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 ...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

Grass grown tall green slicks drizzle wet,
new planted seedlings shakily take hold,
crumpled mulch retains soil covered mold,

run tongued dogs
checked for ticks
lap water bowls.

And I am left with trowel and rake
to gather weeds in sunlit rain still cold.

How easi...

https://youtu.be/CNbkjDqe6TM

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

After checking each other
for spit-up stains, we head to an Italian place,
glasses of red wine, gnocchi,
in a booth by the window.

There’s a flurry or two, Christmas
lights strung across Main.
The marquee on a local theater
seduces: Ult...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

I miss you…
phoning
just to say hello.
I miss you…
calling
to hear about your day.
I miss you…
coming here to stay
giving me
your precious time.
I miss…
our travels together
taking in the sights
like kids set free
on a playground
finding pleasure
in exploring new thi...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

Sometimes I’m stunned by how time

moves through a life
so easily
and quietly
so that one spring day,
you’re ten, running to a neighbor’s to climb
his apple tree;
the next week,
you’re buying your first house in Adrian,
wife pregnant with a third child;
two weeks lat...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

I hate that I am gaining so much weight,
It’s feeling like I’m losing my grip on fate,
As here and there, I await and debate,
How to turn back learned time.
I need to not burn my rhymes,
Except in my readers minds.
I feel blind and signed,
My fine health away,
Today a...

Narrated by Val Cole

READ POEM:

Cold unconscious metal
Reflective concentration
Carefully cloned contortions
Cast in curves of concave
Full length spying steelfaces
Hung in private parlours
Viewing fornication
Convex copulation
Such vivid observation
For one so unalive.

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

Once there was a woman in the night forest
who could hear above the register of most.
She would listen to mice sing in chorus
or coyotes comfort their young
over the flash and rumble of coming weather.

There was the night when I stayed in the garden
late into the ho...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

Silk tangerine sheets dance melodically
as reflections of the sultry moon, gleams
through the lofts balcony, under-shadowed
by the soft lip presses of two sexually stressed humans
pressed against their saturated melaninated skin
pressing old buttons during the practi...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

I hate when cannibalism is used as a metaphor for love.
I think love is a form of devotion which does not include devouring. Maybe
hunger and
sometimes bruises or
sunburns
but never devouring.

I wrote in a poem once that I am a liar at the best of times.

I hate when...

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

My love, I was just praying when the Holy Spirit put you in my mind; did I ever tell you that you are stupid fine!?

I was envisioning us playing in the snow, please my love; don’t forget to bring that special glow!

We would now have snowball fights, but I promise no...

performed by Val Cole

performed by Val Cole

Read Poem:

THE DEVIL WEARS BLACK, by Nico Green

The devil wears black, invisible in the night.
God wears white, he has nothing to hide.

The devil drinks whiskey and cries for his pain.
God drinks water and casts all the blame.

The devil’s seen much evil and taken part ...

performed by Val Cole

Poem by Laila Jones

with her tears, she bathed you.
hurt aside, she tightened your ties,
and made you love the mirror.
no clocks in her home, your keys in the door told time.
5am laughed at her every weekend.

a lesson learned for you both,
but the true teacher is her.
now...

A Modern Day Cinderella

A candidate must not be soiled
Virginal as the freshly fallen snow.

So that with his first thrust all will know that the issue is his, not another's.

Her beauty shall be as the airbrushed ads

That taunts us into buying their products to achieve what is beyond our grasp...

Performed by the writer.

Read Poem:

When the boy sits on the tree’s stump at the end of the Giving Tree, I used to think it was sad
because they had both lived their lives and been used up. Then, I grew into a woman and
became a mother. I have despised my trunk, abused my trunk, expected it ...

Read Poem:

You deserved girlhood
But were called a slut
Instead. Smothered in extra
Layers of resentment and
Expectations made from
Plastic dolls with painted
Smiles. You deserved more
Than projection of the
Lives you weren’t allowed
To live. You deserved your
Own mistakes. You deserved
To be m...

On the Landing, by Eileen Moynihan

A man in a tweed coat climbs the stairs,
We meet on the landing and lock eyes,
We recognize each other’s soul,
A special man who draws me in.
I feel a connection deep and sincere,
In that moment our love is real.
We reach forward to connect,
For a touch longed ...

If Winter Comes, by Frank William Finney
(translated from the Human)

Nothing will stand
or sit
or walk
or crawl.

No creature
will sing
or chirp
or growl.

No loved one
will whisper
or scream
or weep

and nothing
worth
living
will live.