Self-Inflicted

If I embody

what I love

so that there is 

no need

to look elsewhere,

and every chance 

I get I

give that love 

away,

I will be saved.

For the rest, 

I pray they find

a mystery school

for the self-inflicted,

burdened by

they know 

not what.

A greater faith

in the literal?

For myself,

I am more

than

brick and mortar

in a time of

astronomical

rents.

In this year

of plague,

the days age 

like lilies

in a vase,

by week's end

the water

reeks of rot.

Yet, I have 

memorized

their beauty.

Its possible I’ve

run out of need

for a master.

If one

were to appear,

I would know him

by a signifier:

he always takes

the shape 

of you.

Clearly

my understanding 

has ripened like

sun upon wheat

as I see you

a foot soldier

in the field

softly

humming the song

that holds

our lives

together.

Yours is

a lesson 

in un-learning

and

I, to my 

dismay fear I’ve

outgrown myself.

Still, my own nature,

abhorring a vacuum

does not mistake

the body

for a 

set of clothes.

No, I can lay

myself aside 

because you teach 

a radiance

that cannot be worn.

Instead of clutching

at these rags

I shed them 

willingly, 

disarmed

by your

smallest 

kindness.

I let them fall

to the ground,

little more than

a dog-eared 

penny dreadful,

a tattered tear-jerker,

 a dis-owned crutch;

first and last sign of a 

sacred wound.

Asleep I am

merely

a flaccid flesh-

colored slicker.

Then be awake,

where nothing 

can be owned,

nor do we need 

to struggle

for any territory.

Fatigued at last

from hoarding goods,

I’ll float free

knowing

nature's mirror 

is nothing

less than

a holy

water.

Peter Valentyne

October 23, 2020

 

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.