Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

The Countdown begins
When?
November 5th, Jan.6th
OR
Is it
When does the countdown end?
I have heard one question and one statement over and over
Are you better off
We will fix it
I hear words like
I am traumatized
I am wondering I am leaving
I am scared
That is not...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

When I die, I’m coming back to haunt the shit out of everyone who ever screwed me over in this lifetime.And I will be immune to your puny exorcisms. And if you’re on my afterlife shit list and you happen to get yourself dead before me, don’t consider yourself off th...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

My body isn’t a protest.
It’s a betrayal.

I’ve been trapped in here for years,
buried inside a harp seal,
wide-eyed with hakapiks overhead.
It was silent when I wanted to scream.
It froze when I wanted to fight.
It stayed when I should have fled.
My body isn’t a pr...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

It was your curves I fell in love with
Or was it the gentle branches you offered me
Vines entwining you so lovingly
Bowing over to bond with each other

You provided shelter from all around
Protection like no other
Your strength shining in your continuous growth
Wis...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Let’s just say it.
You are the lucky one, Ed.

Dying is the answer to all of it.
Life is a constant drum

occluding the lyrics.
When you die,

you have flexible hours.
You can eat all the bacon you want.

You can run red lights.
You can float or bilocate.

If allowe...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

tightrope like tied note twirl tangential tiptoe
talk | your reflection
through
twisted spun spiderweb stuck-fly absurdity
scam | your reflection

escape glass enslavement soft falsehood of fractals
fear | your reflection
is lying, what

monster haunts this fun-hous...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Me, Janey, and Jack were in the backyard
When we saw a dead man hanging by
The neck of my jump rope up in the
Willow trees, and I looked up and
Yelled at him, “What are you doing
With my jump rope?”

And he opened
His yellow eyes and looked down at us
With a crooke...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

I did not ask you to build me this way
I did not ask to come back from the grave
My brain has thoughts that my tongue cannot say
I do not like this second life you gave
The only reason that you worked this trick
Was to sate your own curiosity
A doctor who works with...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

I am a lost soul,
Blighted, bruised,
Condemned to wait
For what will never come.

But still, I am not idle;
I drift, aimless, through desolation—
A desert, cold and cracked,
A barren land devoid of life.

Here, hope is an illusion.
Time—wasted and worn,
A currency t...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

When my final day comes,
And it’s my turn to go,
When to the pain you’ll succumb,
Remember that I’ve loved you so.
Don’t fret, my dear,
For I have lived a happy life,
It’s all alright, my love,
It’s all alright.
Don’t bury me into the ground,
As I don’t want to rot,...

Performed by Val Cole

Sunbeam, by Amita Jayant Sanghavi

Sometimes a memory
Burns and scalds
So bad
Those moonbeams
Can’t soothe
The seething heart,
Sometimes a memory
Leaves shivers and chills
So bad
Those sunbeams
Can’t warm
The frozen heart.

Between
The moonbeams
And the sunbeams,
The ‘pre...

Performed by Val Cole

READING:

Existential Hazards of the Mythmaker, by Michelle Chen
In English class we learn how the lotus flower, native
to Guyana, is a fiction of resilience, but under keen
Chinese eyes blooms purity in the dark. Because critical
interpretation never lies – unlike climate...

Performed by Val Cole

Wings, by Angie Kinman

Give sorrow words,
Shakespeare wrote.
Lest my heart
should break.

So I tell her story to the Indigo Buntings
as they craft nests of
beautyberry and Indian blanket
in a field abloom with life.

They listen.
I think they know
my little girl who was Li...

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...