Why I Like to Sit on the Floor

and Other Aberrations

Sometimes furniture feels like an affectation;

a chair was never a part of the natural order.

When I sit on the floor I feel more grounded,

less pretentious, more centered, more real.

All things flow downward toward what’s low.

To sit on the floor is like sitting in God’s lap.

I always hold the first sip of wine in my mouth

without swallowing it as if I were trying

to identify a poison, 

except when taking the Eucharist.

A psychic once told me I’d been poisoned

in a past life.

I was also told I’d been beheaded.

Cutting my hair always feels like a suicide attempt.

I often walk with my head cocked to the side

imagining I'm in a b&w film from the forties.

I force a smile every morning the first thing upon waking.

I tell myself nothing bad can happen when you’re smiling.

I like to rearrange my furniture on a weekly basis.

I cannot look in a mirror in public.

I cannot look at pictures of myself.

There are certain songs I will be singing all my life.

Everything I know about human nature

I learned from Cinderella.

Seeing someone vomit makes me vomit.

I have a preternatural fear of mannequins.

Trees can make me cry.

I can’t undress in a room that smells of chlorine.

If I see someone down the street a block ahead of me

I always look away for fear they’ll see me looking at them.

I can’t bear gum in my mouth after its lost its flavor.

I hate hearing the telephone ring.

I like risking my life.

I cry in cars.

I've no idea what it feels like to be a man.

03/31/22

 

A Movie Lover’s Guide to the Stars

 A Triptych

i

The Movies Stay

While We Go Away

 

The movies stay while we must go,

with no intention of explaining away our pain.

 

The movies stay while we depart

for further vehicles of unforeseeable fame.

 

The movies stay as if they were

more real than we are ourselves.

 

The movies stay filled with the dead

in all their youthful beauty and health.

 

The movies stay suffused with

the light of all those magic hours.

 

The movies stay to bear the weight of

affinities that were never merely ours.

 

The movies stay like drawers for keeping

dreams in when we’re gone.

 

The movies stay while we go away

to immortalize what our hearts knew all along.

 

ii

Exteriors

 

A young girl adorns a scarecrow

with the hand-me-downs

of her dead father

securing him to a wooden cross

in the field beyond the house.

She speaks a quiet prayer

into the hay beneath the tweed.

That night, she awakens

to find a man standing

at the foot of her bed

soaking wet from the storm

that’s been battering

 the cornfield outside her window.

For a moment she thinks her father

has returned from the dead.

But when illuminated

 by a sudden flash of lightning

she realizes he is the man

she fashioned from scratch

in hopes she might go on

being loved.

 

 

iii

Memo From the Front Office

 

Of course, you’re being considered at this time

but who’ll direct and who’ll star is still up in the air.

As you know, you’re only as good as your last hit.

No one can rest on their laurels in this business.

Not even you.

However, I know for a fact they have faith in you

and your ability to move an audience to tears

if only with that gorgeous puss of yours!

I’ve always said you just needed a picture

that played to your strengths. Not another

comedy where you have more fun making it

than the audience has watching it!

“Saving the Day” was mired by too many damn re-shoots.

Let’s face it, you can’t afford another stinker.

Audiences want someone they can root for.

Hell, your last picture only made 40 mil

with your name featured prominently over the title.

 

Word has it your mother is being played by

that top notch stage actress Louise Fowler,

who was discovered by the Clifton Agency

while working behind the counter at Saks

selling bras and girdles…can you believe it?

We’re lucky to get Louise as she’s worked

tirelessly for decades for a role like this one.

She’s sure to give it her all.

And, get this, you resemble each other! You’ll see,

she’s going to give you something to play against.

That was the problem with “Into That Good Night”,

Verna Fogel was all wrong as your love interest.

Zero chemistry. You can’t quarrel on the set

 and expect to make a touching love story.

Just hang tight, this is going to propel you

into the firmament!

 

Peter Valentyne

03/16/22

 

 

 

 

                                                                                               Painting by Herman Bask

Every Angel is Terrifying

 

This morning I woke

to find I’d been

kissed by an angel

on the forehead

while I slept.

I knew this because

my brow was

dashed and bloodied.

I searched my mind

for a dream

to explain it

but none existed,

though mornings

often offer up

signs of a struggle.

 

Could the sight of blood

be a red reminder

that death is racing

through our

underground

streams looking

for a way out of itself;

a seedling

making its way

toward the light

determined

to flower?

No rock or root

can inhibit its crawl

through the sediment

of ourselves.

Until of course

busting out

like birds

growing gradually

bored of

their cages.

  

Now I know there is

no need to figure out

what to do next

as the things that

need doing

present themselves

for execution

in their own time.

Has there ever

been a need

to do otherwise?

But I, like

everyone else

tend to take

things into my

own hands

if for no other

reason than

it flatters

the ego to force

things to happen.

 

Was it Rilke

who said,

“Every angel is

terrifying. And yet,

alas I welcome

You.”

Angels are

indeed perilous

as even their kisses

leave a bruise.

Who better to

bewilder us

back to

the proper

gratitude?

 

I wouldn’t have said

this to anyone or

anywhere else

but here

in this place

allotted for

the most beautiful

of all possible

revelations.

 

03/14/22

 

Wooden Parts

 

Are you like me an amputee?

Is all that’s left of you

here with me?

People may see us whole

but there’s an absence;

appendages no longer

in need of bandages.

 

Who sees what’s missing?

I’m not talking of lost limbs

but a vacancy of parts

unknown but no less grim,

draped beneath the fabrics

protected from the dusts;

shrines to gorgeous longings

once mistaken for our lusts.

 

But an absence of sentiment

doesn’t mean we no longer care

when the past can be as shrouded

as a loved yet tattered chair.

If in doubt lift the skirt, you’ll

find there’s nothing there.

True love leaves a stain,

a feeling presence oh so near;

partial memories reflected

in faces no longer here.

If all there was to risk

was only our own thick skin,

better be amongst the invisible

than by sorrow shrouded in.

 

If losing something dear

is merely a matter of ballast.

How much more is lost

to avoid becoming callous?

When age severs things:

people, places, or loves,

whatever are we to do

with what not having does?

 

When there’s more behind

than before us up ahead;

some folks lug their suitcases

even on their way to bed,

and every other room

they enter carrying trunks.

Ones with stickers

full of travels, ones

with initials full of junk.

 

I prefer to keep my losses

out from under wraps,

to let out a rook to look for land

on limbs or wings or flaps.

When what we’ve loved

has gone away we'll find

our way back to the wood

because even amongst

dead branches we'll be

welcomed back for good.

 

 

03/08/22

 

Painting by Marlene Holland

When Mind

Displaces the Heart 

Which Objects 

to the Ego 

that Argues with

the Soul 

Eventually Calling

Upon the Spirit

to Lead

i

I try not to let my mind

do all the thinking for me.

He’s too full of himself;

everything goes to his head.

He likes to push me around

taking the lead at every turn.

He goes around judging

everybody and everything

in a kind of unforgiving light

usually reserved for uncomfortable

public spaces like an HR Block

or a dental clinic. In fact,

he’s the reason I turned to prayer.

I pray to be free of his controlling

nature as he likes nothing better

than to come to harsh conclusions

about me that however insightful,

always feel heartless. He has no

fear of offending me or anyone

else with his obnoxious know-it-all

mindset and alpha-male tendencies.

He is Michelangelo’s The Thinker

as Little Lord Hog-it-All.

ii

My heart is a twelve year old girl.

She loves easily and is pre-

naturally self-conscious.

She’s sensitive and kind

and never ever wants

others to feel uncomfortable.

She feels she is pretty

though not pretty enough.

She loves making things,

cooking, decorating, planting,

anything to do with art.

Dancing, singing, painting,

anything that allows her

to express her love for life.

She adores animals and

basically sees the world as

a gigantic unfolding flower.

She loves to imagine things and

when they’re scary she 

screams, when they’re

happy she laughs, and when sad,

she cries out with everything in her.

She lives in a constant state of astonishment.

Oh, and hairy legs make her blush.

iii

My ego is on his last legs.

Has been since sustaining

several injuries in his teens.

Puberty destroyed his Eden

and turned it into a hell.

Before that he was a child star

(in his own mind) craving the spotlight. 

Everything happens to him

or at least that’s how he sees

things. Like David Copperfield

he was convinced early on

that he was to be the hero

of his own life. Trouble was

he suffered a breakdown

after a falling out with his

insensitivity to the feelings

or lack of feelings of others.

Determined to be a success

he ran away from home sev-

ering any ties that bound him

to the perception of himself

that did not jive with the

image of his own self worth.

iv

My soul is in the medical profession.

He is very old school. Instead of Doctor,

he prefers Alchemist. He believes

in remedies, particularly holistic ones

and has been writing everything

that happens down in a book

so as to be clear on what and why

he is who he is. He wants more than

anything to connect with others 

but knows that his aloneness is

necessary to his own evolution.

He loves rain and wandering

unfamiliar streets where he has

been known to weep at the sight

of houses simply lit up by the life within.

He longs for a mate but refuses

to let that be any requirement

for his happiness.

He exists in a constant state of

bewilderment because in

every moment he is aware that

this may be goodbye.

iiv

My spirit is the personification of Spring.

It has no sexual assignation though

it loves nothing more than joining in

when things get interesting.

Excitable, fun-loving, easily moved

to tears. 

Nature is it’s favorite abode.

It loves the mountains and sunny climbs.

It loves to smile and is eager to enjoy

the smiles of others. It wants the best

for everyone. It loves gatherings

and two glasses of Shiraz wine

at the end of the day or before

things get interesting.

Its a gift giver, a cake baker, 

and likes to dress up. 

It sees theatre, movies, and church

in the same light.

It loves candles.

v

You may be wondering who exactly is

making the above observations. 

When the going gets tough,

who is it that best takes the lead?

When problems or troubles arise

which parts of ourselves hold the most sway?

When Mind displaces the Heart 

which objects to the Ego 

that argues with the Soul 

eventually calling upon Spirit

to lead…I take a breath,

close my eyes, and...

destroy myself that I might live.

3/01/22

 

A Tree in the Palm of My Hand

“My imagination sentenced me to this journey.”

                                               ~Wislawa Szymborska

I trust the trees

with their diaries writ

in wood and their histories

ground to a pulp,

even dismemberment

can’t stop them

from sprouting

another stalk.

I too am

of two natures:

in one I’m

holding fast, while

in the other

I let go;

a perpendicular bridge

joining what’s above 

with what’s below.

With my  

rorschach of roots,

my feet dipped in snow

I reach toward the sky

  unsure if I'll reap what I sow.

Beneath a nightly moon,

I note the phases as if by rote,

with my heart like a knot

in a lover’s throat.

Green as the trees

but with memories

of meat and bone,

I walk upon the earth,

my anatomy my home.

Playing the long game

I choose to burrow low, then

a walking stick sprouts a flower 

to show I’m not too old to grow.

Above our interiority, 

a body intermingles,

each a careening marionette 

at the mercy of unseen fingers.

It’s true we all are being tugged

limb by flimsy limb, but

must we all go with the flow

at the hands of 

a fickle wind?

Having learned

to grip the sky

with the same tenacity

as stone,

I’m never more

myself than

by myself alone.

Consider the single pine

in a grove of eyeless birch,

 pining for its tribe

having been left 

out in the lurch.

Blushing in the sunlight

and blanching in a rain,

a foot soldier

knee-deep in longing

and stuck in a foreign terrain

with no way to march

and nowhere else to go, 

instead he'll honor

his fellow comrades by

not seeing them as foe.

Some worship green;

think of the book of Kells,

oh, to be at home as turtles

in their helmet-shaped shells.  

But now I say its my turn

to light myself from within

by rubbing palms together

to start a spark beneath the skin

to rekindle my own moon’s light

after gestating so long in the dark,

as if fire were a sign of spirit

and wood it’s means to spark.

2/28/22