Voice Over: Val Cole

The Art of the Possible, by Vijay R Nathan

www.VijayRNathan.com

On Kehinde Wiley’s Portrait of Barack Obama

The waves of gray hair, forehead shines
over creased brows. Flowers emerge
from green tableau: from chicago,
from Hawaii, from Kenya.

The leaves wrap around the fe...

Voice over by Val Cole

The Things that ruined my prom night, by Brianna Corona

1. Pine needles sprinkled down like confetti.
2. -prom closed with reflective confetti.
3. Scattered rocks that shine [ motor oil.]
4. -black out/black liquid, everyone has different prom nights.
5. [deafening. ] Wi...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

For Gregg 1946-2023

When the boulder exploded
everything came at me—

your car keys a bar of soap
that stroked your skin yesterday

your pillow scent hurtled past
I couldn’t grasp it

blast wave gut punch
blast wind

spiking lightning
from a burned-out god, signs

o...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Though I cherish
the quiet I have earned,
there are days I miss
the whisper of animals
all around me

Youthful energy
bounding in,
I’m easy to please
I’m easy to forgive

Nervous purr, saying
Do what you must,
just be quick
just be gentle

Next come the sick
cradled...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Inspired by Li-Young Lee’s “Early in the Morning”

Before the paperboy
delivers the news,
Before the sun has broken the horizon,
Before the coffee machine starts
the morning brew–

I sit on the bed,
run the ebony comb
through my matted hair,
and listen to it snap th...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

I just can’t tell you exactly how much
I love looking at your sexy body,
And how badly I want my hands to touch,
And my lips to kiss – I am so naughty,
Wishing to be with you, and hoping you
Would make my wild desires come true.

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

I write a lot about intimacy. I write about my understanding of it. Using cannibalism and feasting as metaphors for sex. About bruises and teeth as symbols of love. Of fighting and commitment, all things both cruel and kind. But what I don’t write about, is the empt...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

I think of you that last day
Happy–probably drunk,
but I couldn’t tell
(I never could).
You were having such a good
time plotting a prank on an old
friend’s son over a soccer jersey.

You were happy that moment,
a slice between 2 and 2:15 while
we talked. Me, at wor...

Voice over by Val Cole

POEM:

I wish you were dead.

Does that make me a bad
person?

Maybe.

Anyway.

I wish you were dead.

It’s strange, you know?
Carrying around
this kind
of hate.

Because it’s not the
boiling burning bubbling
kind that wakes me up at night.

No.

it’s the quiet kind, the ...

https://youtu.be/SdXX45Ec4lo

Voice Over: Val Cole

POEM:

Holy water smells like fresh herbs
or maybe it was the older women in the back pews
with the flower laced hats, and rosemary scented skin.
Skin so thin, the stained glass saints
stained the paper thin veins.
I didn’t like church much as ...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

I was a scrappy little thing,
short, no-fuss hair,
T-shirts & jeans,
questionable hygiene
the term then was tom-boy
I don’t know what they call independent, strong-willed, opinionated little girls now

He was the neighborhood bully
big and smug, followed by toadies
...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

We’ve broken things and smashed them,
torn them to pieces,
burned them and buried them.
Words left unspoken,
Love left unmade.
You took everything that I had,
and then you left me where I laid.

You soaked me with your love,
but then you hung me out to dry,
leaving m...

Performerd by Val Cole

POEM:

heeler
It cowers in the corner,
newly born.
I turn my spite-soaked back,
riddled with resentment
and pull the thin veil
to sink beneath its cover.
I will not watch it crawl,
but it breathes,
a shadow
at the edge of my own
threatening to merge.
It waits, as I do
for...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

In the far and remote village of the west of Canton Province,
When my mother conceived me,
I curled up inside her tummy,
My mother bulged outside.

After I was born, crying,
I often slept in a cradle bearing a mosquito net.
My mother sang baby songs ceaselessly, squ...

Performed by Val Cole

Poem:

Where other countries went from laughing at us, to serious concern
Wondering how many bridges we’ve got left to burn
For the sake of ONE religion and ONE book
but hey, weren’t prayers good enough for Sandy hook?

I live in America
The land of the free
Unless you’re ...

Performed by Val Cole

The elections drama is thick in the air,
The candidates are battling it out,
with a war of words against each other.
America, the greatest amongst all they say.
Yet, they cannot get their affairs together.
Why lecture another country about their political affairs, when they...

Voice over by Val Cole

READ POEM:

The most passionate kiss
that I ever saw
–and the longest!–
happened at the wedding
when Leonard O’Neal took a wife.
The bride’s Swedish father,
stern and adamantly opposed
to the whole affair,
though provoked,
was restrained by awe
at what he saw.

The lady w...

Voice over by Val Cole

READ POEM:

Out of its cooler,
a bottle sweats embarrassed
before the hot sun.

Voice over by Val Cole

READ POEM:

The morbid star
That rises high above
Awakens me from internal slumber

I am a night serpent
Becoming one with the shadows
Who lurk on lonely windowpanes

My mind is an asylum
It was cursed the day
The dead walked among the fire

Ashes to ashes
Ashes to ashes
...

Voice over by Val cole

READ POEM:

My mom likes to say she gave me her tongue—
not the muscle
but the ability to move worlds with it.
She anointed me with her fury,
her impatience,
the power to gaze within your opponent
and pluck their greatest insecurity
from their chest.
She birthed me in her...

Narrated by Val Cole

READ POEM:

We drove for two hours
to the badlands of Cleveland
searching the streets and the alleys
just to find our way
to find a safe way
into The House of Wills.

We were met with armed guards
all meant to protect us
milling the grounds and
defending the building and
th...

Narrated by Val Cole

READ POEM:

Two weeks before you died-
You were joking, laughing, and seemed alright.
I thought you would be fine.

We talked and joked and watched the skyline-
From your hospital bed at half-light
Two weeks before you died.

As the day wound down, I saw no sign-
And when w...

Voice over by Val Cole