POETRY READINGS

POETRY READINGS

Poems performed by professional actors.

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POETRY READINGS
  • POETRY Reading: Romance Poem by Arrianna Gumbus

    Performed by Val Cole

    POEM:

    Your love isn’t something I would willingly give away.
    I wouldn’t dare make a mistake, so that your love would decay.
    They say I’m on a leash, but I wouldn’t care anyway.
    Your love is for me like a flower on a rainy day.

  • POETRY Reading: Game of Risk, by Richard Stimac

    Performed by Val Cole

    POEM:

    The rules are simple, and simplistic
    (but not as much as War).
    Each territory holds a name,
    descriptive and endearing:

    Central America; Ukraine,
    Middle East; Siam; Congo;
    each has a border with the other,
    colored and separate.

    The plastic men, with tiny guns,
    atta...

  • POETRY Reading: Siren, by Kathryn Davey

    Performed by Val Cole

    POEM:

    Give me wine and the ocean, and hyacinth hair
    A casket of flotsam and crystalline care.
    Speak of the currents in deep fluid blue and bring to the surface a mirror of you
    Hers is the wave and quickening tide, touched by the moon I secretly hide.
    Give me wine and hyac...

  • Short Story Video Reading: MISS NOTHING, by Wren Valentino

    Performed by Val Cole

    When broken-hearted Melody Notting comes face-to-face with her ex-boyfriend at a beach, she makes the moment a first step on her journey to
    independence.

    Women's Fiction/Contemporary Fiction

  • Poetry Video Reading: A HAIKU COLLECTION, by Jiel Narvekar

    Performed by Val Cole

    A Haiku Collection, by Jiel Narvekar

    1. Heart Shaped Box

    Once handled with care.
    For contents were prized treasures.
    Silly me, I laugh.

    2. Childhood’s end

    Childhood’s end looms near.
    Not quite adults nor children.
    On the cusp, waiting.

    3. Postcard

    Eagerly await
    The ar...

  • Poetry Video Reading: ARTISTS CANT DIE, by John Ganshaw

    Voice Over: Val Cole

    Artists Can’t Die, by John Ganshaw

    It is raining now as it was then
    The pitter-patter on the roof
    Will it never end
    Today is a rebirth of the man he is
    To leave the past, let a new life begin

    All had planned so much for this day
    When a devil wished for him to fail and go ...

  • Poetry Video Reading: Four Untitled Self-Help Sonnets, by K.D. Battle

  • Poetry Video Reading: I'M SCARED THAT IM A NARCISSIST, by Kailah Peters

    Voice Over: Val Cole

    POEM:

    I’m scared that I’m a narcissist, by Kailah Peters

    But really I think I just like myself
    For the first time in 25 years
    And this shit is wild

    Like I used to introduce myself with sadness first
    And now I lead with laughter
    Because I’m laughing all the time

    I stand ...

  • Poetry Video Reading: KINDNESS, by Rita McDermott

    Performed by Val Cole

  • Poetry Video Reading: LIFE AFTER BOB, by Roy Smith

    Voice Over by Val Cole

    Life after Bob, by Roy Smith

    I wish I had a bosom
    I would not put my fishing lures there
    Rather, money from a friend for dope or rent
    folded like an origami chicken so it would poke and itch
    not slide to my belly button
    A stash for Belle Lettres, you know, notes from fore...

  • Poetry Video Reading: THAT UNSPEAKABLE THING, by Daniel Thomas Moran

    That Unspeakable Thing, by Daniel Thomas Moran

    When, in good time, a thoughtful person reflects,
    There can be no subject to confound us like sex.
    Which had one singular apparent intention,
    But wound up with more than one can mention.

    We begin misconstruing the endless inferences,
    That day we re...

  • Poery Video Reading: THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE, by Vijay R Nathan

    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...

  • Poetry Video Reading: THE THINGS THAT RUINED MY PROM NIGHT, by Brianna Corona

    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...

  • POETRY Reading: You Never Know, by Martha Fox

    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...

  • POETRY Reading: The Whispers I Have Heard, by Jackie Greenwood

    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...

  • POEM: Secrets in the Morning, Early, by by Christiana Ares-Christian (interview)

    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...

  • Poetry Reading: MY WILD DESIRES, by A J Chilson

    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.

  • POETRY Read: Intimacy – The Duality of being Ace, by Eleanor Graydon (interview)

    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...

  • POETRY Reading: The Light at Eastern and Eastern, by Joan Drescher Cooper

    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...

  • Poetry Reading: Death Wish, by Jordanna Miller (interview)

    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 ...

  • Poetry Reading: “Kaleidoscopic Portraits”, by Tierney Chapman

    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 ...

  • Poetry Reading: For My Piece, by Manuel Valdez

  • Poetry Reading: You’re Pretty Strong, For a Girl, by Cathy Hollister

    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
    ...

  • Poetry Reading: THE LOST THINGS, by Nicholas Fowler

    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...