POETRY Poem: Blessing the Dead Monarch by Hope Cotter
POETRY READINGS
•
1m 46s
Voice Over by Val Cole
------
POEM:
She leaves for the south
never to see home again.
The winds are at her back.
Red rock valleys roll and release
into the unfurled fields and flowers
The Great Plains stretch out to define
the sawtooth Appalachian Mountains.
Her message has a mighty meaning.
She signals health and happiness.
Hers is a journey says to all,
Fertile is the future.
She rests on the corn plant.
A chemical rain descends.
Blisters begin on the wings.
The burning knocks her down.
Her flight falls furiously.
Her antenna curl over her eyes.
Tumbling and crashing,
her migration, invisible.
He headed to the north.
leaving a sailor’s life.
His family’s fishing ship.
an empty catch.
Searching for a home,
a white ghost forest watches him walk.
Concerned from the grave
their roots, ocean salted.
On day thirty, his breath shortens.
He lies on the ground.
Sees the burnt butterfly, eye to eye.
He buries the dead monarch.
Dirt over the wings
Blesses her and thinks,
We are all foreign somewhere
Up Next in POETRY READINGS
-
POETRY Reading: Blackberry Jam, by Va...
Voice Over by Val Cole
-----
POEM;First, we would load up the car, with salty
sunflower seeds in our pockets and thermos’
in hand, and when we took to the lot
we used buckets that we filled with blackberries
bursting in the August sun. We took them home,
and sat purple mouthed with fingers
br... -
POETRY Reading: Ode to the Steady Bea...
Voice Over by Val Cole
-----
POEM:I loved the way you did that almost-smile —
One eyebrow cocked in pretend surprise, or scorn.
You didn’t just have come-to-bed eyes —
you had come-devour-me eyes.
Yet we could not.
Shackled by respect for responsibility,
the affair was just in my head —
Was it... -
POETRY Reading: Garden, by Garrett De...
Voice over by Val Cole
POEM:
Cut the sleeves of my shirt,
Cut the petals off the branches.
Gardening six whiskeys deep
I accidentally sheared the tops off all the roses.A dark excuse within the brambles,
Leftover thorns along the roots.
Truth elixirs and million dollar venoms.
Smoke rises ro...
