I come to your house looking for you but find only your middle child seeking visions. I call you by your given name. You do not come out. The doors are unlocked and a mangey bird sits by the window you left open. It says, Camp out overnight! for surely the man enamored by darknessContinueContinue reading “El Vampiro”
Author Archives: Virginia Valenzuela
Sitting in the Park with You
O blood how could you be so apparent? Is it an Indian summer or the lover to my side, or— I pause to cover my head still, hands bluish a colony of blue a sky of breath beneath my gaze—the taste of my tranquil heart.
On Aging
“I don’t change. I simply become more myself.” Joyce Carol Oates
Three Plants
At the risk of being broken, they grow together. One breathes, one yellows, one takes up the sun yellowing without noticing. I have thought, on occasion of clipping one, leaving a clean machete tree stump just to see if one grows longer just to see if the one grows back.
Love Note
Peck on you, Rosa where are you anyway? two missed phone calls & the passing of days Ready to hurt yourself? Ready to hurt yourself again? Honey, don’t fall in love is really what he meant. That little avant guard-ista tasty like a pizza winsome winds beneath her coattails, and charm like starry-eyed minnows inContinueContinue reading “Love Note”
Bloom*
well, they are gone, and here must I remain, serious as a star when only one star can be seen yet I am the one left looking, hearing your footfalls as they fade I am the one who always waits, and you, one of many who has found me by mistake returning next to myContinueContinue reading “Bloom*”
Abecedarius in 26 Words (& Change)
Alabastrine, beauteous, careful daylight, ebbing. For gallant headwinds include juridical knowledge, lyrical mastery, & no place (for) quivering, reticent shadows. Tu último viento: (a) wayward, xerophytic young zephyr— Also published here: https://theamericanscholar.org/and-be-careful-darling/#.WjKobrbMwWo
On Forgiveness
“For PARDON is nothing but the granting of peace.” -Thomas Hobbes
Rags to Riches
How simple it must be, the life of a rock ignoring the pulse of the tick and the tock forgetting which dirty magazine it took to read in bed in lieu of a book. A rock with no shoes, no sandal, nor boot Not even a rambling foot— Like an artist, it has no needContinueContinue reading “Rags to Riches”
Zarathustra
‘You go behind the sea and bring light also to the underworld,’ declaring, ‘Behold! this cup wants to be empty again.’ But you are the one who is empty, A tepid ‘hybrid of plant and ghost’ ‘a worm’ wrangling with a rope. ‘Nothing is more vengeful than your meekness.’
Virginia Valenzuela 