Ruined Valentine

In the ruined castle of the poem
I long to see the bedrooms
not just the broken staircase
and the dark front room
where the callers are received
like the (high) school years
when the herd is thinned
by precocity and terror
I want to sit in the kitchen
for early breakfast and late
nights sipping and listening
to the adults murmuring
about the night ahead
the day behind

Real Valentine

What was ever real
I’m always looking
for what wants
the new to arrive

it doesn’t matter

what you’re using

this fall takes flight

I know for myself

the reality show

that could be made

just of my own

four trees and

loved shrubs

yes you can

love a shrub

Avenging Valentine

One day one huge ant
will crawl up out of all
these little ant-heaps
all these tiny ants scrambling
like drops of rain
drawn back up into
one ominous brown cloud
gross with thorny legs
moving at great speed
toward our homes
and streets crushing
trucks and scattering
the ant-like people
whose distant screams
float out over the calm
ocean of evening
like rags of pollen grain

Research Questions Valentine

Did the valleys
make the hills
slowly building
them up or was it
the hills eventually
carved the valleys
or was a decision made
at the precipice
of a certain promontory
that we could leap or
follow the runnels
downward step by step
tears had already made
to the floor far below
where the sea of happiness
comes into a million coves

nestling the moon of cares

Humble Valentine

The true gods need us
not to need them
in any way that
would compromise
our freedom or dignity
as co-workers in
these worlds of time
and matter all
spirits are created
equal yet there are
ranks of poverty
and humility so
multiple the highest
live in stones
and bones

Promethean Valentine

He was like a fire moving
up to a higher elevation
a higher calling of fire
‘The Inextinguishable’
which only music can express
the inexpressible which
for music is common speech
the music of a language
or the music of a beach
not just the ocean’s loud
mumbling and dramatic pauses
but the smudged voices
of people and children
tossed among the waves
that music which precedes
and follows sense

Reaching Valentine

Have you ever punched a rose
accidentally right in the face
and watched its head explode
you thought it was snowing
didn’t you since those were
whitened petals drained of
all but the final remorse
which precedes the brown art
of letting it all go to hell
and we were falling after all
having tripped ourselves
again and reaching out
as if to love to save us
fell the heavier
for grasping thorns 

Flying Over Valentine

Sorrow goes on ahead of me
to get everything ready
the way I like it
calmly awaiting my arrival
but happiness is viral
and only happens during
a present-filled flight over
fields that go on and on
though it’s sorrow that has
my back and whispers against
whatever I was thinking
please just do what I say
I do try to listen and respect
the sensible claims wisdom makes
I see him pausing looking back at me
sternly choking a grin 

Confessional Valentine (for Paul)

I confess poetry
is my lover we meet
for ‘coffee’ as soon
as he can escape his wife
in a distant donut shop
of the heart conceived
out of wedlock a bit
creepy in a homey way but
I kid the fates those hirelings
it’s all been prearranged
it was really us who had them
bring us here to give
ourselves away to see
how we would do it
one more time

August Roses Valentine

The breadth of a rose
is the breath of a rose
how it fans out into fields
and is breathed by creatures
of the air and cosmos
how it invents sculpture
and dance at the same time
then swirls off
nesting into forever
but what when you have
twelve of them all clamoring
to be your own personal vortex
all threatening to carry you away
and you have only one heart to break

Amfortas' Valentine

The great unspeakable
wound of today besides
the genitals is the asshole
any human asshole
is being fucked
from the inside
as well as from the outside
the dump site out of sight
where yet unforgiven
we must deal with
our own personal
triumph over matter
hopefully in private
but the hole gets tired
or hungry whichever
the case may be and
strange how the body
resembles it more
as the spirit diapers
the lost parameters
the fallen wiped away

Historical Valentine 2

What are the chances
you could be a dwarf-
hunchbacked-puppeteer-
master-chess-player-
Turkish-illusionist
who must win at all costs
and I could sit down
at your table the past
with its hankerings
for resurrection among
the stakes in that green
room of the chronicle
you claim to have redeemed
from all indifference and pain

Historical Valentine

One must be sad
to read history
as what happened
and not as what
must now be done
however the past
refuses what flows
into it out of the future
the way trees come
out of a certain air
or the air itself comes
out of last year’s
berries and despair
as if time wanted
to hurry past itself
and still be there

Afterwardsness Valentine

How does it feel
to be both a preposition
and an adverb
after the afterwards
and behind the behind
still some now waiting
for you to catch up with
it afterwards but
which afterwards
do I reclaim-
defer as you are
my afterwards
I am your before

The Spikey Presence of Now Valentine

When Venus creeps into Libra
for her annual much-needed vacation
like a lover who wakes
you in the middle of the night
where my hands go
and if you cannot touch
the skin feel the shoulder bone
what have you
if only I could be
wakened as if you
offered me my awakening
on a silver platter
but I wanted you

Prophetic Valentine

One feels about the future
that it would immediately
become palpably clearer
if one could put
oneself to the side
for a few moments
on a regular basis
as if we never existed
like removing a mask
or lighting a candle
in the middle of the day
a barely measurable
more of light
in the vast brightness
but ours

Assumption Valentine

Day after day
I keep coming
to this spring
where the wind gets
to where it’s going
the listening of bees
but I keep trying
to account for you
in a desert of want
spring of the poem
why are you so persuasive
so first person
even when you hide
behind the tools
of the trade
spring of nothing
out of which
something keeps coming

Doves' Valentine

For the mourning doves
who come in the morning
among shadows I’ve arranged
breast of pomegranate for
breakfast in the shape of hearts
for them to pick and pick at
while they’re mourning
in the morning faithfully
a pair does come
pearly moaning
in their mourning
picking and picking
in the morning

Benjamin's Valentine

On the threshold
of waking my great
dream stumbles
and dissipates
and the magic lighting
on the dream-side
on the other side
of the sun descends
to the fixed idea
of the world
oh yeah it’s him again
tiny astronaut returned
to reality and sadness
but not the same

Bain Valentine

A deeper shade of narcissism
than heretofore evident in poetry
haunts conceptualism meant
to circumvent the hard parts
of writing about feelings
and meaning to make irrelevant
what they cannot do themselves
like over-praised children
but let’s be real the vulture
capitalists of poetry fall back
continually on our freedoms
and the sucker blood
we call American us
but in the true country
of poetry is fought
the greatest obstacle of all
so the world
can be at peace