Not Yet Valentine

Too little is always better
Than too much
Too little patience
For too much reason
It's part of the doppelganger
Who faithfully follows us around
With his too much logic
But is it too much to ask him
To step aside sometimes
Too little of my I
In all its majesty
Leaks through to see
The greatness of my littleness
In fact the smaller I become
The more I grow and shine

Almost Valentine

The call of a child
Down the road
Sounds like a bird
In distress but somehow
It cheers me
Almost a word
I never use
Comes back to serve
The rush in my heart
The reaching out
To a friend in the street
Whether love you bring
Or anguish
I go out to meet

Hymn to Life Valentine

Aren't all deaths murders
From a certain angle of light
Death tricks life into thinking
It can get away with it
And in a hurry the case is closed
And though the thousand witnesses are sure
About what they saw and heard
And despite the libraries of evidence
Death escapes prosecution again
And remains at large
Until you can't believe your eyes
That life keeps getting murdered
And coming back for more
And no one seems to get that

Feasting with the Dead Valentine

You don't take the first nibble
Until everyone's assembled
At the well-laid table
You wait while the sun
Dashes in and out of the room
Seating the late arrivals
I love this part of quiet chit-chat
Faces revealing the years between
The quiet laughter of recognition
But we all stand when the Guest
With trumpets and violins
At last sweeps into the room
Humbled to have been invited

Medicinal Valentine

When we visited the Hopis
They were already dancing and singing
Casting their bodies off
Into the warmth and light of space
Using the old movements
And the first poems sung
To make a healing substance
For the earth all the way
Home in the car we listened
For the answer that would come
As when a bird stops singing
And sits and waits
For what the stars in heaven
Might offer in return

Teri's Valentine

To put a journey together of songs
In the effervescence of the spotlight
To hold forth your life
Always to an audience of one
Even if strangers come
Standing in rapt attention
To say this isn't mine
This voice your hear
I give it back to you
The only way I can
In melancholy melodies
And boisterous tunes
I've carried in my heart

The Body is a Red Flag Valentine

Money our equivalent to love
The more you have the more
You give away or not
Which must like love
Be kept moving flowing
Or it gets dammed up
Acting cruelly on its hoarders
Not a commodity but an exchange
I try to keep that in mind
Passing a derelict sleeping
In the shade of a bank
His half-naked body
A mnemonic for love
Ezra said it was usury
But it's just hate

Waiting Valentine

While I waited for the doctor
I sat on the examining table
My legs dangling looking
Around at the antiseptic room
A little poster above a desk
With two heads in a blue sky
And below the spaced words
Know your health.  Know yourself.
And suddenly I remembered our visit
To the ruined hospital of Asclepius
And the little temple at Delphi
Where those words had been erased
I sat and waited in that empty space
I still wanted my health and self
But what if the doctor never comes

Following You Valentine

From the United Bank of Prayers
I have made a huge withdrawal
For you my stars
I have mortgaged the moon
Which was only meant to be
A little getaway turned
Into a money pit
I have pawned my last doubloon
I have sold the Rembrandt
For a million mercies
Which may not be enough
I have packed the things you love
In that old luggage you bought
Was it in Brisbane my stars

Promissory Valentine

In the adult stage
Of their overcoming
Of gravity in the time
Of their lifting off
In a great exhalation
When the soul reaches
Out into dark spaces
As far as light can go
The leaves in my yard
Return to being stars
Even in broad daylight
They flutter and gleam
Promising what seems

Late Valentine

I sweep and water
And sit in a clean space
And stare at light on green
And white on blue
And a few orange flowers
So quiet I can hear them
Beginning to open and close
Is it because I stayed up late
Last night my body is still asleep
So the rest of me breaks free
To wander the lucid yard
To enter the dream of the world
To become a passing cloud

More Valentine

If I can
Love someone more
Than I hate someone else
That's the least to be expected
To be loved more happily
Than I have to suffer for
That's the most to be hoped
Lift someone up measurably more
Than I put myself down
That's the best to be longed for
Tell my secrets to someone
More than I hide everything
From someone else
That's the least to be ashamed of

Skin's Valentine

While I was stroking
Your cool arm
While you were
Quietly talking about
Some beautiful farm
We once lived on
I was just trying
To memorize your skin
Remembering you were dying
And letting you go on and on
About the neighbor farmer
Who lost some fingers
In the jammed corn-picker
Laughing at your rhymes
While here at your skin
I go on stoking and stroking
Your warm arm

Costly Valentine

On the trail of the ephemeral
The astute and the perennial flower
Duped into a single day
And one incandescent hour
Which it knows will come again
Sooner or later in a year
On the trail of the ephemeral
Body where it goes green
And flakes off in a white storm
After much cogitation
It could be an eye or an iris
Fear is always of loss
On the trail of the ephemeral
Love is always the cost

The Next Thing Valentine

I wonder if we held one another
More often and for longer periods
Of time the way apes still do
Not wanting anything but to let
Yourself be held and
Holding on for dear life
Quietly in the knowledge
Of a longing gone beyond
Knowing and come to rest
That at a certain hour everyday
Everyone in the world
Wherever they found themselves
Would hold the nearest person
Like a long-lost relative
Just for a few moments
Just to see what's next

Brilliant Valentine

I’m so brilliant I whisper
But of course I mean my angel
I have only the brains
Of a groundhog or a spider
But miraculously she
Makes use of them for her escape
Only to be stranded as she is
On some tiny island
Sixty leagues from heaven
Meanwhile she teaches me
How to tango on the beach
And how to build a fire in my heart
If I ever hope any day
To get us rescued

Today’s Valentine

Today the brilliant scientist only wants
To write poetry that has nothing
To do with good or evil
And the poet we all make up
Having already worked out
The essential theorem
Just wants to wake up
In the morning with messages
From the other side
Words of condolence
And congratulation
The only words we can speak
And then get down to work
On what together now
We might make of today

Fields Valentine

In its thoughts the other world
Puts seeds in our heads
Which either grow or fester
Those that flourish
They feed on or harvest
Our grim thoughts
So much garbage
Fills that world
Even a mustard seed
Must enter sideways
Have you ever watched one grow
Fields of ripe golden thoughts
That must be cut down
As if those seeds could ever run
Out of new ground

Once Touched Valentine

I don’t think I’m feeling pretty guilty
Enough for all the happiness I’ve gathered
Some days I am not worthy
That it should come into my heart
When for a few moments
I should recognize my failings
And I see a flash of you
In the glory of being
Your blazing self
This happiness I take
Back with me into the dark
The conviction of a hand
Placed in a wound
Forgiving all doubt

Poetry Was Meant To Be Discarded Valentine

But poetry itself is a metaphor a man
Employing millions of worker metaphors
In his vast warehouses constantly
Being shipped out into the inner spaces
Of the world a package arriving
In a secure place hidden
Behind the rosemary bush
Two books a fat one and a thin one
One says too little one too much
Reminding me to bring I must
Some of that scent into the house
And to discard the books somehow
Release the metaphors from their mornings
And let the real shrub speak