L O V E    L E T T E R 

A  ROBOT  VALENTINE

Your eye resembles onyx,
The harmonics of your sonics
Please the ear.
I'm inspired by the filed
Precision of your gears.
Your ankle-turning motion
Inspires in me a notion
Which I fear.
The texture of your skin,
Soft and smooth and thin,
Is a tribute to our maker --
And to the finish-baker.
In fact each element
Of your design
Suits me fine.

PARADISE 

"There is a rock in yonder plain,"
The hermit said.
"From that rock, they say, 
You can see:
Paradise."
Thus I wandered, through the years.
Whenever I saw,
Or thought I saw,
A stone,
The sandstorm blew.

 * * *
But then I looked -- really looked --
At the sand.
I found that each grain
Was a tiny miracle of beauty.
I perceived that, after all,
I had truly found:

Paradise.

MINOR DIETIES

The Goddess Aphasia
Would really amaze ya,
But she cannot remember how.
She had it all written,
But then she was smitten --
The words are all Greek to her now.

The Devil or God, Paranoia,
Would surely come by to annoy ya,
But you are the one he does fear
(Whoever you are).  In his terror
He wants to become a seafarer:
In the ocean, there's nobody near.

The Goddess of Age, called Senility:
Once she knew love, and fertility.
She thinks they escaped in the night,
Along with her eye-sight, 
her ears and her knees --
(And now a spring breeze 
makes her little hands freeze)
Still, with Death 
she puts up a good fight.

Hallucination

What are those colorful blobs called Nations
On the world-map's ceaseless peregrinations?
They are like patterns in a patternless rug,
Or beer-froth foaming in the Master's mug.

Why did they name the oceans?  We are bored!
They should have marked them, "Unexplored".
The islands?  Bubbles in the too-old wine,
Floating like jellies in eternal brine.

Jellies like Earth, in an infinite Space,
Mindless of both time and place.
Spinning with all the dizzying stars
In galaxies.  Which one is ours?

Who knows?  Who cares? 
From this space-station,
We see it all:  A hallucination.

Evolution of a Pizza

It started with an open-face
Grilled cheese sandwich, with a tomato
On top.  Then somebody
(Prob'y that Italian boy who lives
Next door to Francesca Angelena)
Thought to add sausage
And pepperoni, anchovies,
Clams and chilis,
Extra garlic,
Bacon, green pappers, provalone,
Zucchini, hamburger, pineapple, mushrooms
(By now a bigger chunk of bread)
Three more kinds of cheese,
Tomato sauce, Tabasco, yes ...
And more.

"Mama Mia!" Francesca said,
"Let's use dough instead of bread,
And bake the whole big mess together."
"Nah, it'll be as tough as leather."

Francesca won, and their creation
Grew in fame throughout the nation.
Today, the pizza flag's unfurled
In Italy, and round the world.

Warmup

The last time the river froze
In downtown Portland
Was a hundred years ago.
The last real snowfall:
Ten years back.
The world is warming up,
And I am glad.

Soon -- a few short centuries --
All this will be treeless and sere,
With desert flowers.
Women will walk to the river
For jugs of water.
Then -- like the early Persians --
People will learn:
 poetry.

THE  CHALICE

Two men met.
One held before him a chalice;
A silver chalice.
Smoke boiled up from it
In the form of a flame.

"What fills that silver chalice?"

"Wine.
Wine pressed from the fruit
Of the Tree of Knowledge.
It boils and foams
With hope for the future."

"Let us pour out that wine,
And fill the silver chalice
With milk.  The milk, that is,
Of Human Kindness."

"There is room!
Let us mix the two!"

"But who would mix such wine
With such milk?"

"All who dare."

A thousand thousand lunatics have run the world
Since the cave-man's battle-flags unfurled.

Tribe against tribe, kingdom and nation,
Fearsome leaders, no cerebration.

Is the purpose of life just stuggle and strife?
The most useful inventions, the club and the knife?

Perhaps it really is that way.
Programs for peace have all gone astray.

Meanwhile, in a faraway place,
Some others of the human race
Study the natural world, and the sphere
Of the cosmos.  They have this fear:

The force in the atom converts too well
Into concentrated, earthly hell.
Perhaps the power of the Universe,
In mankind's hands, might do much worse.

Intellect in the hands of the dunce
Might blow the whole shebang, at once.

Then, Outside, both Yin and Yang
Might say, "Look! Another Big Bang!"