Medicinal Valentine

You can’t drink the medicine
Until you’ve swallowed the poison
The medicine alone can act as poison
On the infant heart which is the station
Where breath and blood meet up
For a lover’s assignation
And a heated conversation
While the trains pull in and out
And the world swirls around them
But the heart is like the queen in chess
Or the taste in food
When she’s taken off the board
No food is good
The king waits naked and afraid
Behind his ramparts and his pawns

Flooded Valentine

She would be vacuuming today
Except for her house got flooded
A phone would ring somewhere
And a few cars drive by
Like the last weeks before Noah
Tried to convince her about
Global warming and
The earth-ship he was imagining
Might not be such a crazy idea
One large enough for the supplies
That would be needed
For such a long voyage
To the islands of common sense
For the few left
Who would want to go

Your Muddy Feet Valentine

You were my braver half
The one the gods preferred
Thus pain was joined to suffering
The crucifixion goes on so long
Without anticipation of what’s to come
But the bottom of despair is touched
By your muddy feet and you rise
From blood into sunlight
A being of air and dew
And even for us
Impossible creatures
You make it possible
To go on to braver days

Between Valentine

Between the hard drinkers
Of my father’s generation
The sex-addled thinkers
And my daughter’s cohort
Of sex-addled drinkers
And careful thinkers
You don’t have to imagine
What was going on then
A few witnesses remain
But what if each generation
Was like a species of birds
Or a species of bears
Becoming extinct
Only to return
In the fall

Debtor’s Valentine

The cost of being me
I can’t possibly repay
A sea of bills and IOU’s
To names and businesses I don’t
Even remember anymore
One here for a summery fall day
Sailing apparently the shoreline
Of Chicago extra wind in our hair
Which proves I didn’t completely
Imagine that though clearly
I had no idea at the time
How expensive it would be
But worth every penny and prayer
Just to be there

Ready or Not Valentine

To really feel ready for life
I mean how does one prepare
Pre-existing suppositions and all
Remember when the world
Was covered with forests
And you could breathe like leaves
The first thing is to remember
That feeling I tell myself when
Life is hardly ready for me
So much left undone
In preparation for my birth
Even under questionable conditions
To get me through to the other side
Ready or not life and maybe even
Bring something back from that forest

Paul’s Valentine

Holier than thou
I would try to be
But you would
Always beat me
Like when you sat up
In the dead apple tree
Above the sleeping lake
With our little brother
And I took your picture
Which in time became
Stranger than time itself
A drying puddle after rain
Leaving this stain
I left you there
To live our lives apart
Is there a greater mystery
Brother than a heart

King’s Valentine

For the millionth time
We must free ourselves
From another mad king
When will we tire of this
Broken record history
Nice beat but you can’t
Dance to it though
You must fling your arms and
Feel how dancing is the next
Walking this time on air
And you can’t just stand there
You wonder how much we’ll regret
Not acting now
Before the madness goes to seed

Lady’s Valentine

Swept along by our karma
The beautiful lady of mercy
Calls out to us with her silent gaze
After so much good advice
What can she do or say
After we’ve gone and married
The beautiful lady of no mercy
Swept along by her own karma
Dragging aboard the drowning
Into her tiny vessel of hope
Until the weight of her mercy
For so many bodies
Drags her down
Into the depths of mercy
Where no mercy is found

Survivor’s Valentine

Our whole lives
Are being filmed
The true reality show
In the head of a wise old
Cinematographer and survivor
Of a holocaust that’s happening
Somewhere always
In your face or in the background
Of his perfect copy of your life
Which will be handed to you
At the moment of your death
Sometimes we catch previews of it
But can’t believe the meandering script
Working so hard for a happy ending

Arrival Valentine

When I put the sky
Back in my head where
It belongs I remember
Looking out over the hills
And valleys of our crimes
Hiding in the beauty of the earth
Yes I was flying with you
Toward the country of your exile
Or liberation you weren’t sure
Which configuration of hope
Would lead you to an exit
A new life in any event
For which we’re all searching
But for me remain
The old goodbyes

Enough Valentine

If knowledge were enough
Don’t you think we’d be there by now
We’ve grown pyramids and cathedrals
But can’t explain how
These forms appeared
Or even how they made the colors
Of the glass windows
Or put such stones in place
Conditions change the mathematics
Stays the same
But they used numbers as a tool
And were not captured by them
Knowing knowledge was not enough

Feast’s Valentine

Some things you boil them
Till they’re soft and then
You mash them
Some things you enjoy
The chewing of
But who is this other ghost
I’ve invited to my feast
Of onions and potatoes
I’ve already swallowed
Him and all he knows
We who are always wanting more
Sit down to our simple fare
Peasants of a great lust
Given over to the gods 

Secret Valentine

The freedom to deceive
Which is no freedom at all
Always starts with the beleaguered self
Who calls upon his last defense
To run and hide
We lie how frequently
To protect the truth from speaking
Not because we don’t know
What it would say
But because we do
Something in us
Always knows
What’s true for us
And most of it’s a secret

Aftermath Valentine

Maybe the sun
Is really a deep reservoir
Collecting all the cosmic light
It can gather from the heat
Of its own planets and stars
And the shards of far constellations
And raying it all back
There’s something so
Motherly about it
And now even more generative
And reconstructive because
Of the combining effect
The momentum it brings
Stirring the pot what's rising
Depending on what falls

Watching The Eclipse Valentine

Slowly the sunlight dims down
As with clouds except
There’s a kind of glow
On things as if some
Powerful being stepped
Into the stream of living
Light and crossing over
Cast his shadow
On the other bank
Where of course we’re watching
Trying not to look directly
At him with that great
Bag of fortunes and
Misfortunes he’s returning
Which we're all trembling to see

Summer's Valentine

Summer used to be so recognizable
Sauntering down the twilit street
After her long work-day cleaning
Gutters and putting green
Smiles on Everything
So Everything would work out right
And she could just lie in the sun
Growing further and further
Upward and outward
Until the Perseid showers fall
And a few cold nights
Would bring her back
To our senses the scent
Of her descent
In the crisp light
A young girl asking you
If you want your receipt

 

Eclipse Valentine

When the dark side of the moon
Faces the sun full on
And gives back all
The nights it suffered
On his behalf burning
In the coronal fire
Something about it
Touches everyone on earth
A grand canyon of the gods
Opens up some
Leap across some just stare
At the invisible damped down
With safety glasses and cold beer

Once Been Valentine

I see over time my little yard
Has taken on a slightly
Metaphysical patina
All the allegories I mean aloes
Bloomed and were gone
In just three days
And conscience I mean
The variegated Bishop’s Weed
Hints I might have killed
The orange tree which
Is dying from the center
Plants are moral creatures
After all like the mountains
Where they surprised us one spring
Hillsides full of blazing wildflowers
What we had once been
And would be again

Lost Valentine

When the poem leaves me
Bites my ankle and walks away
I feel the aloneness it promised
Without the comfort of its love
I drift off like an oarless boat
Or one of those logs the waves
Finally throw up on the shore
From last week’s storm
I mean it no harm
Every morning I bring it
All the scraps I can carry
From the lost night-world
Though by the time I get here
There’s hardly a mouthful left
And that runny and unclear