Logging in Valentine

Weather is weather dirt is dirt

What have we learned from the stars

We're moody today oozing fear

Dreadlocks in the gulag

A vagina on a chip

Fingernails clinging to a glacier

Did you get your tongue-lashing yet

Saturday morning garden wants to hear

How to harvest every weed you planted

How many bodies you need to feed the soil

And how to account for the radiance

Of these rainy flowers whose colors

Except for the darkness would never glow

Advent Valentine

Like on the old maps

The face of the wind appeared

In the only cloud in the sky

Long strands of hair streaming behind

Gazing up at the full blazing moon

Immaculate as Mary's womb

Sailing above my little house

Slowly that cloud curdled itself

Into the shape of a coiled snake

While slowly the moon escaped

Sweeping its light around it like a cape

Feeling the child inside her kick

The dark around her hard and thick

Rushing Valentine

Isn't it the thing about beauty

That we sense immediately

Some quickening behind it

Or at least the heart does

Shift its resonance so we

Can hear a stillness

That wants to rescue us

Perhaps the only thing that can

And it doesn't matter anymore

If only for a few moments

We stare or glance at it sideways

It wants to save our lives

Rushing toward us or slipping away

Not Only God Is Good Valentine

I think goodness is someone

Who would never intentionally hurt anyone

And who suffers when that happens

Why is that such a high standard

When it seems the least we could ask

Is goodness something they've acquired

After centuries of working with evil

Or a purely natural gift

As with music or mathematics

Or anything we're good at

You must be good for something

I'm constantly telling myself

With so much practicing to do

Scientific Valentine

Conservation renunciation

Resurrection consummation

Earth water air fire

Falling spring wintering summer

Aren't these ideas the eyes

And the ears of the gods

What happens when they move about

What changes what persists

Nothing more spiritual than the weather

So we go out for a long walk

Along the cold rushing river 

Thrilled to find feeding otters

In the swirling chaos current

Nothing gives itself away like water

Synchronized Valentine

The cat leaps to rest on my chest

And purr her little engine of contentment

What does she see in me

That I could be her peace and quiet

For a while against the world

When she is my protector

Against the past when I perhaps

Was still myself a cat

We synchronize our heartbeats

But she races on ahead

As if she planned to skip

The human phase in me

Scanning the future all around us

With her green clairvoyant eyes

First Friday Valentine

I think of you waking up

On those cold mornings in the dark

After you learned the truth

That you had a genius growing

In your belly and lighting

The fire kneeling down

To listen to it speaking

Inside you about a new kind

Of consuming desire a light

That would pour out of the eyes

Revealing every forgotten thing

And I think of you pouring water

For your breakfast of honeyed bread

Still a young girl watching the sun come up

Half-dreading the journey ahead

Advent Valentine

Showering once a week at

Some friends or other's house

Heating with wood and only

A battered outhouse and having

To pump our water every day

And a beautiful baby girl to care for

As if we had wanted to step back

A hundred winters to this

Particular snowfall in the woods

Smug in our snug tiny cottage

Flakes falling through sunlight

As if it had all been planned

Just to look back on and smile

Wanted Valentine

Fish tacos at Rubio's outdoors

Because it's 72 degrees in winter

And the world is out of joint

And apparently spring can't wait

To tear open its Christmas presents

Yes just what it wanted

One clear warm day with you

With rice and beans and avocado

Not a cloud in the sky while you

Regale me with schadenfreude

And the on-going apocalypse

Dressing dripping from you lobster taco

None of your licked fingers lost to me

Nothing spring hasn't already tasted

Damascus Valentine

Through the mixed blessing of the internet

Yesterday's gift was to come across

Breughel's 'Conversion of St. Paul'

Because it was his birthday and all

His huge family of painters

Had come from every gallery

And warehouse of the world to celebrate

This one life-changing moment with me

All of us staring and searching

For Paul's small blue body 

Overwhelmed on the ground

As if at the bottom of a deep

Well of soldiers and travelers

Who had heard a voice but seen nothing

Seventh Generation Valentine

Boys who have only one mother

Often search out several fathers

Girls who have only one father

Often adopt many mothers

It's the missing pieces

In the collection of a person

That only a parent can give

Either a curse or a blessing

And not to hold them responsible

For our own self-creation

Sons who only know their fathers

Learning to father their own daughters

And mothers the dear lost mothers

With whom we are never done

Unfinished Valentine

There was a time back then

When I could have read

The whole Bible end to end

When I could have covered

All the 16th century sonnets

Or at least in the original Greek

Recite a Sappho fragment

Or a strophe of the Odyssey

Instead I took the survey course

Of life and dabbled at the feast 

Not really finishing anything

Craving only some of everything

And everything of some

Wouldn't We Valentine

I keep forgetting it's only

Curiosity and love

That keeps everything coherent

Without our skin and bones

Which hold us in one place

Wouldn't we be airy creatures

Somewhere between birds and angels

Between fog and rain

Wouldn't we blend into

Our surroundings of light

Surviving on darkness and dust

Somewhere between bats and butterflies

Between floating and blue sea

Between stasis and flight

Byzantine Valentine

Emperor of all for a few days

While still a boy the product of incest

Then his nose cut off and

His mother's tongue removed

Exiled to Rhodes where they

Lived a fairly comfortable life

According to all accounts

We have to go with what

We've got all this while enjoying

The art of the building of churches

I like to think after his mother

Died he became a monk

Having played his part in history

He could afford a better life

November Valentine

Today the wind arrives

Like a slow late train

Out of the north snow

Where it rises

Sweeping the stars

Out of history speeding

Past the stations

To darker sky destinations

Today the wind demands

It take you with it see

It shudders to a gate

Where you must board

Invisibility and soar

And brush the earth to gold

Life-Size Valentine

The blue rooster standing on my table

Has Jesus eyes that follow me around

A reject even at Goodwill

They let me have it for a dime

The kind of porcelain produced in thousands

Out of which only a few survive

But to have painted it blue

Spiky comb and rippling tail

Blue patches on a white ground

Makes me smile back

At the one who painted it

A young woman or an old man

Inspired by another blue sky

Dreaming of a dime a piece

And getting the eyes just right

Thanksgiving Valentine

Who will count the fields of pumpkins

The feasts and forgotten presents

The bell going off at the end

The hearts and flowers the fireworks

The funerals and beaches

Who will tally up the weddings the divorces

The car crash near misses

The bumpings into someone on the street

The shifting-shuffling of the feet

Who will read to us another story

Not the one we want to hear

Who will sing to us of glory

Not the song we heard last year

Not the empty hope of fear

Having It Both Ways Valentine

While time flies south in coach

Eternity prefers a walking stick

And a good pair of mountain boots

A cold fire in thick woods

And even if time arrives

Days before enough to spend

Lounging by the ocean

Reading books watching surfers

Eternity trudges on losing its way

Sometimes forgetting where it's going 

Free of destination full of purpose

Making steady progress every day

But we all just get old as time

While eternity stays young and fresh

Waiting Valentine

Sitting in the sun in heaven

On a cold day too hot

In front too chilly in the rear

I wonder what I'm doing here

In what appears to be

A roofless waiting room

Shivering and sweating 

Being drained of matter

The few virtues I have

Stashed away won't cover

The cost of the treatments

They say I need before

Ready or not they'll have to

Whisk me off to spirit land

Some hut on a distant star

My Two Loves Valentine

Even if it is all about me

An egoism that subsumes the world

Always placing itself at the center

Of things vaguely sensing the other

Ones standing there embarrassed

For me jealous for it to be

All about them I suppose

Even if it's all about you

Which I would equally enjoy

So I am blotted out

And completely taken in

By you so lit-up and fine

Saved from one love by another

Even if it's only mine

Or Not Valentine

When I have forgiven myself enough

For not having forgiven you more

For having opened up and slammed the door

And run off in a huff

For scorning and dismissing you 

And wiping you with the floor

Not kind not civil not polite

When I have torn you limb from limb

Excised your tongue and slit your throat

And left you in the snow to rot

And taken back your winter coat

Don't tell me there is nothing to forgive

If you have done me even more

Whether out of love or not

Are Numbers Beings Valentine

When you do the numerology of it

The roots the stems the flowers

Each taking about 1200 years

And all this springing up out of the minds

Of numerous minerals pure and objective

Who tear themselves apart

Silently dissolving you come

To develop a different sympathy

For trying to figure out the code

Your forgotten birthday password
But the added numbers only open up

To the astrology page the stricken stars

Your shy reflection shivering among them

Unknowable Valentine

My little meetings with the unknowable one

Go often undetected due to my absences

The forces of gravity pulling me

Out of myself and the revenge 

Of childhood pulling me back in

Everything can be known

So eagerly I take lifetimes

Weighing up what's small and big

Impressed by the light all around me

But he remains unknown

The only secret that's actually kept

Except he had a son in the end

And tried to be a good father

And hold his tiny hand

Dancing Valentine

Fools and little children

I have suffered

To come onto me

I scooped them up

And we danced around

Until we fell upon the ground

We suffered through 

Our crazy laughter we tried

Not to make a sound

Stay hidden in our places

But our fears grew into our faces

Spinning round and round

A future fairy-tale we wove

Out of foolish childish woes

Geographic Valentine

What landscapes attract what people

What people are deposited on what landscapes

What people prefer what season

What season has only one landscape

Twenty questions as I wind uphill

Through granite outcrops silent woods

And stop to catch the little town

Spread like lichen on the ground

Far below the castle ruin

Doesn't the climate like a mood

Give rise to a certain kind

Of mind or bird grown together

With the landscape doesn't the sun

Settle the seasons of the moon

Daily Valentine

If we can be anything it's stubborn

But the quandary is which

Stubbornness will win the day

The one we use against ourselves

Or the one that turns into persistence

Patient practice of the elusive

Perfection of our instruments

Even if no one is listening

To our ode to joy agonizingly

Insisting on each and every note

Nor pretending the recital

Isn't coming and there will be

Our parents and angels attending

Color Valentine

Color is language before it became words

Or music or a listener.  It is as close as the light

Can come before it turns into the sound

Of a person, all these moods a person can be.

Siblings who live in one household, quarreling

And loving, each with its own peculiar power

To stand alone or to give itself away. 

If we can speak of them objectively at all,

As if they were not our ancestors and

Ultimate destination, it is only because

They speak through us their own language

Before it was vowel or tongue or taste

When life was just starting up again

With only these colors to work from

 

                               

Far Valentine

Yes I was drawn to Rome

But only as a Greek raised

In Egypt among the tombs

Yes I love the Seine and the Rhone

And that holly-tree in Zurich

Red with berries by the church

But how can there be nostalgia

For the holy places I've never been

Here in the new world at last

Dissatisfied to repeat the past

But yes I still want that garden in Venice

Here in my wilderness backyard

And to see the hidden city of Great Kitezh

Lifting above the horizon like a sun

Upon A Time Valentine

Having expunged the busy fairies

From the fairy-tales and woods

Having blamed the step-mothers 

For the mother's sins and turned

Her into a witch who thinks

All the magic is hers even then

They don't stop at mocking

The gods and the little people

But put their daughters in cages

And turn their sons into stones

Until only a flower can free them

From the noisy spell of the world

The cowslip or the maiden's breath

That grew here once alone

Dependent Valentine

With just a tiny tweak

This could all be perfect

With just a little shove

We could come to love

Or in a sudden second

Turning on a dime

The sun could darken

Relieving us of time

It all depends

On what surprise upends

What settled notion

On what great stone

Is lifted from the ocean

And placed in the heart again

Alive Valentine

An amazing peacefulness descended

On my little street this morning just

As I was coming back into my body

Coasting between the houses and trees

Landing my rickety plane of bones

In the right warm bed and dream

And I could feel the whole street

Bathed in a yellow celestial light

A stillness lasting almost an hour

Then out of nowhere a buzz-saw

Started up down the way moaning

Attacking a palm tree and gnawing

And the thud of its falling

Sent the Seraphim sprawling

And raised me alive from my bed

Remembrance Valentine

Staring back at my almost eighty years

There is not a single soul I've known

From whom I would not beg a pardon

Nor a single one to whom I would

Not give my own I promise

In memory we meet again

Except I have forgotten some

Of your names and faces covering up

The harm too glaring I did you

Out of a sometimes evil impulse

I have still not learned to master

In memory we will meet again

But then for the first time

And I will get to know you better

My Bloody Valentine

There is no good place

You can cut your face

Where the blood won't stop flowing

These marvelous crimson drops

Your fingers can't clot

As your panic starts growing

But let's just stand here and bleed

And watch where it's going

This trickle that turns into a creek

And builds to a flood

And leaves you floating in the mud

What does it want

Loosed monster crying child

But to consume this world

Homeless Valentine

What really happened to the ancient gods

Who lived so deeply once in the souls

Of the strange people of Susa and Ur

Inanna and sweet Tammuz and Erishkigal

Finally forced to flee in every direction

Does a god not get to grow up

Swimming out further into a starry sea

To float back as a Venus or a Mary

Strolling the shores of Galilee

Hearing the voice of a Christ

The first of many Christs to follow

In his footsteps like sweet Tammuz

Who abandoned his temples and rites

Thrown out to the wolves

To live on in the fields and the breeze 

79 Valentine Way

Why can't I have my way

I can have my way

I start to question my way

How can I find my way

I can get out of my way

Having seen there are two ways

My way or the highway I chose

The way that runs through

The low ways and the by-ways

Where we stopped to live in the old way

In the old woods tucked away

To find a new way

A child's way

Why can't I have my way

Hardened Valentine

Sometimes the truth must seize

Upon the thing and shake it hard and then

Look up at you with pleading eyes

Sometimes a terrifying hurricane

Must rip the house apart

And leave you barely breathing

But it doesn't have to be this way

That I must do terrible things

Or you could just have loved me

When I came into this scary world

The worrisome weight of my existence

Needn't have led to this destruction

If you had only loved me

Motherfucker

I Call It I Valentine

Or what should we call

That little hole

That started out

So empty somehow

And worked so hard

To fill it with ourselves

Like a pocket stuffed

With gold coins or fool's gold

We stack in piles

Like in that bedtime story where a child

Is turned into a seed and buried

In a hole in the ground

Or in one of the holes of memory

So many to choose from

Cleaved Valentine

I found a stone from which

A heart had been broken off

It sat alone with its gaping face

All the blood drained black

An open mouth even the scream

Had abandoned long ago

Really it looked like a lost shoe

A tired old woman's dirty clog

Left behind for whomever

She was running from or to

I put my foot on that stone

And stumbled forward and fell

The way lovers part

Living without a heart

Contemporary Valentine

I get it how we were the Egyptians

In our former lives and loves

But the more I hear about the pharaohs

The more I want to meet the slaves

Or at least the ordinary people

Not since they imagined the hieroglyphs

Has the picture-language of our lives

Been more preoccupied with death

Not even counting the Middle Ages

Their empty tombs and temples 

We're converted into banks and

Celebrity events while meanwhile

Each trained scribe has his own

Unique style and nameless signature

But the story's still all about death

And the new mysteries of the after-life

Which still have to be deciphered

Catalogued and stored and lost

All Souls' Day Valentine

Once with a clairvoyant friend

We drove up to the spring at Hoteville

In Hopi-land because another friend

Had painted it and we wanted

To see the real one for ourselves

In the painting you could see

She saw it was a holy place

Where one could stand in reverence

As the sun rose or set

And the light blazed the water

As one could only do it in a painting

We wanted to see if we could still

Feel it too not the past despoiled

But the distant sacred future

All Saints' Day Valentine

Like a door closing on me in a womb

The warm blankets of my dark nap-time

Both bored and overwhelmed by this world

Settling into my sweet-spot in the bed

Like in kindergarten on my paper mat

Listening to the rumblings under the floor

Or reconstructing today's fairy-tale

How could that silly girl not see

The wolf in her grandma's nightie

Or what my three wishes might be

Right now as I enter that other world

In my childish death of sleep

But to run and greet my dead parents

Who come to get me just in time

To send me back to this hungry world

Just as I was getting used to theirs

Halloween Costume Valentine

When we last caught sight of the grail

Standing around in our armor and swords

Each of us in our own ruined castle

And felt the light descend into the lifted chalice

And the bell's toll echo in our blood

And then the long withdrawal of the angels

(Why can they not stay with us)

And after all this nothing more wonderful

Nothing more profound and sublime

How can our king still not be cured

We can hear his moaning miles away

How can we just be left to return

To our petty crusades and jousts

And watch the world burn

Facing It Valentine

I think the face must be 

The most responsible part of the body

It must receive the impacts first

Of everything that happens

So it all gets written down

And it's the one who has to turn

And tell the rest of the body

What can be revealed

About what it all means

Before the heart tastes it

Or the limbs try to struggle free

Or the blood dances joyfully

The last part of us to be born

And the first to bid farewell

Some Loves Valentine

Lots of what I thought was best

Turned out to be the worst

My double doubled back on me

Some blessings were a curse

Some loves got worse and worse

Until all love was lost

Which was no love at all

But turned out for the best

Our lives were crossed with crosses

And a sprinkling of stars

I found I loved

The ingenuity of love itself

Dance-master task-master

Who never counts the cost

Even Then Valentine

Last night I dreamed a strange

Documentary about ancient Egypt

With its 130 pyramids and Sphinx

How far away from them and yet

Entering their sunlit temples on TV

The serious business of mummification

While the narrator fingers their bones

Curled into a fetal position

A whole people without the fear

Of death this life but a preparation

For the next immortal one

Even before the Bible

They recognized resurrection

And that even in the after-life

You would need your clothes

Your jewels and throne

A Portrait Of The Air By A Lake In Autumn Valentine

The ego the I and the self

Three gallant brothers or sisters

Or one lonely brother and two beautiful sisters

Or one dull sister and two rough brothers

But who could mother or father 

Love or further them

Triplets born out of wedlock

One a long-legged princess

One an antiquities scholar

And the other the one

They both wanted to be

Someone finally free

Of a you and a me

A breath of fresh air

I Am In Me Valentine

Slowly getting over the sense

That all I am is me

When there is so much

More to be glad to be

Me and not someone else

And yet a little petrified

No pun intended I love

Making fun of me

Proud of my humility

Big about my littleness

Not serious but true

When it's hard to be me

An image but no likeness

Slowly becoming you

Catching Sight Of My Soul Valentine

Dark as my shadow is my soul

Thrown down before me by the sun

Walking behind me warming my back

And when I turn to face the light

It blinds and passes through me

Into that form that follows fast

The pliant image of my body

Pierced by the rays of light

The outline of the darkness I contain

Cast down and creeping on the ground

But then at noon and at midnight

My shadow absorbs or is absorbed

By a momentary eclipse of light

So my soul can step free from both

One with the sun and the earth

Stone Valentine

These multi-layered mountains

Of history pushing themselves

Upright from the interior

Of the earth whose outer

Surfaces we ascend and

Sleep in the crevices of stars

Or dig down into to explore

The shores of hidden rivers

Where great armies once camped

Until they were eaten by their wars

Or finally out of breath and helpless

Breach the summit of the highest

Things that can be known

And find the one foundation stone

Always On Schedule Valentine (for Mary)

Exercising their primordial rights

In the vast government of the stars

The great clock-keepers and tricksters

With their little hands appear

To shift the gears of Mars in fall

And trim the moon's bright sail

Tacking into the wind and rain

But always in sight of land

Ferrying off the dead with singing

Bringing back the barely living

While way out there in the cosmos

That only a mind can reach

A little door is swinging

Where it passes out of time

Blue Day Valentine

If clouds are really plants

In their first manifestation

Before they dive down headfirst

And get locked into the ground

And their ragged edges harden

Into leaves and secret flowers

If clouds are really animals

In their future orientation

As simply thirst and motion

The lost children of desire

Then there is promise for us stones

To resume our ancient burning

To cast again a molten sea

Into a cloud of knowing

It's Valentine

It's a Friday that feels like a Saturday

It's a dream that feels like reality

It's a fall that feels like spring

It's a dying that feels like being born

It's an urgent call from Unavailable

It's someone coming who never shows up

It's four birds flying together

Peacefully in hot pursuit

It's a child at a crosswalk

The light flashing red and red

It's just me honey turning in bed

Hearing you talk in your sleep

Listening to you proclaim to me

The garbled secrets of the deep

Veil's Valentine

Does she not spread her protecting veil

To receive the dead of her struggling people

Does she not attend every funeral

And sit at the edge of every mass grave

Does she not play with the children at recess

And stand in line with them for lunch

In their hungry schools surrounded by bombs

Does she not hum along with the old women

Folding laundry and pondering the mystery

Of evil and the purposes of cruelty

Does she not whisper in the ears of the generals

And shine courage into the soldier's blood

Does she not stand on every hill

No silent icon but her people's very soul

Now That Valentine

Now that we know you're really here

Living with us on a daily basis

Watching the films of our dreams

Observing our delusions and fits

Of conscience and thirsty hearts

All that we hide from ourselves

And you the most hidden

Other side of our lives

You who live now in the sunlight

And dark midnights of our minds

Explorer and pioneer of lost worlds

Co-conspirator of loves yet to be born

Now that our time has come and passing

Let us be conscious partners in our work

The restoration of the earth our home

Back To The Cave Valentine

Isn't it true in freezing fall

The human brain can burst

Into flame when the blood rubs

Two crazy thoughts together

And smoke and light bloom

Along the neural branches

Against the cold of reason

Which left to its own device

Draws us further onto the ice

But luckily the heart's a cave

Where the thoughts can return

From distant stars and planets

To warm their hands and feet

With memories yet to burn

What's Left Valentine

I'm afraid my red hibiscus

Has developed a black disease

While the yellow one not far away

Is flourishing and green

Purple flowers cover the yard

I let go with patches

Of matted grass and bare ground

Where nothing grew

Last night's storm broke

Summer's back what's left

Is just the dying

The cutting of it all down

The piling of it all up

And the emptiness shining

Sculpture Valentine

If you put yourself in the place

Of the central figure you can feel

What striding is the forward

Purposeful thrust of his will

And if you get behind those searching eyes

Maybe you can tell where he's heading

Looking neither right nor left

What his heart has fastened on

What one thing occupies his mind

In time for some apppointment

He must keep or cry

Of wolves among the sheep

Or is it you yourself his blazing I

Strides so eagerly to meet

Invisible Valentine

When he returned

She asked what treasure

He had found

The sea he said

But I couldn't bring it

With me so I plunged

Right through it

It refreshed me so

I emerged feeling immortal

Nothing and everything

Which lasted for an hour

But what about the sun

She asked my curious angel

Here I picked it for you

Just a flower

How Valentine

Because he ate the blessed apple

Several of them actually

It was their beauty he was after

And yes they tasted sweet

It came on suddenly the dreaded

Disease at four in the morning

Waking him with arrows of pain

Tearing in and out of his head

His body on the rack

He took two pills and woke

In the morning feeling much himself

But that was just the rushed overture

Of a whole symphony of suffering

With brief intermissions gasping for air

It was in the adagio movement

He wondered if disease might compensate

For egotism for how can we be good

If we won't face the evil we create

A Record Of Holy Things Valentine

We talked and laughed over lunch

A quiche and salad and cold water

In her marvelous blooming garden

Where three birdbaths and several feeders

Drew a variety of colorful birds out of the woods

I was amazed to see so many in one place

But she knew all their names and habits

And showed me the dog-eared notebook

She'd kept for over forty years

Of the dates of the arrivals and departures

Of I forget how many different species

Native to her mountain climate

Pointing out the days when the hermit thrush

For example would come and sing and go

Always about the same times each spring

But this year it didn't appear

She said it felt like a friend

Had ghosted her and took it as the end

Of all she held close and dear

Mistaken Valentine

In the fifteenth movement of his

Unfinished Fall Prelude and Fugue

In F# major I felt he had flown

Completely out of his tree

I mean the notes had taken over

And were playing him

The instrument of their urgency

Trilling and whistling compulsively

The emergency of his aloneness

The history of some catastrophe

Or maybe I listened all wrong

Taking for madness and loss

What was in fact no Calvary cross

But his most exultant joyful song

Fall In The Air Valentine

What is it in the fall we feel

When our bodies come back to us 

As if we were just waking up

After summer's lucid dreaming

Is it that the air is breathable again

Or that we'll be missing out on some

Important meeting we've been

Hoping for if we don't hurry up

We rush toward the world's

Unraveling with a strange enthusiasm

The more it fades the more alive

We feel inside ourselves

And slowly it dawns on us

The utter foolishness of death

Instructed By Stars Valentine

Don't you think it's a lot curious

That our earliest ancient families

Who lived so close to the starry worlds

Went to all that trouble to leave behind

These circular temples of stone

As if our species started out

With a great store of intimate wisdom

That slowly deteriorated over time

So now we dismiss them as primitive

But how could those stones stand up

Without schools of deep awareness

Behind them without knowledge

Of the secrets of life in carvings

That slip from their hands to ours

Still struggling to comprehend

Pushing Back On Time Valentine

This year we begin again

With the second seven hundred year

Cycle of three new periods

Of what began in 1500 with machines

And culminates around 3600

Even if my math is fuzzy

Everything in the mirror of history

Is exact down to the last moment

Doesn't something of an ancient two o'clock

Reincarnate today and dissolve tonight

A moon thrown out and then pulled back

Yet nothing repeating the same

Someone every second changes everything

As drip by drip love overcomes time

After The End Valentine

Hung for All Hallows Eve

The spider-webs fill with leaves

A gust hurls the red umbrella

Into the pomegranate tree

A tornado is sighted miles away

Shape-shifting dragon flicking his tail

Threatening to eat the children first

Who scurry home with empty sacks

Then hail-stones salt the fields

The clouds of doom descend

From heaven warriors sweep

The world is finally at an end

Except that morning comes again

And through it all I find I've slept

Michaelmas Valentine

It seems that yellow butterfly

I watched in summery California

Has followed me back to Arizona

Filling my yard with its huge aura 

The golden light of autumn

Arrayed in final purple flora

Aren't these the Easter colors

Having risen now must die

For nature is our mother-mirror

Reflecting then reversing fallen sky

Her likeness-given-life taken away

Her solitude resumed consumed

Bending softly toward winter's tomb

And leafless creatures such a I

Also Valentine

A marine layer creeps in

Over the continent of my mind

While a restless yellow butterfly

Floats hypnotically back and forth

And then dissolves in the darkness

To the after-image of a luminous blue

That pulls me into it to sleep

And wake alone on a distant star

A dream in which I am appalled

To view a living picture of myself

My fear my lust my scorn

Which finally my tears dissolve

But I have also loved I cry

And still hope to be reborn