The Gentle Monstrosity

of a Silk Flower in Winter

It was at it’s best

wanting nothing,

coveting nothing, 

desiring nothing.

Only then

was it

at peace,

the creation

of a mad man’s

urge

to re-make

his world.

Look closer

and you may see 

it as a Picasso

in a ghetto,

a Monet

in a slum.

Ferociously alive 

in a world

of banal 

conformity,

it lives as

 pure poetry

openly weeping

in the marketplace,

unable to

sell itself.

It feels things

with grotesque

discomfort.

Nothing matters more

to it than love.

Yet as it’s seams

dissolved

so did it’s sex

wither.

It’s purpose

stank with a whiff

of desperation,

appearing

as lust-less

as a

middle aged

adolescent

lurching

like Byron

when he walked

towards the woman

he loved.

It’s red eyes

stay sore

in their sockets.

Everything

calls for bravery

as it takes in

too many

impressions

all at once.

It's implanted

heart and mind

are busy

sorting

the truth from

unforgiving facts.

Though it had been 

created

to reflect

the real,

(beauty was it’s maker’s

original intention),

despite being sewn

together from

patterned parts,
it would live forever

like the gentle monstrosity

of a silk flower in winter.

To survive

this world

it found it

necessary to

accept it's state

of artificiality;
without a signature scent

labels are

slippery things,

inadequate to
describe their possessors.

To it

grown people

seemed like

aggressive

sunflowers.

Children unnerved it;

tiny blanks

with too much 

courage.

It found it dreamt

far more than

it lived,

as if it’s

daily habits

were 

overshadowed

by a more

lurid fiction

embedded,

no, abandoned

by an

indifferent gardener.

Every possibility

rattled 

the cage of it’s

soft encasement; 

a living casket in

mock burial of an 

undigested seed.

Now it had begun

to have thoughts.

Here was it's first:

What if

existence

is my exile

and nothingness

my home?

Peter Valentyne

August 30th, 2019

Day for Night
in Marienbad

i

No shared past
has ever existed

save through a love

that defies the literal.

All else are but
painted shadows.

Inconsistent ones at that.
Obsession encompasses both
sun and moon
simultaneously. 

In Marienbad,
discrepancies co-exist

corridor by corridor
in gradations of glorious
black and white.
Here, it is
always
day for night.

Would that there be

a right way to navigate
as I am no tourist,
nor am I a guest.

In Marienbad, we are
either beyond time

or hopelessly beholden to it.

Don’t expect clear answers.

Instead, look for clues.

This is not a game
if we can never lose.

 What pleasure can be found

in incomprehension?

For instance, in Marienbad,

narration is likely to
take the shape

of incantation;
one's own artifice of memory.

We return to the same details

as to a wound 

that has metastasized

into an immaculate scar.

We are allowed

to witness
its steady manifestation,
like a rose exploding
in slow motion,
petal after petal,

corridor by corridor

of baroque emptiness,

an architecture of mind

in service of a wild heart.

Eerie tracking shots

reveal speechless stilted actors,

chess pieces with statuary faces,

lifeless tableau vivants

having fallen silent
in unison.
We are either

X or A
as we
wander these halls;
as if we were

the only two
people of significance

amongst extras in
someone else's dream.

ii
Sometimes in the night
I turn over in bed
and my body gives
off subtle sparks
in the dark
as though I were
dry kindling
or a bit of flint.
Would that they were
signal flares,
though there is
no such thing
as rescue.

In Marienbad,
unresolved desires
long to resolve.
Victims and perpetrators
have been known to
swap places
for a better chance
at understanding each other.
Discernment is deferred
until light of day.

We are our own
narrators,
disembodied voices
willing to take on every sin;
inner voices
that lead us on
through labyrinthian passages
of both construction
and destruction.
This place is for
getting to the bottom
of me, you, us.

On this night,
my first love
returns to accuse me
of destroying his life.
Knowing my way
around
will help me
negotiate release.
How else could I live
with what I know?
That is,
I, who am versed
in the Marienbadian
language.
I take the offering
of pear nectar
and slowly
return to the
other light
of day.

Peter Valentyne
August 21st, 2019

Visitation

(for P.G.)

I think you could

single handedly

keep the world spinning

in its place.

So full of God

are you

that you contain 

every room

you enter.

The evidence of your love

is everywhere;

everything knows 

you are here.

This morning after

your visit,

I rose early

to find myself

crying on the couch,

a tremulous quiet

still held onto you,

as if the unadorned dawn

had memorized 

your plaintive perfume.

I sensed my own past 

was ahead of me

while the cat lay cleaning

her paws with perfect

self regard, her

quotidian gesture

my sole

anchor to the moment.

Already there were a dozen

things I longed to do.

The most mundane

chore was to be

enjoyed anew.

I could feel the morning 

breathing

as though the world itself

were taking a mutual breath.

Or was this God pulsating

in the eardrum of my soul?

Something, I will say,

momentous

 had occurred,

maybe even shifted.

I knew now

that just being alive

was reason enough for joy,

that there was infinite possibility

in the smallest, seemingly

most insignificant thing.

It was as if I’d been in pain

a very long time

and hadn’t even known it,

and then the pain lifted

and I was reminded what

the world was meant for;

everything required loving

and the privilege

was mine,

no, ours,

 to feel.

Peter Valentyne

August 18th, 2019

The History of

What Without 

How or Why

First crocuses,

asparagus by the railway tracks,

rain on one side of the house,

birch eyes,

wet abandoned webs,

long lost faces in dreams,

an emphasis on the psychological in a b&w film,

colorful Indian mandalas,

the realization that a particular thought or way of thinking is harmful,

people out in the world not staring at their cell phone,

the yearning to create something,

love of beauty for beauty’s sake,

a monster’s loneliness,

basil,

things that will never come again,

poems that write themselves,

adult vulnerability,

how my cat taps her tail across the keyboard,

a rainy day after a week of relentless sun,

the sound of crickets on the 41st floor of a high-rise,

a smell that takes me into the past,

accordion jazz,

not wishing things as they are were different,

a nap that revives,

not knowing what I’ll say or write next,

memories of summers on Isle au Haut,

every snow that ever fell,

moving my furniture around,

wondering how I will die 

and where my energy will go without me.

Peter Valentyne

August 13th, 2019

Dear Life

With my pillow as a flotation device,

I hang on each night for dear life

knowing I’m sure to lose the same

battle for wakefulness.

I always go under.

Submerged in the dream,

the first thing you should know

is: there are no rules

down here. Also,

children are played by adults

suffering secret addictions.

People you know 

may often be portrayed 

as their opposite.

For instance,

a kind acquaintance

becomes a bully,

an old enemy

turns 

unexpected accomplice.

Don’t be startled, but

here, sexuality is fluid.

A man is never just a man,

which should tell you:

the heart is transvestite. 

Here, 

resurrection is a way of life,

and we are often

after mother’s approval.

Tonight, she is played by

a woman in a bad wig.

Tomorrow in broad daylight

she may well be

a familiar face in the FE’s

frozen food section

stocking up on broccoli florets.

And forget about scale.

You won’t be able to tell

how important a thing is

because everything that happens

is pitched at the same frequency.

Existence is never NOT at stake.

Small feelings appear BIG

as in a car’s rear-view mirror;

far things seem near.

Try looking for something:

an object like a spoon…

something you can take back

with you.

We are all thieves here

in search of evidence 

that might prove 

any of this matters.

In the same way

I must find a way

to make this poem

matter for you.

Yes, you heard right.

We are all thieves 

even while nothing

in our dream 

can be stolen.

By the way, did you notice 

there are no devices here?

Characters use themselves

to communicate. 

All they want

is to make the most 

vivid impression;

for that

they insist on being

their own art forms.

Oh, and you can be sure of one thing.

Later you will want to drag

the night down into day

because it is impossible

not to want more possibilities

once you’ve lived

expressionistically.

And now you begin

breaking up again,

your hand turning to ash

as you touch the river.

In no other reality can you

so easily add yourself

to the world.

Peter Valentyne

August 11, 2019

Reflection in a Golden Eye

(for Ward's Piper)

Though you are not mine,

holding you, I hold myself.

How has this happened?

Dearest of youthful 

cream-colored cats,

I am old and yet

I see myself in you.

I feel myself in you.

I remember myself in you.

Is it merely that

I’ve known from experience

your supple innocence?

You are the definition of adorable;

precisely how I managed 

to stay alive;

otherwise, who would have cared

what happened to me?

My own adoption not withstanding,

my place in the world 

was without hierarchy.

Our blondness is as mythological 

as endless youth,

both precious and mineral. 

Your feeble pre-verbal speech,

reminds me of life

before words absorbed joy.

I wonder what you are thinking

when you’re left alone?

You, who are as curious 

about everything as nothing.

You are a prayer

on four lithe paws

blessing this quiet room

with your fierce watchfulness.

What do you make of a world

where you are so ill-equipped

to be anything other than

you are?

I fear you are

at the mercy of everything,

as you meet disaster

with the same curiosity

as delight.

For that alone

I adore you.

Peter Valentyne

August 11, 2019

The Mud Heart

In the early morning hours

coming to 

from a fitful dream,

I am never

more innocent

than when asleep,

my personality laid aside

on the chair

by the bed,

just another piece

of clothing,

my face flaccid 

as a drained balloon

like an old man’s tattoo.

In only my underwear;

the trunks of a tired swimmer 

flailing in sea-blue sheets.

Before I resume operating

the spiffy dummy 

that mouths

my sentiments

pretending to be me,

answering to my name.

Before I become the mind’s

heartless accomplice,

before the imposition 

of self rule

sets in,

before the shame arises,

before the kindness kicks in,

before the mirror measures me

to corroborate that

I am 

who I claim 

I am,

before my body 

reminds me

I am older 

than ever before,

before I hoist my hair’s

pale flag of reluctant surrender,

before the light of day

exposes my spiffy dummy

to the 3rd degree…

I had a dream,

a dream 

that will matter

to no one

but me.

A dream 

destined to be  

swallowed whole

by the

fractious, fictitious facts

of the light of day.

How much more alone

can anyone be?

That said 

or asked,

the last thing 

I remember

is a stranger handing

me a heart 

made out of 

mud,

still wet, 

still malleable,

generously given

to show me 

I can still 

be loved.

Peter Valentyne

August 4th, 2019