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...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

Death has come
praise, no doubt
with/rooted in justification
the feral guise

hit so hard
with a force that
pushed like a great wind
away and in and back into her again

none remained
I ask you now
as gone is the thing
are there any who weep

perhaps one or tw...

Performed by Val Cole

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Blizzard of Love
By Julianne DeMartino

It was December 26th, A blizzard in NYC.
I waited outside Track 28.
It occurred to me he might not look the same as he did 25 years earlier.
I looked back at the gate nervously.
He appeared and tilted his head. I remembered th...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

A Charcoal Ring
every time
the man who used to raise me
sees a bluebird or a flower or
something beautiful
he thinks of the woman he once loved.

every time
i see a cyprus tree and
decide to climb it
i think of you.

oh,
to catch a glimpse of the world benea...

Performed by Val Cole

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Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

In The Storm
in the storm
I’m alive
under fog
from the deep
by the sea
where her voice
to me waves
for release
oh, she waves
yes, she calls
in the song
of the sea:

“Will you Hear me.”

so I reach
for her hand
and I try
to call back
for my heart
has been torn
l...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

I Live So Close I’m Wearing Pajamas

“Only a puddle remained where, just a day earlier, a man had bobbed in the amniotic fluid of illusion.” “A Man in a Fishbowl,
Marinated in Unreality,” Dan Barry, The New York Times, 5-10-06

Everything’s rendered as a Victor...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

Tell me how pretty I am, buy me a necklace, and swiftly steal my heart. Take me to the zoo and whisper in my ear

that I am more beautiful and esoteric than the black panther, perched on a fake plastic tree behind his glass prison walls.

Come to my house and ...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

Adam Lives in Principal
My child breathes inside of me
I am nothing when he’s born
I am woman larger than before
Like the moon plummeting to Earth when gravity falls,
sliding down beneath my back,
pushing and raising my stomach to the sky,
offering me
as I am ...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

What goes on inside those walls?
What happens beyond that gate?
What are they hiding, and who
are they trying to keep out?
I have a few ideas, but I also
have my doubts. I can’t even
count the number of times
I looked through the bars
of that gate. I’ve never
s...

Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

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Inheritance

Dear Son,

Even before you arrive,
before your name means anything to the world,
there is something
the world will expect you to understand.

This world was made by killers.

Troy.
Thermopylae.
Tours.
Waterloo.
Gettysburg.
Stalingrad.

Each place a moment...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

My pretty red hat tells me I'm special
My godsent president says it's okay I'm not kind
“Well why did you make them run you over?”
Those blue-haired people are out of their mind.

Mr. Donnie does business - he’s filthy rich!
He’ll pull us out of this economic s...

Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

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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 in...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

The death winter came and was deep
With white on the purple mountain
The Tiwahe’ 'Standing Rock People'
Begged for warm fires from Iktinie the Sun Spirit
Our mouths were hungry and bodies were weak

Iya’ the Snow Monster had taken us farther to the south
To foll...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

To A Friend Opening a Crematorium Bill

“It turns out, it’s expensive to die,”
You say.
And I picture you,
half in shadow,
reading price lists like hymns,
offering fire as mercy
to your wife,
who can no longer afford
to lie still in peace.

They’ve monetized ...

Performed by Val Cole

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POEM:

Return to the Den

I’m sorry I came at you like a wolf,
spit flying from my curled back lips,
teeth bared as I spat my grievances
in your direction.

Whether real or perceived,
I see now,
these obstacles I faced,
they were mine to contend with.

After all, how ...

Poetry by Val Cole

--
POEM:

Ballad of Veronica

You fixed the pipes and mended bikes,
swept dust before the dawn;
jackfruit smoked upon the fire,
the kettle always on.

You raised a daughter through the war,
through jungle dark and town laid down;
and sometimes, when the nights grew long,
we as...