Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

I’m tired of piling up the dead
in this bone yard called grief.
You stack the dead your way,
and I in mine.
There’s no good way to do it
that doesn’t leave you feeling undone.

The longer I live, the more
I see life falling down around me,
and it weighs heavily...

Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

A Widow’s Hand

If the coast holds ruin
like a pint pouring in,
then this deep dorcha tide
must churn its ruby-black heave
until fragile foam flickers
below giant hogweeds.

And if cliffs are the corpses
the sea keeps beating
upon that sable crag,
then the salt...

Performed by Val Cole:

POETRY Reading:

Who Poops Up a Tree?

There’s a neighbor dog I do not know
But for the trail he leaves.
It’s something I have never seen
A mutt who poops up trees.

A mystery, really, how it starts
A habit such as that.
I imagine that he stopped to fart
And inadvertently ...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

We lived two hundred yards from the Chesapeake Bay,
close enough to hear it breathing in the dark,
close enough that salt was in our blood
before we ever knew the word for it.
Spring came and we ran barefoot over cold sand.
Summer turned the bay to hammered go...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

TO WARREN AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

I

Oh Warren at the bottom of the sea,
You never return to me.
Every day your distance grows
As you’re carried out by the tide’s flows
Farther and farther, o deep-sea floater.

Oh Warren at the bottom of the sea,
Won’t you com...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

I hear the flatline
Sounds of machine chirping between my ears
Pounding again and again
Like nails scratching a blackboard
Taking over my brain
Bee... beep...beep
Interrupting my thoughts getting louder
Wishing it was her heart moving in rhythm
An imperfected ...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

CHRISTMAS DAY IN MINNESOTA

The road hits the hilltop.
Shingled boxes people ought to occupy
Pepper the lower plains.

Snow blankets distinctions.
The cold is such
That skin freezes to metal it’s touched.

The field lies hard beside the lost lane,
Old Chevy an...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Restlessness
A bed frame with a missing leg propped up with old, unwanted books,
Kitschy pop theology books, free paperbacks from a religious childhood,
All Jesus and blood and contemporary exclusivism,
All stacked below a short metal rod, slowly carving its way thr...

performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

Fat.
Heavy.
Thick.
Chubby. Flabby.
Pudgy. Tubby. Chunky.
Healthy. Obese. Husky.
Plump. Portly. Beefy Meaty.
Fleshy. Blubbery. Rotund.
Paunchy. Stout.
Large.
Solid.
Gross.

Years spent dealing with words meant to define me by the look and shape of my body.

Chi...

Performed by Val Cole

Peach

Opaque peach, purple
Beauty weeping rays of light
Sunsets and bruises

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Performed by Val Cole

5-10-23

Donald Trump Goes Down

Donald Trump
got sentenced to
something like 15 counts
of abuse and defamation
of E. Jean Carroll.
His attorneys tried to say
that E. Jean
was not “his type.”
What “type” is that?
A type who has
a shred of self respect?
A type who
had the sense to make
a legal acc...

Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

My Reflection Has Notes

The light in my life is my foe.
I look in the mirror
In the bewitching and treacherous gold of the afternoon

And see the imperfections
I see every spot and pore
Created by ineffable voices
Of undoing in my head

Conjured from every sn...

Poetry by Val Cole

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A Message for Trans Youth
There are many who come before you
We are shining bright
Holding you in our warmth
We are working
To make
The world a place
Where you can smile, live, play
And be celebrated
Until then
Tend the flame
Of who you are
In your wild creative hearts
...

Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

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The Shape It Leaves

Grief does not arrive like thunder.
It seeps
through the quiet crack of an ordinary morning,
in the space where a voice should be.

It teaches absence its own language:
a chair pulled out but never used,
a name that echoes longer than it’s spoken,...

Of people: In terms of healing, growth, and the “choosing me” syndrome.

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Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

LAST DOCTOR’S VISIT
Every visit started with the check-in process
Age, name, doctor, and time of appointment
Have a seat
Elinor says; silly girl I’m in a wheel chair I’m
Already sitting.
Fill out this form
We know the drill
All these years it hasn’t changed
I ...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

Doppelgänger

They say a name is just a word
until someone is hunted by it.
My great-grandfather carried Herman Jager
like a lit match
small, bright,
but dangerous if seen.

In the camp,
an Aryan spoke it
Herman Jager
and for a second
the name split open.
Two me...