Valentine for L

Moon over water
In love I went diving in
Trying to find you.

Valentine for an errant muse

It's a scar upon my mind that kiss
Etched my nerves like lithograph
Parting peck branded my cheek
Now this sense unbidden comes
The skin blushes
And the bone
A tactile hallucination
The sweetest gift I've known.

Valentine for uplink

Am I allowed to miss you
All this while elapsed
And you moved through
Jail birds and murderers
And I through houses
I was rich then
Favours in my pocket like bank notes
And all so valuable
Most, Most
Favours are not printed from a plate
Each art work unique
Your imprint so soft and brief
And I ended so off and chief
Am I allowed to miss you?
It wasn't ever
That I thought your soul not art
The work that you have wrought
So beautiful, a perfect crystal
Of balanced love, warm joy
And tact
Am I allowed a fond look back?
I will miss you
When I'm a faded memory
And you grey haired and courtly
When the towers are being torn down again
When the seas come, and each season
Is a blessing.
I'll miss you
And know love better in the missing.

Valentine for A

Sproutlings, my fountain, zest
I sketched a thought upon a napkin
To hand onto a passing Toucan
Some token of my affection
I'll act as if you never got.

Some time back I lit a fire in this spot
Not that block that blazes up the way
Down the charred path ashen grey
I wonder how that caught.

There was a sapling on this street
I've searched for day and night
Perhaps if I climb this tall tree
I'll get a clearer sight.

Feather bale, the sun was better with you
Finding myself in the long grass
Corridors booby trapped with anticipation
Your voice like a trapeze harness. Pinstripe suit
The sun was better with you.

Valentine for S

When you put your ear to a shell

You can hear the sea

Only its not the sea, but air

Reverberating between your ear

And the empty space of the shell.

But I'll still reach the pink conch
Off the shelf and listen.

It was only when we stopped

That I saw everyone watching

When we danced in the restaurant

A few days to go.
Woolly hat, green sarong, the pattern

On the cafe window on Mare Street

It's odd what you retain.

Air reverberating against the shell.

I gave no thought to memory then

Tea tree oil and lavender

Turn tumblers, and I hear the sea

Only it's not the sea, but time
Reverberating between heart and memory.

Thing

Call these piled clouds, tall toppling bubbles
So they sit gathered upon my shoulders
Like plastered cherubs with bugles and flute
Blue note sets Weeble free tarantella
I shall wash in this thick winter frost, hot
Till hail spills warm from my brow Baptismal.
Desire born for this season, Christened
In cursive fonts like Ariadne's thread
Lay traced in rotting archaeology
Its direction reckoned in forensics.