Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

For my Granny, Charlotte (1932-2021)

A clear cup half-filled with water stood
on the table, glistening with anticipation.

Outside, light blue and purple bloomed from stems.
Charlotte’s careful eyes zoned in on the bush across
the street and waited for the right ti...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

How did I get here
In a place so barren
Barefoot, standing in coals
Wandering, while flesh burns
And denying it hurts
Dark love molded me unrecognizable
Clinging to the very thing that ails me
This relationship that wafts of rot
Molded at the core
How can it be
Turn...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Well, well, well, now whatever did I just see,
Chuggin’ along out on old Route Thirty-three?
A Panda Bear in a Honda – could it be?
And he was pushing a big, old, blue RV.

His paws on the steering wheel seemed out of place,
As did the fuzzy smile on his fuzzy face,...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

There are places beyond man’s illumination
when the campfire is embers and ashes,
when phones and flashlights rest in batteries,
when the moon has sunk or not yet risen,
when satellites and planes are delinquent.
In those rare, dark interludes one sees
the omniprese...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

God took a wand
Dipped it into the life-giving liquid
And breathed this foam into
A giant bubble.
Surface tension growing and stretching
Clusters of bubbles forming within.
Stochastic processes
Vacuum fluctuations
Or genius planning?
It swelled and stretched
And und...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

I. Prairie Roots

Vast sky above, blue;
sea all around, green
waves of grass under wind,
the grown man stood
thinking of decades gone
when he was young
and another man who
stood here too.
Both linked by more
than one can say:
love and genes;
one paved the way
for ge...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

i love you.
your orange hues amaze me.
Please. Don’t die.

i adore you.
God blessed you with speckles
of white in the rim of your wings.
Please. Don’t go.

Even though I laid eyes on you
for a mere second,
I was hypnotized by your beauty.
All butterflies are unique...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Ripping off a bandaid doesn’t paint the right picture. It’s more like taking a couple of perfectly unique pages from two completely different books – maybe one an intellectual mystery, and the other a soulful romance – and expending an entire hot glue stick binding ...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

You know… I believe we, as a collective, and as individuals forming that collective, should let injustice consume us just enough for us to care, just enough to feel a sense of fucking rage. Rage gets shit done. If everyone believed in not letting injustice’s consump...

Peformed by Val Cole

POEM:

First off I would like to say how wonderful it has been these many months. Although we are embroiled in a war, this group’s commitment never wavered. That is why here, today, we stand on the precipice of a truly extraordinary breakthrough.

Gentleman, we know the tas...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Inpatient Hospice

You inhabit me; you narrow to flanks.
Your spineless nerves sear my ventricles.
The creative will will snap your cheekbone—
hush, soil, remains.
Look at the blank between us
squeezing my shoulders.

I breathed through your infamy
at graduation,
mi...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

They put their finger to your lips
And say it isn’t what it is
As the journalist just wins a prize
And the candidate is making speeches
As the military reaches
The borders of the other side
History turns the corner
The stories have grown taller
And our memories are ...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Bright eyed lady, spin the thread, sew the flag
Fife and drum marching across the land
Hear the creed in far off places
Democracy’s seed, Lady Liberty
Needle skipped, would’ve cried for a penny
Rain fell, the liberty tree, into the lock, the treasury key
Out of mind...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

We sat so still no one knew that I was beginning to come unglued
I thought I should reach down to tie her shoe
I stole a kiss from her cheek she caught a teardrop sipped a drink
It froze in a place until she let her hair down
We view the flowers growing outside each...

Voice Over: Val Cole

POEM:

You have no spirit you have no warmth
When you’ve heard the lock on the door
Listen to what your sorrows are
Tell me is it you that leads me from dying, rage and fiercest grief
Be alert the snakes lie at your feet
Is there any other who suffers so hard a fate?
And si...

Poem by Val Cole

POEM:

They say,
I should have been stronger —
like bones aren’t meant to break
under the weight of a stranger’s hands.

Like I wasn’t already fighting to hold on
while he took pieces of me,
one by one,
until the mirror became a place
I could no longer stand to look.

They say,...

Poetry by Val Cole

POEM:

I.

How heavy the tires that drive you
Through fireworks in the street.

How plain the lies that hide you,
The blood and myth behind you
Is nothing new to me.

Beautiful I find you,
To wrap two legs around you,
Surrounded by the safety of my fear.

Steady, love reminds...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Your love isn’t something I would willingly give away.
I wouldn’t dare make a mistake, so that your love would decay.
They say I’m on a leash, but I wouldn’t care anyway.
Your love is for me like a flower on a rainy day.

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

The rules are simple, and simplistic
(but not as much as War).
Each territory holds a name,
descriptive and endearing:

Central America; Ukraine,
Middle East; Siam; Congo;
each has a border with the other,
colored and separate.

The plastic men, with tiny guns,
atta...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Give me wine and the ocean, and hyacinth hair
A casket of flotsam and crystalline care.
Speak of the currents in deep fluid blue and bring to the surface a mirror of you
Hers is the wave and quickening tide, touched by the moon I secretly hide.
Give me wine and hyac...

Performed by Val Cole

When broken-hearted Melody Notting comes face-to-face with her ex-boyfriend at a beach, she makes the moment a first step on her journey to
independence.

Women's Fiction/Contemporary Fiction

Performed by Val Cole

A Haiku Collection, by Jiel Narvekar

1. Heart Shaped Box

Once handled with care.
For contents were prized treasures.
Silly me, I laugh.

2. Childhood’s end

Childhood’s end looms near.
Not quite adults nor children.
On the cusp, waiting.

3. Postcard

Eagerly await
The ar...

Voice Over: Val Cole

Artists Can’t Die, by John Ganshaw

It is raining now as it was then
The pitter-patter on the roof
Will it never end
Today is a rebirth of the man he is
To leave the past, let a new life begin

All had planned so much for this day
When a devil wished for him to fail and go ...