Author: poetryfest

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.

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

We met on Zoom at a workshop.

That’s not quite true. I only know

your first name. One square down

and two squares over, your lighting

not that great. I don’t think it’s on

purpose, like in A Streetcar Named

Desire, but it does add mystery

as you sit at your kitchen table,

stainless steel fridge behind you.

I wonder what you are longing for,

where you live, within driving

distance or near an airport. I heard

you mention a husband which is

perfectly understandable, since I

have a perfectly good spouse as well,

but we both know fate is powerful,

more ineffable than anything, and

passion a terrific excuse, and here

we are rather close, in a way,

both too shy to send a personal

message, but we will meet again

soon, at the next session, and maybe

then our squares will be adjacent.

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,
attack across air, land,
and sea. They disappear when dead,
no bodies to be buried.

Like corporations, players have
no homeland, only armies
to deploy. In this game, there is
no profit, only conquest.

No bodies, no ruin, no loss
no consequence to meet.
The box is closed and put away
when operations cease.

I haven’t played in years,
job, family, life, and such.
But when I played, I played for fun,
and played with little risk.

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 hyacinth hair, ocean blue eyes and a soul to share
Sing in the night, swell with delight, crash and arouse this siren in fright.
Jetsam spill my heart to hear, the soft response of one so near
Echoes and eddies, visions and seeress, gather the pieces and wash up the fearless
Bring me wine, an ocean to share, the girl with the moon and the hyacinth hair.

To my Muse,

How do you say hello to someone you’ve shown your soul to? How do you say goodbye to someone who’s seen the inside of your tear ducts more times than you’ve seen the sky? How do you let the sun set on a relationship that kept you alive when Nyx’s night seemed infinite?

Is there any trace of Artemis left in you? I’ve been combing every corner of me for traces of Apollo these days and combing up empty handed. I’ve never seen myself shine as brightly as I did on the day I met you, when he shone his way out of my skin and walked in my footsteps for a day. Is there anything left of the girl who dragged mattresses to my dorm room? The girl who wrote me like I was poetry, who made sense of my drunken ramblings? What has become of the girl who used her broken pieces as tools to repair those around her? Did she cease to exist, or did she simply learn that there were tools for her pieces, too? Was there ever a moment where I knew her unbroken, or did I simply meet her before she lost the strength to hide it?

I still have the letters she wrote me, every one. The looping writing on stationary scraps and the margins of books dedicated to words she thought worlds better than hers. I don’t think I’ve ever read a word of print unless it was highlighted by her hand. Yet, the spine on the book still betrays my compulsion to open it on rainy days.

I wonder if there’s any trace of them left in us, the god of the sun who was put soundly out and the goddess of the hunt who was hunted into extinction. The best I can do these days is a reflection, a mirrorball of traumas is all that’s left of me. It shows you walking the world as a wounded animal, the closest imitation of the huntress you can muster. Have you noticed the water I left outside your den? I suppose I could say something to point it out, but a collapsed star finds it hard to speak. What has become of us, Artemis? Do we still love each other the way we did then? Can we know love at all?

I know a thousand ways to relight a fire, and nothing of stitching a wound, but I’d weave the last of my dying sun’s light into pools of spools of thread if it meant that anyone could close the gaping pain in your side. I know no better seamstress for such wounds than yourself; a huntress knows healing better than any physician, especially if the wound is inflicted by another of her kind.

Artemis’s first role was midwife, birthing her brother before she ever beheld a bow. Maybe that is why the mere idea of allowing anyone else to care for you is unthinkable. The only mark you’ll always miss is that of love for the self. I open my mouth to advise your aim, but realize I’ve never even notched an arrow, and so I allow you to continue on the endless hunt. For just a moment, you look like your old self again. Maybe, someday, if I can shine like my old self, you’ll see that there was never a blow you could not recover from, not even one dealt by the hand of your own disciple. For that chance alone, I’ll spend the rest of my life picking out shattered glass, removing the mirrorball to expose the sun. I hope you’ll wait for me. Faithfully,

Apollo

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 foreign
lovers signed in lipstick kisses

I would need cleavage like suspension bridges
holding things dry from places I’ve not yet been
I would name her, this place of nothing from nothing
more

Pilar, like Hemingway’s boat, a place of refuge
decorated in Christmas stockings, she would have
a temper, like seas trying to rid themselves of salt
and crustaceans

I would let Bob sleep here and cats purring like Bowie
when he was Ziggy stardust

This dress, Victorian, I find myself lanced in and its whalebone
corset cinched above and below hate and men

A bosom to be proud of on parade day
draped in rainbows coffins

We would drink coffee together on some tropical deck
Almost big enough for a kitten or a baby rabbit
to curl into
Something to always pet and pet and pet

What’s buried is still living
Thought death was the end of all ending
My soul has never been silent
After all the fortune that I’ve spent.

I said it’s for the better
And that’s all that matters
This world is not gentle
For our innocence to settle.

I’m dreaming of you in the meadows
Adoring birds by the windows
Healing your wounds by the lake
It’s too real to be fake.

You’re there and I’m here
Where everything is so clear
That you’re gone
Because of my own gun.

To the person I used to be
I hope you’re proud of me
I did what I need to do
Even if it’s letting you go.

On Sunday I text you
“Old friend, how are you?
Care to come over
Or perhaps I can come around?
It’s only a two-hour flight.
We can drink beer, watch movies,
Walk, or just enjoy each
Other’s company. Small delights.”

On Monday it is all grey
And it rains out of spite.
On Tuesday the lakes
Quickly start to bubble up.
It is on Wednesday that
The volcanoes burn the towns.
Thursday the moon
Leaves the earth in fear and runs.
On Friday I look up in love
And see the stars die one by one.
On Saturday I walk the desolate world
Utterly lonely, on my own.
On Sunday you text back
And simply say “I’m fine.”

1922-1994
First lieutenant US Air Corps

Vernon Broadus Bodie Bodenhimer.
Your eyes sparkled,
Your cologne clung to me,
I felt so safe in your arms.
Your red spenders,
Button up,
Clean and crisp,
That pen from the pulp mill,
Nestled in your pocket
Black and gold.
Your favorite slacks.

You were gentle.
Maybe somewhat unsettled,
The searing scars of Shell Shock.

You were never the same-
the war-
B-52 navigator-
Bombing filthy fucking natzis into oblivion-
Saving civilians-
Disobeying orders-
earned you your Purple Heart.

A pacifist.
A Quaker.
A conscientious objector.
Decided not to dodge that damn draft.

So the pacifist made his way to war,
And back to us.

But before I could fully grow,
Or even truly know-
You were gone.

I wish just once more
You would wrap me in your arms.