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

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

Voice over by Val Cole

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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

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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

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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

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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

Voice over by Val Cole

READ POEM:

After much deliberation, Radu concluded his name was Merlin.
Merlin was the greatest wizard of all.
Radu had first been Houdini, the Master of Illusions,
But all that magicians worked with was perception after all.
Reality remained unchanged.
A wizard, on the ...

Voice over by Val Cole

Read POEM:

He wasn’t adopted but made,
Not in a womb but psyche.
My son was a misborn,
I never met his father.

I was still married to my past,
Yet I nurtured my son.
Who feeds on my thoughts,
Sparing nothing at all.

While I drained every day.
He bloomed to a manchineel...

Voice over by Val Cole

Read Poem:

I arrived at a destination that was far away from home.
It was more like isolation. I felt alone!
Drowning, watching water surround me on every side,
called my parents every day and often cried.
I searched for ways to escape this place,
because with each passi...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

I’m from a Southern backyard —
Magnolia grandiflora sporting huge white blooms
Honeysuckles spilling over the fence
Red roses soaked with the aroma of tea
Hollyhocks springing up yearly into flowering towers.

I’m from a Southern backyard —
Mud pies being made beneat...

https://youtu.be/uzix0NNftPU

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM: I am an immigrant, nomadic desperate for home,
to hammer myself into existence
out of pain in depths of yearning—
for what it’s too immense to bookend in language,
perhaps only indicted by silence inserting itself
into the form,
the only s...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

The old trees bend protectively around us
as we rest on the park bench in our winter wear
your faltering mind following the course of the river that is close and sure and deep

even now I can still find your younger face and remember the pillowy softness
of your lips...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

i. THE BLACK SHUTTLE IS PASSING OVERHEAD

ii. The Chumash (California) referred to meteors as Alakiwohoch,
which simply meant “shooting star.” They believed a meteor was a
person’s soul on its way to the afterlife.

iii. The black shuttle is passing overhead, sent ea...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

Today is a day both rare and familiar. Tragic months before
another comes around. This will be the past that makes the
future proceed. Only what of the lack of true possession?
What of the decline spotted once again in our ascent, that
we heard in what was said in tir...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

Beauty is what we’re here for.
To utilize our sense of wonder
To create a path of wonder for others.
Be awake in the now and
Find that connection to the universe
To dig deep and discover what is in us
That is moved by the aesthetically pleasing.
Why is that which we ...