Unanswered Valentine

For a relatively short
sentence of time
we are locked up
in this prison
of flesh and blood
we are wound up
and set clattering
across the tables
of the world like
mechanical monkeys
come to life
yes how do we
come to life in
this mineral world
ash that cannot
hold a flame

 

Petit Song of Ourselves Valentine

Now whatever we do
can only be done
in the light of what
has already been done
as if the stars were
just some kind of
celestial nonsense
about a traveling circus
where we can send
impersonally objectively
our kids and still
have no need to be good
or bad right or wrong
but could be our one
and only freely
selves

Where Things Go Valentine

Down hill
To the dogs
To the gods
Up the nose
Up the ass
Nowhere fast
To the hospital
To school
To work
To the hospital
Crazy
Better than expected
To be released
To hell

Pedagogical Valentine

To teach a hummingbird to sit still
on the head of the bust of an angel
a winged thought prepared to drift
off the page of the sky has always
been my life’s goal before that page
is turned or I’ve been able to comply
with what I’ve learned about the plot
and musculature of the story so far
a certain self-effacement because
of moving frequently as a kid
still evident even in his body
from which Giacometti could have
taken instruction but for me
always an arrow toward love

Evolutionary Blues Valentine

What world
is the moon
the seed of
or the sun
for that matter
the father of
these are like
boulders on the
sides tossed up
by what volcano
a god the way
the head in one
life is the stomach
for the next already
all his sins
baked in

Is Shakespeare Bisexual Valentine

What I don’t see yet clearly
hidden behind the glamor I love
when I look at the great murderers
the great liars the great thieves
(the great fliers the great schemers)
is what I could become
and mostly already am
my selves unanchored tyrants
sometimes sailing sometimes drifting
in drifting I do my best work
that through me something
better might enter
this world what more
could I desire

Violation Valentine

It’s a kind of vocalizing
such as one hears among old people
sighs and snorts and sputters
the motor running just fine
thank you out here on the freeway
of life seventy-two and ticketed
for doing 82 in a 70 zone
but I was just moving with the flow
of the traffic Officer I was just being
swept along surrounded by these
crazy California (rapping, I’m going to
lose my shit in Californ-I-A)
speedsters unable to switch lanes
them passing me right and left
and just as crazily  refusing
to let them intimidate me
old enough to be their father
all of them disrespectful bitches 

Glimpsed Valentine

My mornings are devoted
to proud Lucifer lord of light
my afternoons to Ahriman
his slow eating of the light
and in between at noon
for a split second or at
dawn I catch a glimpse
at times as the last
of the light finally
gets consumed
of the face of the truth
the beautiful face
of true goodness
flashes up in the dark
within as it passes

Proverbial Valentine

Even a cactus can die
in the right drought
there is some snow we cannot take
an allergy develops from over-rapport
so far from him they say we’ve gone
he had to come again
if there were only gravity
everything would crawl
snake-like along the ground
some think whatever it is
that lifts things up is him
we have always been exploited
we just get distracted
now and then

Enough Valentine

Every minute has a lifetime guarantee
a history a family a consequence
most of it secret exciting implausible
and yet it happens to all of us
when people die we can speak
as if they weren’t listening
or could still learn to feel
no one honest expects a rose
to issue from this thorny mess
a bush is a mess is a rose
I think not therefore I am not
but this is what happens every day
in my changing mind of stuff
the poem is never enough

Saying Goodnight Valentine

That stray cat buggers off for the night
about to leap the wall but stops
and turns looking back at me
as if he’s forgotten something
and changing his mind he
totters back to nuzzle my foot
purring and flicking his tail
but five minutes later he’s gone
when I’m not looking just then
so much happens unobserved
but when I turn back to look
it all seems exactly the same
I went inside and made a tea
of tree bark licorice and scotch

Clouds and Columns Valentine

Well I’m not asking you
to have hope the situation remains
pretty much hopeless enough
you either push that rock
uphill or lie under it
so what’s all this emotional
pandering about if not
to wonder what’s behind it all
what it’s a picture of if you
were to draw a picture of it
using clouds and columns
of sun and other lights to amass
the furthest paradigm of you
that’s what I drew

Actor's Valentine

The mark of a good person
is that terrible things happen to them
often they are subject to insane
producers and bad scripts not even
off-off-reality would mount
what you could overhear in
their dressing-room celebrations
where the worst scenes are played
and they can get trapped in those
theatres of violence that never close
though they may gauge their greatness
by the beatings they received like athletes
called upon to defeat suffering
over and over again

Resume This Virtual Machine Valentine

Personally I defer to sparrows
you are listening to the world
re-written as a Mexican opera
you can pull the plug on all
these sad commercials for
the four seasons the real ones
not just the hotel I realized you
had no comprehension for what
I was about to tell you finally
by the way you went on talking
as the domino silences fell
it wasn’t just the fault-line
exposed it was the way your eyes
crossed when I spoke about our future
somewhere under prairie skies

Castaway's Valentine

I thought I heard a plane overhead
but it was just my stomach rumbling

Armed Valentine

Motions on!  Emotions off!
you’re all over the map today
emotionally speaking and we
don’t have time for transference
but must hasten on to the core
issue of the earth for which
the eight other layers
are mere accretions cast-offs
the lustrous inner walls
of the shell the exoskeleton
of love and love-making
but see even as I was plunging
toward it I got caught
in the extraneous along the way

Nature's Valentine

They come like customers
not at all or all at once
a crush of reddish-brownish
finches storms the smiling
birdbath but suddenly the proud
mockingbird steps forth
to claim this puddle his
by right of the municipality
of song and ancient orange trees
what has a finch to offer
in complaint they wait
while his nibs sips and drips
nature’s a monarchy but they
have democratic leanings
and chatter among themselves

After School Valentine

Ambergris and amethyst

sit in the sunny window

one the perfume of the other

after their slow sea journey

from dawn’s ear to day’s mouth

the myths of the laceration

of nations and the roaring flames

they watched approach and fade

over a red cascade of names

the tide continually gets wrong

and must like a punished child

write over and over an endless

number of times on the board

of the shore I promise not to forget

I promise not to regret

Thoughtful Valentine

When I think of my mother

I think of death when I think

of my sister I think

of childhood when I think

of my brother I think of sorrow

but when I think of you

I think of tomorrow

even though you won’t

be there in the old

flesh and blood kind of way

in the old way of touching

which does not belong

in heaven

Chilly Valentine

A few cold days in the desert

is a wonderful thing if you

have to put a sweater on

to work outside listening

to the traffic and the voices

of children on their way to

school others off to work

while you’re practicing

the religion of sweeping

off a patio and the art

of dead-heading yesterday’s

magnificent glories

now no more