AN OH WELL STAR II: Little one/ What love
By: Valyntina Grenier
It’s a good thing I’m no Van Gogh
Here for an hour
here unhinged
some neighbor’s friend
fresh can snap
dust burst
stark
yellow
hollow
orphan day snaked
through cornsilk
coiled in corn flour
we spin us
in the dust devil of
spirits we love
we how old we
and ankle yet
hour till hour(s)
ours our ours
The feeling second I inhale
vapor I want to embrace her
get right to her hummingbird zoom
our hearts catching take plunder
there’s no time to wrench
freedom from fear
quake with our liberty
with this world ache
we’ll embrace here
I know I know it’s hard for the hive
the drive to thrive the vibe too anxious
to practice keys or strum guitar
my education wasn’t
waisted on me
how cold
what times
a spider
inches at a cat
saunters we are
wonders winter’s/
Walter’s daughters
on a crag spinning to
stop over we can’t turn
some frozen night back
we can only be like this
midnight mild bi pedal stargazing along
You know you know how
our mortal earth splayed
the early-morning-all-day-
late-night-centuries w/ a lathe
arteries cartography injected
die spinning
stopping in oblivion
like any living being
or inventing and deciphering to fast
a radical proof to cure the night
with hesitation we all perish
we’re all some thing
the brim of a generation
conceived and bred we make our
damned world now
have some stew
try again with this
roof toil wasp’s nest
A world too and quiet
this link scanning across my wow
what magic humanity
has to sing to carry
to cry following gravity
drips upon my lip
a leaf of pigment from my frail
quill not a grid or heavy heart
stolen lighter forgotten visage
shards or fibers from a girl
her reflection or hair void of this
whirl
How lucky to live
to hear a donkey bray
in proximity the word settles
on a census or some
war-torn echoing evil refrain
rape used as a weapon in Ukraine
mirroring rarefaction refracting
this nesting dove screeching away
If haft hast if heft
a swallow floats down
pulmonary rush
exhale to make art
a hollow stalk
to blow across
or through bamboo
hot wind and music
desert oasis shake
laugh hello golden wasp
at rest in the breeze
a mellow moment
bling of ease
bells swing
swell this still point
what wonders turning cease
to weep under the stream
of negligence to be free
What do these bones want to say
snarl a jokeless rasp insect instant
stroke of quiet stokes the west
wind fuels my fear for water
the last hollow well we’ll fill
with regular strangled
restart the motor
you well you rifle our life sit
back adjust your tie
defame any other for exactly what it is you are up to
People died
for your lies
To Rio so as like
to dance
masked so as not
to die
yet stay in
to kill
this virus
fear in place
here safe
this croaking
lizard
mouse rustling
rabbit
I am an idiot
a pulsing heart
We swell
make away stay inside
celebrate
our two faces
face to face
Fire flowers to the west flames father
a mother cardinal switching swirl
malevolent rhetorical word
made to twist sense systems sanctimonious
primordial provider violence
delusions allude to the opposite to
apostate do your dear Earth help
see we need our cure are equanimity
our primer one sweetest blossom of fuel
waiting for a hummingbird to sync Wait
for her to alight two eggs as like
as tic tacs in a tiny nest of webs
or a baby tar ball on lizard legs
to wait only perch with alert darling
Let me love you from this fig bush
I’ve helped to grow for the world
Glide out from under the Flamboyan drips
nightly for you
Valyntina is a multi-genre eco artist living with her wife in Tucson, AZ. She works with paint, ink, Neon, encaustic medium, recycled or repurposed materials and words. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks, the tête-bêche, Fever Dream/ Take Heart (Cathexis Northwest Press 2020) and In Our Now (Finishing Line Press 2022). You’ll find her work in, Beyond Queer Words, Genre: Urban Arts, Impermanent Earth, The Journal, Lana Turner, The Night Heron Barks, Querencia, Ran Off with the Star Bassoon, Sunspot, and The Wardrobe. Find her at valyntinagrenier.com or Insta @valyntinagrenier.