Author: poetryfest

(in remembrance of family and friends gone during pandemic)

Pandemic – the human tree in a deep autumnal phase
shedding what wasn’t dated, what was yet to be
and even what was not to be

our conventions of un-belonging to places
where we truly belong are but shallow
(the lotus in the mud isn’t no mud in the lotus)

lest we fall in the pit of nihilism, utterly incapable of
drinking from cup of the ‘wisdom of emptiness’—
the ultimate Shangri-La in its bottom

when fever rises on the forehead, the moon lights up the valley of
lost memories haunted by echoes of songs in language of
a civilization long wiped off from the face of earth

gradually we slip under the duvet of night, and when comes mother death
licking our wounds, caressing us to sleep, we bend around and cross
ourselves in the ever-gyrating cycle of our amnesic lives

I shed my skin
The pain left
in shriveled
crinkled
apricot curtain trails.
I hobble down the aisle,
reluctant,
over the thresholds
of time,
of growth.

New skins shrink.
They aren’t as worn
as the old
withered, tethered
familiar ones.
They are tight,
bloated,
ready to burst
blisters

Molting has left me naked.
Bare and shivering and pink,
a vulnerable jelly mass,
as durable as rotting flesh.
I sink into the new,
but it is so heavy;
it surrounds me
swallows me asunder,
slipping into
a subterranean tube,
and suddenly i am lost
in its labyrinthine,
new,
overwhelmingly alien
depths.

my lungs ache
burn
screaming
and dirt fills my throat;
the sand scrapes
granular streaks
as I’m force-fed the

New:
an anxious, incendiary
burnt eggshell path.
I don’t have time for the old.
I’m so deeply drowning
in the quicksand,
the gelatinous
viscous molasses
of ever-evolving new,
the old is occluded
(above ground)
(above me)

I cannot feel
solar warmth
on my lowly fingertips.
The gleaming old,
its painfully golden beams,
cannot penetrate
the thick
gloopy
pool of new.

They met when they were in college.
She was immensely attracted by his maleness
and that he never used aftershave or cologne.
He reminded her of a well-oiled baseball glove,
of a freshly ironed, heavily starched shirt.
When he was tender and loving, he smelled safe,
like her father walking with her in the Maine
woods after her alcoholic mother locked them
out of the isolated farmhouse called home.

When their daughter was born, he was ecstatic,
reeking of pride, relief and the smell of cheap
cigars with pink bands that he passed out
to everyone in his exuberance.
As their daughter grew into adolescent radiance
she gave off an aura slightly fruity and mysterious,
faint and promising but not yet matured.

At least once he had another woman and guilt
gave off an odor like a huge fish that had been
left on the banquet table a little too long.
She always knew when he was angry by a sourness,
like the garbage can after the bag had broken and
decomposing rotting food congealed on the bottom.
As he lay dying she was surprised to find that
he smelled dry and sort of musty but not at all
unpleasant, like her grandmother’s clothes closet.

The undertaker covered him with a musky perfume
which bothered her almost more than his death
but she managed to feel better after she found
an old shirt of his in the back of a drawer.
It smelled faintly of him, something she never fully
appreciated until the shirt took on her scent
over time.

A rumbling pop rattles my windows;
it makes my heart drop down to my toes.

“When will you stop being scared?”
He asks with a true, concerning stare.

“When he is gone, and his wheels turn no more;
when his motor doesn’t run, and he is on the floor!”

A fist, a fight; a flash of memory,
my body exceeds my height, slowly and quickly.
Every day, there is something, running me into replay;
every day at least one thing of him, ruining my day.

A rumbling pop shakes my soul,
Until the news drops,
He has been dragged to the “down below.”

Narrated by Val Cole

POEM:

Dear Young Joi,
Your body is not an apology…
Stop giving it away to anyone who tells you or tells you to feel sorry for or about yourself…

Your body is not a toy…
Stop allowing people to play with it as children do, without instruction or care until it is a broken thing, of no further interest to be tossed aside.

Your body is not a piece of furniture…
Don’t let just anyone or thing move you off your ground. Or let anyone recklessly toss their unambiguous laundry on top of you until they have time to deal with the mess they created… or your OCD forces you to clean it up on their behalf.. You are no one’s maid.

Your body is not taboo…
Don’t be afraid of it. Let yourself explore every inch of it’s terrain. Map it with your mind until it’s committed to muscle memory before you offer access to outsiders. Remember: THIS IS SPARTA!

Your body is not a sin…
Don’t let them shame you bout how much, how little you use it; whether it be used for your pleasure or purpose is your choice! And your right! Use it [or not] as you damn well please….

Your body is not a side dish [read sidepiece]….
Don’t let them overlook you as if you do or can not meet their needs, when they are malnourished. You are a main course, meant to be fawned over, appreciated and applauded for all the work it took to create your luscious beauty. Your deserve honor & gratitude for nourishment your provide.

Your body is not a secret…
Again, the choice to share it with others is yours and yours alone. Don’t allow them to silence your voice into a whisper, never to be heard. Don’t allow their words or actions to make you fold, be shrunken small enough to fit into a box and hidden away into a corner unknown…
In a world where you were meant to be known..
Where you were meant to shine
Where you were meant to exist
And all you gotta do to impress [or intimidate] is exist.

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

September 29th, 2020

Air from Terra Rising
Quivering in the Mountains
Rocks Rumble Beneath Earth, & One’s Feet
Wind Blares Down on All of Us
Nature Plays Tambourines – Touching Each of Our Ears
Terrene Mother Drums her Hands’ Down on the Planet’s Crust
Manmade Iron Rails Roll their Human Cargo through Scenic Landscapes
Man – in their Fibbing Imaginations’ Believe that they Overcome the Mountain’s Rocks &
Horns
Sights Behold, & Sights Lost in Time
A World Without Flesh Arrives with Urbanization
Voices Born & Silenced through Oppression
Mothers Can’t Pay for Milk,
Feet Thump on the Aggregate – Pasted Over the Once Fertile Ground
Steps on the Concrete of Our Grandparents’
Skyscrapers Block Out the Open Sky
They Lord Over the Sight of Homes Lost to the Next Generations
Parks Become Sinkholes in the Modern Age
Beats from the Boomboxes of Youth
Converting themselves into Car Radios
Words Walk By
but their Unheard by Invisible Bodies,
Gibberish Blends in the Air
Whispering Echoes of Past Lives – Lost Within the Smog
The Sun Sets on the Densely Driven Divides.

Voice Over by Val Cole

POEM:

somewhere in my travels i had taken the wrong turn
i can’t inform my path to there for i have yet to learn
i don’t know how it happened, how hell i stumbled into
journey aside, i found the devil’s lair without a clue

amidst flames i met a woman – a kind old soul in life
her piety led me to ask–what guide’s the devil’s knife?
she replied, i thought i stayed devout to faith when living
when i passed god revealed my sins, and he was not forgiving

i’ve agonized for centuries, unable to escape the facts
i have murdered many in my time–34 to be exact
when i could have born a child but i chose a different path
god had tracked one cardinal sin for every year that passed

it started when i was in poverty and could have born 5 kids
they were not conceived; they were murdered before they lived
when 3 ate at my table i could have birthed 10 more
i did not so those 3 would thrive – with god this struck a chord

when i was nearing 45, due to danger i removed a child
i chose to save my own life, but choosing is not god’s style
i decided to live a mother to 3 than leave a motherless 4
i did not foresee this decision was one that my god would abhor

this is why i was struck down into this infernal realm
i have murdered more than 30 souls–for that i burn in hell
but even now the devil knows i’d repeat every choice
despite what god revealed to me, i would do it for my boys

mark my words she stood there in agony looking proud
i had to turn away from her since she would not back down
i sometimes wonder what brought me there to the depths of hell
if only just to meet a woman and bring back her story to tell

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

I don’t remember ever being beautiful.
Must have been, at some point.
Kindergarten maybe?
All I know is, by third grade,
My tummy was a tad too
Big to be beautiful.

But don’t worry. This isn’t a poem
About hating my body. Actually,
I’ve always quite liked her
Despite, despite. She was always
So strong. Utilitarian. Through every
reinvention, she always looked
Like me. Reason enough.

I have longed to be beautiful though.
Nothing to do with appearance.
I’ve longed to be beautiful because
Beautiful things are loved for
No reason but
existing.

Don’t worry. I’ve had my share
Of love. But, off. Always felt so,
Utilitarian. I used to love
Being loved
For a reason. My intelligence,
Often, reason enough.
Until I lost my reason. And love
Never had much to do
With reason anyway.

A horoscope said that
I had a talent for making things
Beautiful. It’s true.
I surround myself
With beautiful things. And
They say beauty is in the eye
Of the beholder, and I have an eye
to behold beautiful things.

It’s true, I have strong reason,
So utilitarian. Reason enough. But
Better yet there is beauty
In my eye. I’m the off-white
Just right shade to bring
Beauty into focus when others
Don’t see. And I think that’s
Beautiful, and reason enough,
To be loved without reason.

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Look at the big, beautiful Moon tonight.
See the little red spot that is called Mars.
See the almighty Elon Musk take flight.
Launched from the earth through its cosmos and stars.

But lo, it’s only his robot doppelganger
on a mission to plant the American flag.
Oh wait, that’s not our wonderful doppelbanner.
Do you really believe we had it in the bag?

Just because he bought his way into credence
and has an office in the ivory tower,
just because he used his wealth to gain power,
over our flag he’s held sway, not allegiance.

Look closer, you’ll not see any blue or white stars
just an “X” marks the little red spot that is Mars.

Color of rain and sounds of moss and
glitter of flower song falling all about me,
once I was a dewdrop in leaf-tip tremolo.
Evanescence coalesced; my footsteps
trod the forest, tried the highway,
took the byways made them mine and back.
Tumbling water laughs aloud
though silent clouds rejoice.
Sun and shade and cold and heat and
cold again and now.
Silences placed like crystal
against the spoken notes,
fields a bluegreen promise,
I sink down and low and further.
Decumbent liminality
across and bridging world to world,
greening reaches portal through.
Eyes lucent in the ringing dawn,
my self flows clear and
back into the drenching source,
spangling in clean waterlight,
dissolving aqua in the air.