Apatite

~For Ward

Some stones clear your head

so you can feel their colors.

It takes attention to detail.

The way I look for poetry in The Times

and always find it, though

there are no poems in its pages.

A word here, a title there.

The Times is chock full of sparks

when the mind’s as

dry as parched kindling.

With my garden I uphold

the pursuit of beauty

even as the flowers

make me feel a Frankenstein.

My over-grown hands

and scarred face

fumbling amongst the petals;

things so effortlessly perfect

just as they are,

while I’m stitched together

limb by limb,

my transplanted heart

squeezed inside 

its treasure chest-like terrarium,

along with precious scraps

from learned books

stuffed and corked

for safe keeping.

How I long to put my feet

back into earth.

I am in awe of colors

for their own sake,

they create a climate

cogent as inner weather.

That's how I know

the wind

is the will power

of the world,

that life is alive without us

and to participate

its best to put down

our belongings

and just join in.

I recently received an apatite

stone as a present.

A beacon for drawing down the stars.

Almost immediately something was different,

as if its properties were loosening me.

What was once packed,

constipated, congested, stuffed,

filled to the brim…

now flows.

I used to run around like a chicken

with its head cut off

to live more from the heart.

Now I sit still.

This mineral has me thinking

of all I’ve done to myself

to try and stay alive.

You’d think

failure were an art,

and every step I took

a kind of canny forgery.

Like forgetting to water the flowers

or refusing to eat what’s before me.

The way I ran away from the moment,

one would have thought it

full of hurt.

Wanting to look like someone else.

Wanting to touch someone else’s body.

Not staying silent when

I'd nothing to say.

How I survived being trapped

by gnawing off a vital extremity.

My discomfort with being naked.

My disgust for other’s selfishness,

(having been selfish most my life).

My impatience with those who are ill.

My refusal to remember my mother.

The abandonment of my own protagonism.

The way the past makes me cry.

The way loss humbles me to the core.

The way I crawl into films

to deposit my feelings for safe keeping

knowing one day I will return for them

hoping to feel them again

in the safety of

a rainy afternoon.

By Peter Valentyne

---

 

A Well-Being of One’s Own

I confess I judge people

by how much they’ve

overcome themselves.

It says almost all

one needs to know.

I don’t mean to judge.

I’ve just opted out

of the jury pool, though

my practice remains.

I’ve asked myself

why would anyone

carry their bags into

every room they enter?

Besides, they take up

too much damn room!

Life doesn’t require luggage,

but an unpacking of the heart,

because despite our experience:

beautiful, traumatic, fun, scary,

hurtful, healing, embarrassing,

they’ve no staying power

unless we place them

in a strangle hold.

Me, I float through the forest

light as a leaf on the wind,

my well-being in proportion

to that which I’m aware of.

Hurt waves its white flag

so to escape any whiff

of personal patriotism.

A poem is

antithetical to politics.

Poets are rarely tribal,

but lame goats

meant to lead.

We are not dualistic.

We are not nihilistic.

We are the power

of the flower. We are

clouds, sky, and stars.

We are our remedy;

our pain is our medicine.

God married the Devil

so we could dance

at his wedding.

Eat, drink, and be weary,

for tomorrow we die

so that we might

truly begin to live.

Life takes our teeth,

our hair, our smiles,

our memories, and

scatters our photographs

like so much mulch.

With our precious

things gone,

what do we do

for an antidote?

How do we become

what we already are?

God saves those

who save themselves.

God loves those

who love themselves.

God hates those

who hate themselves

and projects that hatred

onto others.

Our illnesses are purposeful.

They’re never willy nilly.

It’s what our body does

when it can’t live up to

what we think we want

but should know better.

06/14/24

The Sex Life

of Flowers

That Bloom

After Dark

Mine is a hybrid theory.

It fuses the pulse

of the human heart

with the rhythm of nature

and the universe.

My hypothesis is simple:

Every dream

is a flower

that blooms

at night while

the gardener

sleeps.

The dreamer

hovers like a bee

over the flower bed,

his being freed

from physical constraint,

only to find that

in the wee hours

the flowers find

the darkness arousing.

Between bee and being

a speechless intercourse

as unique and expressive

as a sign language

becomes palpable.

Is it any wonder

that after midnight

every garden

turns into a veritable

den of iniquity.

Take the tulips

offering up their roofied goblets

to be syphoned like honey

from unfamiliar lips.

Or the daffodil’s baring

their privates

utterly promiscuous.

Or the hibiscus growing

so horny it’s ridiculous.

The lavender, positively libidinous.

It’s a botany for the hot to trot!

In a bed of roses,

breathing in their scent alone

is considered getting to second base.

For every piston and stamen,

bosomy blossoms entice us

like B movie starlets

in a 60’s Hammer Horror film.

After midnight this very path

is an unseemly flirtation walk.

One need only close one’s eyes

to see their true colors.

Not only have they

designs on each other,

they have them on us.

Their sole rule of thumb:

every night a de-flowering.

You can feel them

flirting even now

can’t you?

Using their wiles

in the darkness

beneath your lids.

Flowers and dreamers

drowning in the dark

together

in dire need of

nothing less than

artificial insemination;

an exchange of pollen

via the stamen

to the carpel,

until a delicate

fertilization

occurs

before wilting, spent,

entwined stems

collapsing side by side

to form

a vulva-shaped

mandorla.

Dreams

make us all

female,

receptive,

so that we live

half our lives

in a state

of abject

fecundity.

Realizing this,

I ask you:

What better vehicle

than the irrational

when the literal

threatens to

reason us all away?

This is the testament

of the flowers:

Nature as the supreme harlot,

with beauty her snare.

At night,

our psyches

push through

dirt to make

their messages known.

Through

the coitus

between

darkness and light,

fear and desire

escape their

thin skinned

terrariums

only to buzz

about

in search

of sacred

pollen

like

church busybodies

syphoning

gossip about

the local gardener’s

love life.

Their hearsay

knows no

shame

nor are we

disbelieving,

as our minds

know only

how to

bloom, being

less adept

at other

courtships.

That said, the flowers

are emphatic,

fanning out

from their centers,

peacock-like colors

of purple, taupe, and jade

flanked by

the curdling cries

of flora

in heat.

And you thought you knew flora.

Yah, Flora and her hanging gardens.

Twice nightly.

Such dreams

arrive un-beckoned;

a reckoning

from the

other side,

sprouting

mandala-like

patterns,

both holy

and wholly

on their

terms,

bearing the gift

of nocturnal release;

the very mud

their roots

are mired in,

a compress

for drawing

out toxins.

This garden is

a bacchanalia;

a peep show

under every petal.

Creation itself enacting

one glorious sexual act

after another.

A sacred stems-a-kimbo.

Despite

our sleep

we remain

subject to beauty,

in order

to meet

divinities

face to face

within the

sheltered

perimeter of this

very Eden’s

undeniable eroticism.

Like the flowers,

dreams want nothing more

than to pluck us

from ourselves

and offer us up

in a gesture of love

for the nearest Beloved.

Though inside

the dream

we are all

our own

light source.

Night is still

a soil

and

God

the gardener

of her carnal

Queendom.

Now you see.

Sleep is Elysian.

Who, then among us

can say

which humus

is more real?

The one we

grow out of

by day,

or the one

that decomposes

by night,

floating our

fears,

hopes,

desires,

lusts,

and

loves

upward

like a lotus

rising

from the mud.

 

MAN GIVES BIRTH

ON THE A LINE

It’s true. I was there.

I’m the man who gave

birth on the A train.

In fact, I give

birth on a regular basis.

I tend to conceive

on public transit.

Something about the proximity

to all that humanity

I find very stimulating.

I’m a fertile person.

As I write this

I’ve had to pull

over to the side

of the road

and have one off

in the ditch.

No use dialing 911.

I’m having it

(let’s just call it it)

because

I must have it.

I want to have it.

Unless maybe

it’s having me.

Either way we

have each other.

I tell my young:

You are

the axe I bring

to the frozen sea

inside me.

If that’s true

then this is how

I hum

new life into being;

by singing my body

eclectic.

My offspring arrive

as something wild

in an otherwise

homogeneous

world.

Sometimes

while doing

mundane chores

they insist

on drawing

their first breath.

Standing at the kitchen sink

washing a plate

I’ll suddenly find myself

crowning,

needing to drop

whatever I’m doing

to accommodate

the new arrival.

When I come to,

I see this broad shouldered

bottle of JOY

watching over my labor

like a butch guard

giving me side eye.

I’ve learned to expect

no mercy from

household objects.

They’ll never know

the miracle of motherhood

let alone fatherhood.

My little ones aren’t clones,

I tell myself

standing there

as my water

breaks in

acquiescence

to my own

bundle of joy.

Then there was that time

on the Express train,

so stiflingly hot

the car smelled

like a stable, when

a “blessed event”

materialized

out of nowhere

as I was surrounded

by strap hangers.

I read the car

as one reads a room

taking in

a motley crew

of blank faces staring

at their phones

blissfully unaware

of me or my contractions:

There was this heavy-set man

eating an over-stuffed bagel,

he certainly couldn’t be bothered,

then this lawyerly dude

wearing headphones

practicing how NOT to

“BE HERE NOW”,

a teenager with a skateboard

leaning against the door

not minding the gap,

and this girl with too much make-up on

mesmerized by her spectral reflection

in the fleeting light of passing cars,

all while my shallow breath

enacted its makeshift Lamaze.

Only a bug-eyed kid

holding onto his mother’s

hand for dear life

seemed to see me,

gawking at me as if

he were ringside at the circus

watching a clown get stomped

by an elephant.

Children don’t turn away

from such things.

I wouldn’t have.

Still, was the subway

in August

any place for

the miracle of birth?

I think not.

Even so, with each new conception

I feel a sense of pride I am unable

to muster for myself alone.

Don’t think I haven’t wondered

what carnal knowledge

results in so

much fecundity.

For all intents and purposes

these are immaculate conceptions.

I could be

being impregnated

in my sleep.

Things happen in the dark.

For all we know the Gods

invented sleep

for the chance

to ravage

a blinkered consciousness.

Maybe we’re all just fish

in the barrel of night.

Thankfully, giving birth

gives my life a kind of

Herculean meaning.

I’ve become so accustomed

to labor and delivery

I could…give Amazon

a run for its money.

One of my favorite things

about the whole messy business

is naming

each new arrival.

I’ve always been a title man.

Feeling parental,

I feel the need to

prepare my little ones

for the indignities and

injustices of the world.

Of course I want them

to be good,

to be admired,

to be loved by

any persons

who find themselves

in their company

and so I carefully

shape them,

dress them in

the colors that show

them at their best.

Even when they resist,

insisting on their own autonomy,

I listen and weigh

my ragged wisdom

against their

effortless purity

hoping to find

some middle ground.

Still, I can't keep

molding them in

my own image.

At some point

they will have to

live in this world

on their own;

maybe even meet

with some resistance

or cause confusion

for those who prefer

explanation over EXPLORATION;

in other words

cold facts over warm fictions.

I read in Plato’s Symposium,

that Plato wrote to Socrates:

“All human beings are

pregnant both in body

and in soul, and when

we come of age, we

naturally desire to give

birth.”

I’ll go one further.

We all give birth to ourselves,

every day, every hour,

in every moment.

Oh, and by the way, the word

Symposium in Greek?

Means: drinking party.

Maybe Plato was drunk

when he wrote that.

Either way,

If asked how

I manage,

a single man giving birth

alone in the world,

I’d simply say

I’ve no control over

when or where

inspiration strikes

or when inception occurs,

but what I do know

is that my progeny

springs from the unlikely loins

of a poor man's

Apollo.