Night Tide

“If you can believe anything, why 

not believe this will last? I’m here 

to tell you whatever you build will

be ruined, so make it beautiful.”

                            ~Hala Alyan

Mornings are a ruin;

signs of a struggle

in cloth sand.

On my arm

a mysterious bruise

the shape of a cloud

in an anatomical sky.

This is how my body 

resolves its emotions,

one wound at a 

time.

At night, my soul,

making what it needs

from scratch, ripens. 

Or is my mind simply

making me happen?

Or maybe my heart.

Either way, 

why shouldn’t

this process be 

holy?

I live another night.

No more naming a dream.

I disown the word dream.

Like the word God,

It begs for renewal.

This is how I see a poem;

a prayer to see 

the evidence

anew.

It comes down to this:

to take responsibility

for how to live

with what I know

and don’t know,

for what came 

and what comes

as another night tide

 strews

cold coals beneath

my feet. 

I walk along the edge

of night and day

sifting for signs

of my surrogate’s

survival.

With barely a veil

between 

not seeing things

as they are, but

merely as I am,

I ask to keep a 

sorrow

born from waking

when I leave.

After all, its all

I have for proof

having known

so much 

joy.

Peter Valentyne

October 15th, 2020

 

The Man Who Turned 

Himself into a Chair

What’s to be done

when a man

you thought you 

knew well

turns himself

into a chair?

Seriously.

A chair 

as colorless

and flavorless 

and tepid as

a Dixie cup

of stale

tap water.

For that matter

what if a man

turns himself 

into a cup 

and places himself

on the shelf

upside down,

for no 

better reason

than to hold nothing

at the expense of

everything.

One could argue

that a chair has its uses

and everything 

has its place,

however that doesn't

explain why I keep

rearranging my furniture

for no other reason

than to see 

the same old

things anew.

Do inanimate objects

matter enough

to sacrifice our souls

to maintain

a sense of order?

Then, God give me

a delicate chaos

I can 

navigate

with my

heart.

Sometimes I feel

the need to sit

or lie down in 

a part of a room

I’ve never sat or lied

down in before

just to escape

the stranglehold

of an everyday

addiction

that offers 

no further

high.

Have I

now become

a cornered animal

petrified of taking 

the world for granted

for fear of

breeding contempt

for both

myself and others?

Like or unlike 

the chair

I trace and retrace

my steps

day in and day out,

as desperate

for assurance 

that I not become 

a creature of habit,

that in fact

the smallest repetition

of my most

 insignificant act

not atrophy into

rigor mortis

whereby

he that sits

and he that 

is seated

no longer 

qualify for

a deity. 

Peter Valentyne

October 13th, 2020

 

The History of Salt

& Self Worth

(for my Father)

“You want to grow up to be

worth your salt, don’t you?”,

asked your vanishing Father,

after which

you carry a book

wherever you go

as a way to tell others 

who you are, 

or want to be.

The title on each cover

a second face,

a clue to what is 

being written

within the pages 

of your 

own body.

If you are to live

as if life carries

it’s own meaning

then you must know

it’s flavor

lies in living

hand to mouth.

Eyeless in Gaza, 

The Beautiful and Damned,

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,

The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Like your

Father

you take to living by

 the laws of autumn

through the prosaic lens

of a spectacular sorrow.

Misfortunes lack regret,

chalked up as they are

to the wistful capriciousness

of youthful longing,

even as death, the thing 

that brines 

all meanings

rests the weight of it’s shadow  

across your chest.

Don’t get me wrong,

you know

its possible not to suffer this.

You can’t afford 

or abide

sentimentality

as too much feeling

overpowers the stew.

So, though you love

like a child

being torn 

from it’s parent,

you will endure

by letting go.

Like the ocean

you’ve longed 

to see

and smell

and touch

and hear

and feel

since childhood

(having long ago

moved inland)

your love remains 

preserved

in a history 

of salt.

So you attempt

to live for rain

because the faucet

lacks poetry

whether you

die of thirst

or not. 

To keep going

make every meal

as if you are

creating 

another man’s 

happiness.

And if asked 

what you use 

for ingredients,

like a poet

confess…

everything.

Peter Valentyne

October 12th, 2020

 Eyes for a Mouth

Our faces 

have gone

into hiding.

Parts 

unknown.

Left to our 

own devices,

Corona has

abandoned us

to our natures

and so we've

traded 

our mouths

for eyes.

Now we are 

the sum

(and substance)

of what 

we’ve buried;

unintended gardens

of ravenous 

red

forget-me-nots.

Outside, mummies

are begging 

the streets

in disregard

of the laws

of the moon.

Don’t they know

the moon is 

not a stopper

but an opening, 

a mouth.

Only at night

have we ever been

so wide open.

We are all

in rags,

masks muffling 

our every response

along with

our fetid breaths

as we recycle

our own air

and subsist on

a born-again 

oxygen. 

If there is

to be

no more

mouth to mouth,

then who

can save us?

How will I 

know my brother

gagged behind 

a wall?

How to

love another

when kissing 

becomes

this suspect?

Our masks keep

our mouths 

in their place.

Now

I am all eyes

interpreting only

half the truth.

My unseen

“How are you?”

no longer answered

with anything

but an ironically

hampered

“I’m well”.

When

I’m well is barely 

possible.

And yet I am.

You need

only rephrase me.

I am at the bottom

of this well

because

only now has it

become possible

to know what 

I must do.

Peter Valentyne

September 29th, 2020

 Featured in September's Health Affairs Journal for community work with seniors.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.01363.

Dreamers 

Anonymous

We met in

room 1111 at 11PM.

There were 4 of us

in folding chairs.

Mine had several 

initials scratched

into the seat.

None of them

 mine.

A naked lightbulb

hung from a cord

like a suicide

of counterfeit light.

The instructor was female.

She called us inheritors.

Her voice was 

wholly masculine.

I took notes.

Dreams are a misnomer.

Dreams are tired.

We must never

call them dreams

and for God’s sake

never nightmares.

As above so below,

or in our case

as below so above.

You are a crossroads.

Think of your

days as horizontal,

your nights as vertical.

You are travelers

to a dimension

where no rules apply.

You are the crux.

You are here because

you have a talent

for abandonment.

You relinquish yourselves.

Your bodies are

vessels, airborne

and sea-worthy.

I am essentially

addressing

4 beached boats.

All that can remain

is memory,

and memory is

subject to 

cessation.

The instructor 

then presented

flash cards.

Toad. 

Pine cone.

Fairy. 

Stone.

Tooth. 

Grave.

Bird. 

Cloud.

She resorts

to mathematics.

If a bird

in the hand

is worth

two in the bush,

how much is

an egg worth?

No one 

dares say.

Again

she challenges

our associations.

Nothing we think

is right.

An artist never

resorts to blueprints.

On the contrary,

we are thieves

who can leave 

no prints.

Not where we’ve gone

or are going.

We are here

because we agree

each night

for the dark

to steal us away.

The question is

who or what is

having its way

with us?

Our beds are

a crucible.

Vulnerability, 

our only 

requirement.

For now, as we

are novices (ha!)

we lack stamina.

We are not 

in the saddle.

She loops

an imaginary rope

and casts it forward.

Later, she implies,

we will have

a newborn 

fortitude.

I am happy

to be a baby

again.

The pock-marked man

asks how can 

surrender

ever lead to

command

or personal 

jurisdiction?

An egg head,

I assume.

We can’t help 

but think.

A commander

knows how to

surrender,

she corrects.

Are we going

into battle,

I ask on the inside. 

She responds

as if she heard me.

You are all

your own

civil wars.

So what are we

fighting for, I ask.

All this war imagery,

really?

Mastery, she answers

bluntly.

To quote Blake,

You are 

the marriage

of heaven and hell.

There are no Gods,

nor are there devils.

No countries,

only nameless lands.

There is consciousness

and unconsciousness.

Asleep or awake.

If you hadn’t guessed

already, you are 

more asleep

in the day

and more awake

in the night.

That is why

you are here.

This is where

our work 

must begin.

Peter Valentyne

August 4th, 2020

Beatitude

“Within despair lies 

the joy of beatitude”

                ~anonymous

I remember Gide.

Gheeeed.

A time when

I was both real

and counterfeit.

Before I invented

myself as a reason 

to entwine 

my body

with another.

In the future

men were

both

crude and

insensitive.

I would be 

different.

Now

a single tree

can topple me.

A glass 

of wine

all that’s needed

to destroy

my separateness,

and sunlight 

the one thing

making me

still possible.

Peter Valentyne

August 3, 2020