World Without End Valentine

Soft as the invisible and
Hard as the world can be
We still wake up each day
A little dimmer a little wiser
Strange how the world
Seems to go on without us
Even though each of us
Stands at the center of it
Our very insignificance
Of immense importance
I try to stay alert
But casual carrying the world
But sometimes I just have to
Break down and weep for us all

Not the Flute but the Music Valentine

Beautiful Tamino and handsome Pamina
Are introduced at a party one night
To the Queen of the Night
A wealthy New York socialite
The Queen is taken with him
And he with her you can
See it on Pamina's face
The Queen and T. begin
A tumultuous romance
A series of trials by fire
While Pamina languishes in grief
Until late one night T. puts it together
The Queen and Papageno
Are being sung by the same man
An amazing baritone castrato
But regardless it's the music
That saves them all in the end

Know Thyself Valentine

If the body is a shadow
Which it most certainly is
What is the light that casts it
Which must certainly be there
And where is it coming from
Though one day a year
There is no shadow
And the whole body fills with light
Often barely noticed
The light itself the shadow
Of the moving air
Driven by some fire
Who is it there forgotten
The weaving wind his token

Abu's Valentine

My cat sleeps between my bare feet
While I write you this letter
I feel so close to your time in a way
But she wants to sleep so I let her
To make the old master laugh
And the reprobate fake it better
To have taken so much pleasure
Slowly untying its fetters
Always in search of the true
Picture of your betters
In a land that murdered its singers
But preserved all the old books
When I bend down to pet her
I bow to you Abu as well
Lest the ages ever forget her

Ghazal Valentine for Abu Huwas

A brief ghazal about our eternity
Would have to begin with immaturity
To set the stage for a fantasy
Where we keep locking people up
The burden of time's objectivity
Gets heavier to lift
And there's the recurring difficulty
Of feeling something about everyone
You meet a shred of divinity
Or a sense of humor
Struggling to be free
But we get locked out
Of one another and the key to continuity
Long lost no wonder I cling
To every word you speak of our fragility

Ii Valentine

People who are too quiet
Tend to be hiding something
People who talk too much
Tend to be hiding something worse
I found this out in the district
Of Ii in Finland where I supposed
All the I's actually settled
In the ice ages of materialism
And are still living with the land
And where now every summer
I's surge in from every continent
For their annual coming-home
Slowly destroying the city of Ii
With their heresies and pleasures
The original Ii wasn't like this at all
It was a small place near the sea
Where you could still remember yourself

Into the Deluge Valentine

Now ecology becomes theology
Where it started out
Before electricity duct-tied us
To the earth but this world
Has just one life to live
To achieve its revelation
Before the lights go out
Always just one more life to live
Clinging to sand
Before the one who came to visit
And stayed and ate us
Out of house and home
With his talk of another crusade
Returns for our blood
Let us find a human future

Purely Conceptual Valentine

Evil isn't any smarter than the rest
But it may be a lot more industrious
And true goodness can be so naïve
Until it's taught to grieve
And think for itself about itself
And not be surprised by it
Having taken up residence inside
Evil is such a personal thing
One must take it as a brother
Always trying to take over
Coming home drunk with power
Trying to tear the house down
But goodness loves it so
Even when beaten up again

Traveling Valentine

A hard-won gift each day is
Fought for by the struggling ranks
Of births and deaths
Always flowing in and out
I wonder if there's an old station
Or a platform a little above
The earth where they can meet
And confer exchanging words
For silence bodies for souls
Waiting for their late trains
To finally arrive and take them
To their final destinations
Or is it like two trains
Rushing past one another
Trying to touch a face in the swell
That moment when eyes catch
Waving farewell

White Sail Valentine

Between Saturn and the Sun
Between a white sail and the amethyst sea
Finally indigo wins out
All the wine is drunk
The little fires that were set along the shore
To guide us back gone out
Lost in the reverence
Of this midnight blue
Set down upon a billion stars
That yet bleed through
Tough lumps of light
As if we were ever left alone
Or for long unattended
Lost at sea at night

Picture Valentine

When I elide my many lives
It's like the surface of the ocean
Meticulously drawn and painted
Or the pocked skin of a gray stone
I try to think back to the day
This picture of the sea was taken
To the day when nature
Was even greater than me
And I would have to destroy and redeem it
Smashing through the surfaces
I created to get to the sensible shore
Only more surfaces are laid in the sea
Only more and more the depths go down

First Experience of Genius Valentine

She was playing with her
Five year old atheist grandson
When she confessed to him
She still believed in fairies
On hot summer afternoons
She would sprinkle water
From the hose into the air
And sylphs would build
Their furtive rainbows
He admitted he could almost see them
Running through their colored veils
What for him was fading
For her just coming into view

Boy's Valentine

I saw a boy rushing home
To be beaten by his father
For being late and forgetful
I stood on the road to watch
Some strange shapes of clouds
A cluster of lightening strikes
Like a bouquet in the south
Part of me wanted to run
Right into the storm like that boy
Part of me just stood there helpless
And suddenly it all let go
Like a gush of tears that wouldn't stop
A father calling for his son
A son weeping for his father
A love that will never be done

Closer Valentine

Closer to home I stop
The car on a mountain top
And get out and walk
Excitedly back and forth
Somewhere back there
snaking from curve to hill
I passed my life my soul
Stranded on the side of the road
It came on so suddenly
While I was trying to identify
The different flora that flew by
Just leave me here in this field
As you rush past it said
This is as glorious as it gets

Now Valentine

I get to scold with impunity
Now I'm old I get to rant
At myself for this and that
I get to forget my keys
In the door but not to say
I'm sorry to everything
That comes through it
I get to feel grateful
But never grateful enough
I get to be annoyed by death
And treat it kindly like a dumb beast
Beaten by his master
Who just wants to be my friend

Lasting Valentine

In my youth I turned from fame
And was never heard of again
The hexameters of my woes
And joys disappeared in the woods
Behind my house rewritten
In trillium and Judas trees
And one large open hilltop
Like a great clock
With sun-dials of oaks
I was finally the poem itself
Wandering in animal circles
But no real poem is meant
As long as a summer rain to last

Who Valentine

Who is this man after all
And if he's not real
Who could have imagined him
As the only reality
Worth imagining
He must mean the gods
Still need us both
The blind ones and
The ones who see
He's become some grand idea
Of a selfless world
In which everyone's a self
Like him come back
To his childhood home

Searching Valentine

There was one line I found
In a book I stumbled on
Yesterday pursues me
About how much further we must go
To become a diamond or a ruby
Long past the time the world
Wasn't ready for bodies
Of diamond flesh and ruby blood
I went back to find that sentence
But I couldn't even find the book
Though I looked on every shelf
Where would I have hidden it
From myself and why
Would I now time as usual
Is running and running out

Diagnostic Valentine

What soul pain does my arthritis catch
An inflammation caused by
A sclerosis I've almost figured out
The bones harden and pull away
From the body an adjustment disorder
Affecting locomotion and memory
Which is where the soul comes in
An entirely imagined cloud formation
Of feelings and feeling-thoughts
Only helpful when it disengages
From itself for those few seconds
It can see itself as someone else
The soul growing younger as the body ages

Licked Valentine

Wet hair is no fun
For my long-haired cat
She sprints through the sprinklers
She's spent the hot summer
Stripping off her winter coat
Hair by hair licking it down
Or shedding it in clumps
Left lying around the yard
But just as she's almost naked
And can relax in the shade
The nights turn on the cold again
And she must grow it back
She throws me a baleful glance
But really what can I do
But empathize and pet