Is like spring there

After a blistering summer

We can't wait to turn

 

The garden and start it up again

But it's a strange fall here

A mixture of dying and sprouting

 

So even when you find out

What you want it's only

The wanting that survives

 

And a settling for winter roses

 

Right Valentine

Sometimes to do the right thing

To get up and walk away

Has nothing to do with love

 

Even if it turns out badly

It's like the thousand tiny seeds

Of a particular orchid

Drifting on the wind

 

In hopes a tiny few

Will happen on the right

Subject and you'll know

When it's selected you

 

For a trial run to see

How far you can take it

And to find out for sure

 

It's the only mistake

You didn't make

Argument with My Angel Valentine

Yes holding on to the devil's hand

I am often for the ride

Of my life but I hate

The Ferris wheel and

He always wants to scream

Over and over again

In the haunted house

Of my heart until

I slouch him home

We avoid the parade of fools

Already spoken for he has

His teeth in me a man alone

And argues back the more

I tell him to be calm

Don't Worry Valentine

I will not forget you angel

Together we will still go

For walks and I will rub

Your feet and you will scratch

My back and we will sleep

Torn together by each other's

Dreams and snores and caresses

And we will finally get married

Me for the third you for the first time

Me to my first true mind

Though you loved me first

Even before I was born

You recognized my face

Third times a charm

Sometimes Valentine

Sometimes at night my angel

Comes from behind and faces me

Refusing to be ignored anymore

I ask her how she's doing

As she gives me an icy stare

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry

It's just I say the light gets so bright

And sometimes the darkness so deep

I totally forget you're there

I reach out to touch her hair

She has such lovely hair

I want to comfort her and tell her

Not to worry I won't forget her

As long as she is there

Half a Valentine

Half of the world is hidden from us

Half of life goes on without us

But who knew about the other half of seeing

Buried alive in us long ago

In my mind its hand reaches up

Out of the grave of my heart

And slowly its body rises

Into a sapling or a flower

That only lives for a day

Turns out the eternal is evanescent

Grasped it escapes into the night

Where dreaming pursues it

But I am left with only broken pieces

Of the other half of sight

 

God's Glory Valentine

In the unredacted version of my life

I start at the end of the last page

Proofing it backwards taking out

Or putting in the commas

Stretching out the personal pictures

With the objective unseen half

Of what was really going on

But often I stop at a particular page

Breaking down and can't continue

That quiet day you were born

Isn't God's greatest glory

That he had a child to love

Who could give birth to him

Who could bring his heart to life

The Better Part Vlanetine

The part of me

That gets things done

Isn't speaking to the part

That gets next to nothing done

What one calls indolent and lazy

The other calls contemplative and hazy

One prattles on about the dishes and the meals

While the other wonders what God feels

They both think they're both lost

Which is when they need you most

You silent one exhausted smiling

From talking and playing with the children

Come rest with us in the stillness

And give us our forgiveness

Up Valentine

Up all night

Partying on the roof

Now you sleep it off

Curled on the patio floor

Naked as the cat you are

Merely a visitor

From another world

You kept me waking

To the loud music

Of joy you called it

Too young for that word

Your body still sleek

And perfect as a bird

Your heart still strong and meek

 

Fake Valentine

Death seduces us with autumn's beauty

The mood of many loves ending

Mixed with so many just beginning

The way the fog lingers into afternoon

When we can't stop crying

Sitting among the quaking aspens

Until the sunlight rushes in

Searching as if it had forgotten something

A mother her own lost child

Or the will to live itself a body

Laying down covered with leaves

No leaf a breeze won't take

But death is such a fake

Plodding/Rushing Time Valentine

Such an accumulated debt

Of fear and greed and hate

Could only be repaid

When a new understanding prevails

When we forgive You Lord

As you have forgiven us

According to the old prayers

I still say from childhood

That childhood come again

This is simple mathematics

For which a new pair of ears

Has first to be carved out

To let the music enter us

Waking to Dream Valentine

Some high being hides in my hibiscus bush

I come to sit at her feet

Mornings after confusing dreams

To ask her what they meant

Her dreams are clear pointed leaves

Dead or green or yellow

She uses to enfold herself

In an unambiguous glow

Dying together with growing

Suffering into speechless bloom

Until she herself becomes a dream

Drawn up from the dark earth

We tremble when the sunlight

Fills her branches with birds

St. Michael in the Americas

In the childhood pictures we brought over

From the old countries of the mind

He carries the chains in one hand

From which he freed himself

And in the other a flaming sword

Brandished above a dragon's head

We saw him as a picture of our plight

And dressed ourselves as soldier-angels

And roared through our monster teeth

And led the dragon on a leash

Or fell dead on the bloody ground

We knew we were just playing around

Until he brushed us with his wings

Michaelmas Valentine

Today we welcome the clever finches

Who make it back in the fall

Having learned to sing Your names

Into the quiet corners of the yard

They know how to scratch them out

In words made of twigs and chirps

And whatever seeds are hiding

Like when You bent down

And left Your imprint on the ground

And then assumed a branch

And sang Your blood away

Some of it must have dripped

On the finches that imperial day

I pray that it also falls on us

Lasting Valentine

Waiting in the little hallway

Between summer and fall

In that shady corridor of days

Drowsy from summer's dream

Watching it all fall apart

Each leaf so precisely placed

Not a murmur touching down

Here it is again the end of everything

The last days grouped around the grave

With nothing more to say

Death lands on a perfect day

Not too cold or hot

Not too dark or light

No matter to me if it comes or not

To My Brother on My Birthday Valentine

My one brother talks a lot 

But everything he says is important

Stuff about nothing in particular

News from the nodal point of anger

Which we both know is disguised fear

Which he doesn't know we share

But I can't stop the onward flow

Of his words roaring over rapids

Even when it comes to the slow pond

And the tall grasses of his despair

I listen even more deeply

To the silence as we float

Out over the depths of I love you

We both know is meant

Life's Valentine

If every single form of life

Is a soul-building enterprise

If suddenly small purple flowers

Show up on the red-blooming hibiscus

Everything has to be re-imagined

About how everything works

A default to the empty mind

In which everything's dissolved

Into the darkness of God again

And whatever we've left him

To reassemble from all of life

Into a new cosmos be sacrificed

That the great Teachers of Flowers

And the Masters of the Wind

Be sent forth again

Christ at Zuma Valentine

When you're not in diapers anymore

Feeling the rush of your own first steps

When you're not napping in kindergarten

Like a seed at the bottom of the world

When you're not suffering the ninth year drought

When you're not moronic fifteen zut

When you can never get enough traveling

When you can never get enough holding

When you're not in Zurich or with child

When you're just not feeling it anymore

But still in love with the world 

When you're not able to walk or speak

When you've not forgotten me anymore

But when you're good and ready come

I'll be waiting at Zuma's shore

Is It Fall Yet Valentine

Two dead Ficus leaves

Circle on the patio breeze

Rushing after one another

Then they stop and stare

What do you want

Each asks the other

I asked you first

They both repeat

Is it possible they're lovers

And the wind that's abandoned them

Their old quickening and fire

Following one another into the flames

That have turned them faded bronze

Frankly they look like earrings

Only an archaic queen would own

Banked On Valentine

In the first rough half of life

We pay off our last life's debts

So in the second half we're free

To accumulate new debts

These debts add up to death

Who just takes out a second mortgage

And installs new doors and windows

Still the house looks like a husk

In which a hard seed rattles

Like the last breeze in a throat

But finally the economy is such

We become the air and lake

All these debts have made us rich

This wealth in turn we re-invest

Secret Valentine

Even more secretive than the future

The always-unraveling one

Who cannot keep a secret

Always whispering to the past

Finding a fresh wardrobe for

The skeleton of every fact

The same act over and over

With a whole new cast

As if it were holding out on us

The future forecast in the past

The premotion in the deja-vu

The abiding presence there

We struggle to identify

As you and I and You

 

Dear I Valentine

Dear I at times too dear

At once the lowest and the highest word

Not God but my I I fear

Not the one that he conferred

Two I's that meet in a third

A little clearing in the woods

Where I find a stump and sit

And spy a trinity of birches

Dripping candling the sky

Perfect place for an I to die

Eyes left open to the light

One I that rescues the other I

The one that can never die

Flame that comprehends the night

Mistaken Valentine

Switching legs I kicked the cat

I didn't mean to I take it back

No one was hurt but a nasty look

Pursued by a hasty retreat

What's up with inadvertent things

Mean when we didn't mean to

Something in me forgot

Her sleeping on my foot

How could I suddenly not

Be stirred awake by your words

Falling and disappearing

Leaves down the page

Beseeching me to relinquish

My mistaken rage

 

One Valentine

I know you find me incomplete

A disaster at times a freak

My will flaccid my talent weak

You won't find the moon at my feet

Or a crown of stars on my head

You'll find me scouring the streets

Of floundering cities and empty creeks

Searching for you among the dead

Trusting implicitly you're the one

I will become despite myself

Because I saw you once alive

Wrapped in the rising sun

The whole reason I still survive

My one and lonely one

Joan's Valentine

Let us keep this safely between us

Holding on tightly to our pain

While only our voices remain

To echo that distant name

Though you can't return

Lost summer of green veins

A stray wind rattles your leaves

Giving up on us entirely

On our hands and knees

We comb the grass for seeds

Look I've found one gnarled

Nasturtium husk to save

No worries all our lives

Curled in it bound for spring

Getting On Valentine

I knocked cautiously

On an archangel's door

With my questions in my hand

Getting on with my life

But still standing there

If he was not at home

He would be coming later

If he was not to be disturbed

I would water the plants

Or go for a walk with a friend

All my questions could wait

Though they burned my hands off

I knew they wouldn't matter much

When I felt his touch

Honey Valentine

If every word in the world requires

Another word to explain it

We will never get done with talking

If every sound in the world requires

A symphony to express its longing

We will never get done with singing

The simple phrase I love you

To everyone in the world

It's entirely unexplainable

A jolt that takes us to a holy place

For a few seconds or a lifetime

Where the words take off their clothes

And expose their true raiment

Honey-colored in the silence

Magnificent Valentine

Isn't it magnificent

Darkness is first

Among created things

When the heights

And the depths had not

Been plundered yet

And the god was still sleeping

Dreaming of his darkness

Rolling over in the bed

To see his son come back

How many eons had he waited

Often looking out the window

Sensing the directions he was taking

The light in the darkness of his life

 

Voyaging Valentine

We find the word 'Frei'

In metal above the gate to hell

We finger fragments from the walls

Of Ephesus and Troy

We steal a flower from a grave

At Chartres and find a penny

With the face of a dead queen

On the floor of a ruined monastery

We stand under a holly tree

And have our smiles memorialized

We eat breakfast on a balcony

Above a sea of olive trees

We sit on the thrones of initiates

And get lost in the alleys of Delphi

Then fly home silently

Saving Valentine

The Messengers of the Beginning

Weren't dragged down into the mud

They went there freely

They sent the Sons and Daughters

Of Twilight to make things difficult

Their lightening of desire

Did they want everyone to be a Job

They lit everything on fire

O Man save yourself they said

From the world you created

We are the Thunders of the Sun

What more could be given

We lent you Our Rising One

Whose work is never done

 

Built Valentine

Someone is pounding something

I hear it faintly down the street

Twenty-six regular beats

Then a pause then thirty more

Another pause then I lose count

What can they be building there

A mathematics almost music

I remember from biology

The beat is there in the blood

Before it builds the heart

A bird comes first

And then the nest

Whatever it was it's finished

Just need to get it varnished

Constant Valentine

The constant struggle of the mind

To get past like and hate

Every mind everywhere at once

Knowing some won't make it I

Imagine death must strenghten us

Or what's the plot of the point

Of having come this far

Into a fairy-tale of riddles

If we can't come to the last page

Awake with wonder pleading

It all be read again

Please one more time

Re-writing the ending

But starting from the beginning

Living Valentine

I was still living here the day

The summer started to fall apart

Not a complete surrender

But a suspension in the air

It was taken out and shot

There is blood everywhere

And more to come I guess

If the sky is any measure

Sometimes I rush out

Into the street to see the sun

Pass through the cities of the west

And into the seventh heaven

That sea without a surface

Where the darkness starts to glow again

Another Dreamed Valentine

If we could have coffee alfresco
One more time you pick
The place I could tell you
About my dream last night
I walked in on you sleeping
Covered and wearing a thick
Dark blue bonnet with holes
For your ears I smiled
And wondered why your ears
Were left to freeze
But later awake I realized
It was so you could go on listening
Even in your death's deep sleep
And from that other world could dream
Everything that's happening here

Don't Valentine

Don't get stuck in the beauty
Though you must pass through
Its rot to see what
It's really all about
Some reckoning must already
Be at work to seize
The beauty we call ugly
Which is always a surprise
Sanguine spring and melancholy fall
Got married in a summer blaze
A winter pregnancy miscarried
In a March's rainy haze
It all depends if the final seed
Sprouts in the puddle of your days

Approaching Valentine

The lost traditions of birds and trees
Their festivals and sainted feasts conclude
And all is hanging wonder in the woods
But in my town a melancholy mood
Everything seems once removed
Like a distant relative approaching
With news of dead cousins and aunts
One wants to crack a joke but can't
Remember one to save one's life
But it's just death again coming in glory
When the wheels of the truck come off
And the hulk of it sits rusting in the yard
Plastered like you with red and yellow leaves
And you know you're going nowhere at last

Wanted Valentine

I wanted to speak of my laziness
But I keep putting it off
I wanted to show you my patience
But I keep going off
Is it just like you to keep saying
What I really don't want to hear
I wanted to remember you
When you are right in front of me
I wanted you to know our names
That can't be said
I wanted to write about my craziness
And assure you it's caged and content
Now all my hallucinations are of you
Or God or the faces of our dead

Noon Moon Valentine

Because the light is outnumbered by the darkness
It must be more strategic more inventive
More consciously and thoroughly thought out
Every day its brilliant structures
Must be re-imagined piece by piece
And the sense of something never seen before
Installed in all the insignificant places
The powerful shadows work to blur
Even that little ghost moon we spy at noon
Like a sail lost in the blue
Must be struggled for and held
By a light so fragile and gentle
That when it lifts above the bay
We feel there is nothing left to say

Lullaby for My Illusions Valentine

Sleep my sweet illusions
Rest your heavy heads
Dream to your conclusions
Now the story's read

Did the plot consume you
How easily you were led
To find the weeping woman
And her young lover dead

Did you finally figure out
Which of her tears were real
Did you stagger about
Struggling not to feel

His body lay there on her lap
Within the silence of the trees
And in her heart a thunderclap
That brought you to your knees

Irreligious Valentine

If most cats are faithful Buddhists
And most dogs pious Protestants
Most frogs must be Zen Masters
Whose entrails predict disasters

But the Seventh Day Adventist crows
Promise they know what no one knows
And tell it to the Catholic cows
Where the Muslim grasses grow

In holy atheist days gone by
Clouds called a council in the sky
Of all beliefs facts long divisions
Around the idea we must die

Finally a Monarch wrote their creed
And handed morals out like seed
And on the tongue of every clod
Placed a tiny crumb of God

Autumnal Valentine

For for for
Against against against
Is there only more
Argument and angst

I tried to appeal to my neighbor
But my neighbor pulled a gun
The bullets in the chamber
Said listening was done

I retreated to my garden
And sat among the weeds
And watched their flowers harden
Into a hurricane of seeds

But even within their silence
I could hear the ringing of a bell
Clearing a path to heaven
And a highway to hell

Small Valentine

Some poets are small
Children who want to
Eat everything they see
Swallowing their becoming
They long to put their hands
On their first touching
And love uncritically
Holding on tightly to a finger
Or a breast where they can rest
From all their wailing and staring
Totally at the mercy of the gods
Who tend and wipe their asses
And coddle them and dress
Them in their cutest clothes
And send them out to where who knows

Still Waiting Valentine

Last night I waited for the rain
But no rain came
Only the wind to blame
For the forests still in flame

I waited for my mother
To leave my father
But finally couldn't bother
And went my own way

I waited for your train
It hurried in on time
But no you on it
As it scurried out of sight

I waited for my body to die
I was as patient as a sky
That's never known a kite
I dreamed I was a boy last night

Marina's Valentine #2

In a time of great hunger and danger
I can vividly hardly imagine
She wrote poems about buses
And swans and loved the rich
But mostly she sang like a nightingale
The loneliest songs of praise
With great pitch and valor
Until she took love too far
And it dragged her down 
Just so she could watch
Every motion of its unfolding
Forsaking even heaven
Just to live enough
To write it all down

Marina's Valentine

The end of August everywhere
And yet so many different Augusts
Too early for purple asters here
And too late for cascading stars
I think of her crossing Nevsky Prospect
In the fifth month of her pregnancy
With the daughter who would die
Of hunger before that permanently
Wary gaze had settled in her eyes
I think of her fastened to the earth
And still pacing Nevsky Prospect
A little August Russian doll
Waving her frightening poems
Sticking to her promise
To bring down those pretty domes

Beach Valentine

You call from the beach far away
Where it's sunny and breezy
With news of your world
At last the garage door is getting
Fixed and the holes in the wall
Filled in the annual invasion
Of summer ants is out of control
Your friend's father had to be hospitalized
With a painful infection your cousin's
Neighbor woke up with a gun to his head
Yes I'm fine today my big news is
I did the dishes and watered the plants
And slowly while I was listening
I lay down on the sand beside you
And held you lovely in my arms

Distracted Valentine

When enough of us can admit
How ineffective and over-rated
Anger really is how far fear
Deadens thinking hardens
Feelings when enough
Of us admit how vulnerable
We are at every stage
Of our existence how easily
Soft and gullible we learn
Too late how we were lied to
How we let ourselves be lied to
When it was our own selves
Duped into foolish anger
Distracting us from our work

Past the Time Valentine

Is the grass greener under the battlement
The water swifter under the bridge
The lightening fiercer in the city
The thunder louder in the field
Is there now an inescapable control
Between the world as echo
Of collective human voices
Raised to the pitch of a hurricane
In terror and in want
And the next storm that breaks
Over the backyards downing houses
As if this violence wasn't very convenient
And could still be pinned on something else
Willed ignorance or blind expedience

Love Is Fear Inverted Valentine

When she's very afraid
She runs and hides
The garbage truck or cleaner
Coming down the street
Loud grinding noises
From some Godzilla
Out to eat her
As if the world
Could be that simple
But even she knows
That's not the case
One day she went out to meet it
Crushed to find
It could easily be defeated

Funeral Valentine

We have only three crosses
To hang on: science art or holiness
Or what was your intention
In coming here if not to ask
What you are doing here
Your motive behind it
What were you going for
Trying to undermine death
By numbering it or painting it
Or adoring it this great big
Lumbering thing death it must really
Be put away with finally
If we're to make much progress

Unmoving Valentine

She's a loner outdoor cat
Whether it's cold or hot
But when I go out into her world
She runs to sit in my lap
Weaned too early and
Thrown out in the alley
Her trust was broken in two
But she sits and stares at me
With ambivalent adoration
Lover and betrayer her eyes say
Begging a simple question
Who are you for me to love
Her wisdom is the silence of a monk
My only purpose is not to move

World's Valentine

Happiness is the gift of the gods
But the suffering is of our own devising
Let me count the days and ways
Ravaging our goodness until it's
Almost gone and the fever breaks
On one side or the other
Happiness is the suffering of the gods
When they damp bliss down
To all the world can stand
When suffering comes to meet it
Without their infusions of joy
Often arriving at the last minute
The world would not be worth it
Nor we worthy of the world

There Are Only Second Chances Valentine

If theatre alone and music
Don't prove reincarnation
The embodiment of someone
Else and yet still you
How may we take on
Someone's deepest desire
To suffer the spectacle of oneself
And overcome the desire
To be anyone but oneself
Friends and family are almost
Everything except for the freedom
To be one's so-called self
Whatever that may be

40th Year Valentine

When farmers write poems
And children paint sunrises
Something happens in the valleys
Where the ice never came
The young and old of the people
Who lived here long ago
Feel they have awakened
And start to stir in the creek-beds
And the empty snowy fields
Take on the color of homecoming
The steep cliffs are burnished
Again with remembered wonder
From what the stones have suffered
Becoming a spirit in the trees
Becoming a glow in the eyes
Of the families who have gathered

One Day Valentine

One day frantically searching the skies
For my wayward sense of humor
I happened on a cloudy planet
Where a gloomy forest lived
Without ornament or wit
I could only walk three trees away
But when I flew up above it
I could easily see it covered
The whole circumference of that star
Orbiting there night and day
For centuries without the sun
To break the fog illuminate
Its lifting branches so completely
Was it lost in sorrow and despair

Roaches Valentine

I went to the store for one special item
And came back with ten other things
Forgetting what I was sent for
But unwilling to return
In the middle of the night
I'd found a cockroach in the kitchen
But when I got back with the swatter
It had already escaped
I figured I needed some roach motels
Where it could safely sleep
The way it reminded me of my sins
As soon as I awake
The part of me I want to remove
But unconsciously love to keep

Into Our Hands Valentine

Our lives are trembling hands
Placed into the wounds of the world
But proof's not necessarily belief
Where no proof's needed
Evidence of torture and murder
But the killer goes uncaught
And the body we examine
With tentative fingers
Feels like touching stone
That is still suffering
Its dissolution into light and air
As if the dying would go on and on
The crime unsolved
Until the wounds release the hand
And place it on the beating heart

In Time Is Triumph Valentine

The future is what moves us forward
While leaving us behind creating time
The reflection of a rhythmic repetition
Of a music stilled to the drone
Of the past pushing against it
Time devouring the eternal
Which is why it doesn't last
Whatever's outside time
Arrives inevitably inside it
What we have in the common season
The vortex of the stars and sun
Settling into the form
Of so many possible futures
Out of so many impossible pasts

Hidden Valentine

Who reads the hidden histories
Of what didn't happen
But might have and almost did
So much more voluminous
Than what squeaks through
And actually occurs
It's like there's a tiny pin-hole
Into which many vistas
Are crowding but only one
Breaks through speculation
One particular grain of sand
Among the trophies of the real
While all the others wait their turn
Until finally there is nothing
That won't happen

Bedtime Valentine

In the time before records were kept
For which no shards or jewelry are found
Absolutely no physical evidence
Emerges from its sifted sands
Of what only existed in the mind
Of a great sorcerer and a little girl
Or so the scribes translated it
Who found themselves together
In a deep forest one day
Writing up a storm
You have to be a child
To really understand the story
To hear it many many times
And slowly build its memory

The House of Crickets Valentine

In the hard heat crickets creep in
Under the door searching for water
And crumbs I drop on the floor
Which means soon enough
The house is full of crickets
Who make me their king
And teach me how to croak
Applause at orchestras
Of saws cutting strings
I grow thin delicate legs
Angled like safety-pins for leaps
But they keep me enthroned
As they facet my eyes
So I can see the world like them

Desending and Ascending Valentine

The long headaches of wisdom
For which love is the medicine
The churches are wrong
The body isn't the problem
Poor slave framed
For his master's deeds
As if it was your own
And not a temporary loan
A gift of elemental magic
Which appears and disappears
Yet only through it can we learn
How to bring light down into our senses
And give them their ascension

Present Valentine

My thoughts are mostly filler
Foam pellets engulfing
Some bubble-wrapped idea
I am ripping to unravel
Who knows what
Like I know you
My half-solved mystery
My heart's killer
Who saves my life
On a daily basis and this
Great box just sitting there
Ready to be opened
I can't go on like this

Inherited Valentine

What the father lost or squandered
What started as a lark he said
His son would rescue and restore
Freely he would bring a freedom
His father could only imagine feeling
Watching over his son
And she is also watching
Because he is also her son
She who could comfort God
And know when to take his hand
Was she too close
And the father too distant
Except she knew how to let him go
How the goodness she had given him
Would only grow and grow

Nothing But Grace Valentine

I've got to send my double to the moon
For re-education and re-deployment
He's disobedient and insubordinate
He bullies me with scorn
And cutting contempt
When I try to reason him to calm
When he cries on my shoulder
Repeating he's a failure
And we both break down
In sobs and laughter
I keep telling him the same
Old story over and over
The one about the lame blind man
Who had no one to help him to the pool

Blue Bird's Valentine

Whatever is happiness on earth
But listening to our angel
And doing the work we love
Whatever the work
Throwing yourself into the little
Tasks and the major mistakes equally
Not just for the exhilaration
Of accomplishment you feel
But don't trust too much
But out of a thinking will
That longs to see the totality
Of what's really going on
To become a scientist of happiness
And pick its feathers and its bones

 

Reappearing Valentine

Warmed-up leftovers suffice

For heaven's last meal

Even more delicious

The next day on earth

Of course ravenous helps

The wolf soul descend

On the sleeping infant

You've grown into again

It must be this helplessness

You love to come back to

Always crying out to be cared for

Free of all guilt and shame

And more beautiful than ever

Hearing your name

Chore-time Valentine

I spent the morning polishing my karma

Then I sketched out a new kind of hibiscus

One that only blooms on the coldest nights

Then I thrashed roomsful of dishes

In alphabetical order and dusted

Off my two tympanum so the voices

Could become more orchestral

The music more insistent

Then I took a long hot shower

So by nap-time I was wiped

And I could drowse like a heavy baby

My circumference moving all the way to Mars

My center-point still you

Words For It Valentine

Fortunately for us all things

Are in service to our minds

There's no other word for it

The only other word is love

Its activation and response

Here at the limits of abstraction

One way or another we're all

Watching one another's thoughts

Trying to figure one another out

It's not enough words carry meaning

They must become effective in themselves

And learn to work on us again

Just by being spoken

As when we were children

And believed everything they said

Deserted Valentine

'Summery' and intense summer

Are our only two seasons now

Where once a great inland sea

Fed forests with melting ice

Leaving us various cacti and sand

Ready to burst into flames

Yet here we build our homes

Drawn to suffer in the warmth

To wait for a few cool days

And nights when we can open

Our windows and doors

And climb the path to the ruins

To feel the breeze from then

And touch the snowy moon

Circle Time Valentine

In my favorite picture that remains of you

You have your back to the camera

Sitting in a lawn chair reading

While in front of you a vast green

Rolling landscape of lakes and hills

Without trees or people lies

It's late spring-early summer

Before everything turns brown

When heaven still seems

A part of the earth though leaving

And you're still reading it the story

Of your life your head

Bent to the words in wonder

While we old children listen in

Emergencies in Heaven Valentine

If the body is a sacred animal

The soul is slowly eating away

If the fires of so-called love

Burn everything to the ground

Does it go on eating

And planning suppers

Only the fittest can survive heaven

And then move on to a true paradise

Where they are put to work

Pulling burrs out of a silk garment

In the great flat fields of light

From which they grind their flour

Simple farmers and retired kings

Unrequited queens sipping wine

After Osip (from the English) Valentine

Cautious but called

A single fruit falls

In the silent forest

Setting it singing

 

Until the Orioles come

To amaze the branches

With a new tuning

Out of lost aspirations

 

It doesn't matter about sadness anymore

Tears are so transparent and leaf-like

You've mistaken it for nature

 

But it won't protect your heart

It will still have to sing and tremble

It will still be part of the future

Perseid Shower Valentine

I must be a Greek or ancient Egyptian
The way the gods have infiltrated me
They seem to be giving up on nature
Turning all their attention on us
Until the suspense is killing me
As they say the temporarily dead
Who have a way of scolding me
With just a smiling glance
In my general direction
Just knowing they are there
Is enough to calm me down
Just seeing they're returning
Their masterpiece undone

Serving Valentine

You gods who play the long game

Who were part of the early planning

And stay loyal to your name

Great creatures who have no guilt

Or shame who work your will

Tirelessly in every place and time

For whom our mountains and our seas

Are poor reminders of your rhymes

And starry rhythmic breathing

Like you I just want to endure

And stay pissed just a little

Learn to love the nothingness

And the somethingness equally

Unassigned unknown none

The Other Last Thing Valentine

That the spirit would have no obstacles
They chose the purest girls
To sit above the noxious fumes
So the god's voice could come through
Crackly like on an old radio
While we scribes quickly wrote down
Those words immediately passed on
To the highest interpretive authorities
But today everyone's a prophet
Of their own opinions and rewards
Seduced by their own perfume
No one to reveal the future
So it can be decoded
And the past avoided

What's Not To Worship Valentine

Whatever's done to gold
Say this day or your eyes
Smelted with silver
Whatever's done to silver
So it descends from clouds
Unavoidably a river
A moon-lit crossing
Running through the ground
Whatever's done to travel
So it becomes this wandering
I still want to keep going
Hope is the last body we'll ever have to wear
Though it's too loose and itches
You look as beautiful as ever

Reading Sappho While Running Errands Valentine

Did you come back exhausted
From the crowded stores of life
With nothing in your hands
Did you sample a few grapes
And run your sticky fingers
Over an old book or two
Did you argue with the clerk
About the exorbitance of silk
Discarding several dresses
With a flick of your gold wrist
Was your laughter haughty and lewd
When you saw your lover with another
Did you get to the part
Where she hurls her heart
At Aphrodite's feet

Out-gardened Valentine

My small mind has effectively been replaced
By a wide heaven of close-knit dandelions
Sheep-white balls of seeds and
Bright gold turned-up faces
Together basking in the sun
I tried to root them out
While they were young and
I was strong enough
To spread new grass seed
Over them at just the right
Spring shade of moon
The day after a rain
When everything
Is possible

The Mystery of In and Out Valentine

If I look around me
Everything keeps to its given place
But if I look inside me
Things are always moving about
Interpenetrating one another
Forming and dissolving
A dream world in which
I sometimes feel I'm waking
Where colors and sounds
Reveal themselves as languages
I'm learning to speak and read
While outside here in the sun
I enjoy the illusion of sitting alone
Inside I'm thronged with beings
Who call me by my real name

Arts and Crafts Valentine

If I organize my thoughts

And throw them down like clay

On a wheel or knit them

Together into a garment

Or shape them into a vessel

If I turn them on a lathe

And sand them down to gleaming

Forming them into a figure

Stain and polish it

And then wrap it as a gift

To whom can I send it

Who will drink from my crooked cup

Who will wear my ragged shawl

Who will ride my prancing horse

God Fishing Valentine

Alert but helpless as a goldfish

In the bowl of a dazzling day

I am content but wish

For company sometimes

To swim among my fellows

In some intimate pond

But that was not to be my fate

The fascination of a child

Turned out to be my part

Who only wanted greater things for me

When he flushed me

Down the toilet and then cried

To find me gone

Active Waiting Valentine

Now we have a good system in place

By which 'Unknown' can call

And leave not a word for us

But we know very well

He'll just call back later

So we can get to know him

And watch him record

The broken-up message

We're listening to right now

At three in the darkness

When we call him back

Just to hear his voice

Detect in it the signal

Of his coming soon

Waiting Valentine

While I was waiting for you to wake up
Though you're probably just laying there
Scrolling through your phone and dozing
Warm and sweet under the covers
While a small brown leaf
Is twirling from a spider's thread
Someone's world coming to an end
They don't believe you will ever get up
That eventually you'll come and kiss
My cheek and life will begin again
They've foolishly given up on you
The revelation of your love
The twirling of a leaf
Their whole religion

Science Fiction Valentine

If we could visit the communities on Mars

If we could see what they envision

The incoming and the outgoing of souls

The warring cities and the peaceful towns

All rather medieval when not plain evil

If we could explore their landfills

And climb their latest constructions

Learn if they've solved

The problem of cleverness

And if they teach you how to live

Once you get there

 

Birthday Valentine

A knock on the roof
At four o'clock
And a hundred and four
Degrees in the afternoon
I was dreaming of burnt-up rivers
There was nothing mystical
About it for a change
My prayer was easy-peasy
In return for letting me
Live just a little longer
Than might otherwise be
Prefigured in the plan
To see that face to hear that voice
I promise to go quietly in time

Natural Valentine

Even though the beauty of the world

Cannot save us now it stands

In speechless wonder

As a perennial encouragement

To us to save ourselves

Its glories and its sufferings

Offer us pictures of our past

Mountains and rivers we once were

And cast off in our long journeys

Toward affection and remorse

In it everything we've been and done

Returns to be reconciled and owned

The last vestige of a promise we made

To become beautiful ourselves

Thoughtful Valentine

Do I exercise my thoughts enough
Do I think about my thinking
Is it too automatic and watery
Do I have any succinct ideas
About where they originate
These questions themselves
Or what thoughts are worth thinking
And what thoughts decide their value

A piece of music or a painting

Can come close or a death observed

From the safety of my thoughts

Let me go in your stead

Let me bury my I in your you

Whose thoughts awake the dead

Phantom Valentine

One last grown-up butterfly
My phantom in the yard
With time running out
As quickly as it rushes in
Frantic beauty floating
Searching for a place to stay
While space just stands there
Patiently waiting to be filled
With leaves and sunlight
Wings of assembled dust
That flutter back and forth
Like a grieving mother
Achieving her composure
When she finally comes to rest

Called Valentine

I had a mandate and a mission
A divine commission
But I misplaced it on the way
To some forgotten destination
Now life is my vocation
How to keep them each alive
Body soul and spirit
Even when the soul
Tries to kill the body
And the body scorns the spirit
So needy for the inspiration
And good company
Of other bodies souls
And spirits

Freedom Valentine

The flowers of the palm trees
Are falling like snow in the sun
The out-breath is always dying
To take in again its life
What connects the leaves to the body
Must be some idea of a seed
High in the palm tree a man
Hacking at his mind with a saw
Forcing the tree upward
The dead limbs falling away
He shouts to the one below
Leave me here and let me sway
There's a fragrance coming in from the sea
Enough to live on forever

Wind-Rung Bell Valentine

Sometimes my cat's tail accidentally
Rings that little rusted bell otherwise
You can only hear it when the wind
Reaches a certain degree of emotion
That it pushes back and cries out
So meekly so sweetly
It begs for mercy shameless
As a child singing
Keep me around
I can sing for you
Whenever you want
I will bring your youth
Back to you reborn
Before you die

To a Spy in Heaven Valentine

I want my entelechy to speak
To your entelechy and say
Thank you for contacting me
I know how busy you are
But I need a big favor
Something only you can do
Though I know how difficult
It can be to get a message through
Even the night couriers are slow
But could you please tell your friend
Your current curious manifestation
To keep searching don't relent
I too am a spy of the soul
And will know him when I see him

Visiting Valentine

What if the pregnant Mary came to me

Would the child quicken in my throat

Or strike me blind and speechless

Or would she put me at my ease

Sit me down and take my hands

Into her comprehending hands

Where nothing need be said

Everything known everything forgotten

Everything given everything taken away

Darkness would gather around us

And our hearts would break

And mend and break again

Until the last sun would wake us

Why Valentine

It's like being in a shooting gallery
Or would you rather have a real war
Like the sandy trenches of Samothrace
With spears flying or when
The arrow was invented
At the same moment all over the earth
Born to be a bullet in the head
Ultimately I take a positive view
Of the end why
Would you chose not to love
Deny
What's obviously right there
Not say a prayer