valentines

True Romance

The choices we fall into for romance

Must be why they call the moon-touched lunatics.

We let all sense escape us, give in to chance

Seduced, junkies, into hunger for a fix

Belief, a bedfellow strange to reason's well-trod path,

In fairytale ever after lovers twain

Well-schooled, trained in logic, adept in math

Yet we shed it all to hop that mythic train

Expose our tender souls to cruel deceit

And maybe violence, maybe wounds that slowly kill

Yet we run into destruction, foreswear retreat

For the chance, the hope, the ecstasy, the thrill. 

 

poets' challenge of love

 

the challenge of love, ah clever poets sing 

bells of the ages like weddings' ring-bearers 

tending to the tender souls who challenge love. 

first there is awe and laughter 

first there is oh so sweet petals of 

eternal Spring 

first there is me boyo, me flicka, me enameradae 

first there is passion unmet in this measure before. 

I love like a mountain gale 

sweeping goats and dales and moonshine 

into camaradic array, like daffodils 

sun-shine through miraculous fields 

meeting you here where no two have quite met 

like this, to kiss, to touch, to taste, entwine blissful 

like none have done in all of the days of wo/man. 

seas of rapture sway and spray and rock us 

into unsung epic destiny. 

Yet love unwinds, 

unmakes us, 

ruins us for life. 

And life descends so empty 

on the drying seeds of 

now spent love. 

Be My Valentine

If the greatest virtue we can aspire to is love

And the greatest follies in our lives are due to love

And we can't cure ourselves of the pain and malady of love

But all sages exhort us just to love

And pure poison is generated by loss in love

And pure bliss is ours in lovely love

And what about those horrid beings we just can't love

And what about that horrid feeling of being unloved

So what in heaven/hell is love?

There is love that sends you dancing

into romantic lunacy 

that feels so right and free

There is love that burns so hot and cold

you never know

quite where you are

There is love that holds a whisper

in the corner of your mind

makes you smile in

that secret special way

makes you want to linger

in a lover's fantasy

makes your day

There is love that hurts and hates

and kills any chance of saving

face or heart

burns the bright flame of your being

into ash

leaves you bleeding, pleading

for any drug or thrill to kill the pain

There is love

indistinguishable from insanity

in any way your twisted mind

will go

There is love that lets you know

you have a soul

because it's growing 

magically

Which love are you offering 

to me?

I offer you a human love

not constrained to simple prophecies

Part need for another face

in which to see my reflection

Part need for nurturing solace

in uncertain days

Part need to be hero, adored

shining spirit in your eyes

Because you are the adored vision 

in mine

You send my boundaries

leaping,

You in my life inspires me

to make that leap, creating

a greater vision of me

encompassing we

Crawling into each other's 

place of repose,

breaking borders,

It doesn't matter where

I am

when I'm with you.

The change happens quickly

as in a feature film,

or excruciatingly prolonged,

a soap opera romance 

slowly dying

new characters may intercede

archetypal stories may

cross our stars

navigating our lives

in different directions

We grow complacent, calcified,

disinterested

Angry words burn us inside

smoldering

Heat no longer a welcome

participant of romance

Your little ways

My little ways

imps of annoyance

Is there Hope in this

box of pain?

Over and over

yet never over

in the bodies and souls

of humans

experiencing love.

love poem by moonlight

I told you my heart was wrapped in bloody

newspapers, ripe with the stench of 

long and brutal battles.

I tried to deny you entrance 

when you rang while I was

entranced in the respite,

the invisibility of sleep.

Yet I fell open as you touched me,

eyes melting into eyes,

lips melting into ecstasy.

Your fingertips feathering,

so soft and warm, along my

long parched skin.

I want so to believe again

in two hearts beating wholeness.

Dreams of Love

She is there, in my room, waiting.  Silent as I close the door, turn out the light, turn out the world.

I feel her presence behind, reaching to touch my clavicle, soothe vagal impulse to turn.  I feel her hand, supple, strong, heating through in contact, healing in that sacred touch fortified with love.

We kiss, we melt, we swirl like cotton candy, sweet, sticky, surreal.  We touch into solidity to feel, each exquisite synapse response a remembrance of permeability.  We taste.  There are no words.

I know I said (I prayed):

To be adored beyond embarrassment

To be she who can do no wrong, because beloved

To be gifted accurate reflective critique

as superlative reviews, with just a tweak suggested

To fall securely into open arms and heart

expecting only me

Each blessed day to start

gazing into shining eyes that see so deeply,

so wisely, my precious wondrous being

I have never had from lovers,

brothers, Mom or Dad

what I have taught myself severely

I can never have

Too bad.  So sad.  Can't let fantasy 

keep me from my daily dance with debt.

Dreaming freely receivng

love

never to be met.

We meet secretly, in places that can't be mapped or tethered.  She embraces me in bursts of rapid movement, seductively slowed from motion to subtle traces of desire.

I am emotively charged ecstasy, pulsing electrically beyond space/time.  She is imaginal fluid gently shaping eternity.  We are ouroboros, ancient fantasy, modern physics.

This is the charm I need to cast the spell, to open the fortress, to open my eyes adoring sensation.  I become energy as she feeds me the ambrosia of her essence.  I become beloved.

Goddess Dreams of Love

In a far off land, across a careening sea

Beauteous Damsel made a brave decree:

"I am the monarch, the dominant She

Who Must Be Obeyed."

Then she smiled a million miles

Sunshine bright for days.

A sad young thing on a lonely cloud-strewn beach

Looks longingly on a face he cannot reach.

If he had the words he knows he could beseech

her with noble speech. He prays

to the Goddess of Miracles:

"Please, show me the way."

On a cloudless, moonless night redolent of dreams

Towering waves inundate sand, glowing streams

Showering pure delight, igniting those gleams,

A golden thread together sowing their seams

Silent day arrives, crescendos to song

She glides the beach, feeling fit and strong

"Lithe leaping lyric carries me along."

Her eyes reach onto the beach

To the lapping waves

Where he, dreaming, plays.

Out here, deep in the sea, wild and blue

Do you dream of romance, poignant and true?

Afraid when you awake nothing is new

Swimming eternally free, nothing but you?

Singing your song along a lonely beach

Knowing not who or where it's beauty may reach

Strong is the monarch, sure in her speech,

In her reign

Goddess caressed, you are blessed

for all of your days.

For Leda and Her Lover

Slow, languid romance

Gliding, alive in the dance

Coyly exchanging glances,

lithe, feather touches

hand to hand, to waist, to loin.

Enjoying little licks, lovers' gifts,

luscious lips,

tender whispers, savory tasting, 

lingering kisses, tingling

skin, tangling hair, 

intently aware, intensely

THERE

amazed, amused, 

enrapt, enthused in grace,

in sharing,

playfully

joined

Diamonds and Rust

"Diamonds and Rust" like Joanie says

memories, I mean

lovers.

I saw you tonight with your San Francisco cut

and that old double-edged blade

went piercing through my heart

leaving me bleeding

memories

long through this autumn night

of no-sleep blues and golds

and rusty burnished reds

that cut like diamonds.

I call to you in fevered dreams  

that leave me gasping,

haunting all through the dreary day.

Can't escape that sudden urgency.

Just like days gone by.  You don't answer.

You don't hear me through all that mass

-- your own driving imperative.

We meet so seldom

separation so long.

We are like strangers.

Yet times we have touched, one to one,  

to perfection,

have been one strength and impulse

have known such intimacy . . .

I call to you now,

Hearing your voice in every song of romance.

Reflections

Walking long mornings into sunrise

You stood by and took the earth into your arms

like grainstalks

I called you my Degas print.

You spoke of the moon.

21 days and nights we tarried.

Almost single, almost married.

I loved you.

You spoke to me in words of magic.

Will you speak to me again?

Hollywood houses and Paris cafes bowed to us.

You said you needed work and companions.

I cursed you in my mind, and went off

seeking other follies.

The days look longer now, feel somehow strange.

Love is like a looking glass, reflecting change.

Neptune in Libra

I catch clouds and hold them for awhile in my mind

they keep me drifting.

I catch minds and let them float behind my eyes

They keep me sifting through thoughts and moods.

I catch you for awhile, drifting through my mind.

I catch your smile, your thoughtstreams, your

ups and downs.

I catch you for awhile and let you linger through

my moments.

I catch clouds and shape them to your form

they keep me drifting.

I dream forms and demons and fleeting glimpses

of your mind.

I dream while clouds drift away into formless

wispings.

I catch your eye in the corner of my mind

In drifting, shifting dreams that float away,

Yet stay -- yet linger,

Always thinking you.

Little Love Poems

I.

Passion Plays

Sidewalk street scenes

Commercialized love-ins at the five and dime.

It's getting so you can't speak of intimate feelings

Without sounding like a third rate flick

Or pocket novel.

So we go cold in protest

And that is the evil

Of obscenity.

II.

I fell in love once

Now they just take on different

Faces and Forms,

These objects of my passions.

It's all the same fucking merry-go-round

Of rapid pulse beats

And hot and cold flashes

And none of it seems very real or sane

Or even, at this well-worn point,

Romantic.

III.

You said you loved me,

And it made my world.

I called you my lover,

And felt secure in the race to conquest.

Yet lately, when I'm alone

I feel an urge to leaving;

And when I'm with you,

I'm not there at all.

IV.

Love is a word people use a lot.

I love you.

Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not five minutes,

But right now

You touch me

Through a look, a phrase, an expression,

The way you stand so firmly on your ground,

And I respond

With the hot flush of love

In a smile.