Author: poetryfest

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Trauma greets me in the morning
Growing legs and stretching to lay beside Grief and I
My spearmint tea is poured with with tears of solitude steeped into my being

My phone dings, a message from the socials

this “relative” seeking to be absolved
“Hey I saw this *grief story* made me think of you (from a person I haven’t heard from since 2 days after Dad died)”

Next a message from 3:06 am…
“I know I haven’t been there for you with your grief after your dad. I hope you’re doing better”

The closer to the holidays, the closer I am to the realm of Dante’s Inferno.

So many levels to choose from…

So this is like the ex that called me out of my name once, 4 days after my Dad died. We then broke up.

This is like the man that I thought was a friend when my sister was experiencing that aneurysm (2 months after Dad died) but showed me his unsolicited penis and opinion instead.

This is like the person I thought was a friend told me, I don’t want to be around you when you’re like this. Can we try to see where you’re at in a few months?

This is like when that other “bestie” never initiated contact. Never uttered a word. Nor the other bestie because “I was a downer”.

This is like when I needed support and love and was met with the attention of my lonesome loneliness.

This is the part of the story where I can’t make this shit up,

They’ll say it’ll get better. I’m waiting now like I’m waiting for the 14 trying to get to work. Hummingbirds knew to find the best method of recovery —fly in any direction but love yourself enough to leave

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Once,
There was a poor little boy
Not poor in coins,
But in comfort.
Not poor in food,
But in love.

He had a mother
Who held a bottle
Tighter than her children,
Who traded bedtime stories
For silence
And babysitters.

She didn’t know
The sitter wore a smile
Like a wolf wears fur
Pretty, but hiding teeth.

The poor little boy
Was left in that house
Again
And again
And again
His body learning
What his mind couldn’t name.

In school,
When the word “sex” was said,
He tilted his head
Like a puppy chasing a sound.

“what’s that?”
He asked, honest,
Small.

The class laughed.
A boy yelled:
“when a penis goes in—”
And the teacher turned,
Just in time
To hear the poor little boy say,
‘oh, I’ve done that heaps of times at home.’

The room froze.
The teacher didn’t.
She pointed to the corner,
Not the pain.
Punished the words,
Not the wound.

He grew into a teenager
With shame in his bones.
Carrying hands
Taught by trauma,
Not by consent.

He touched someone wrong
because someone had touched him worse

The school system failed him, just like his mother failed him.

He grew up
But never out
Of the ache.

Years passed,
He wore cologne,
Wore muscles,
Wore confidence
Like armor
Over an abandoned child.

He became a man
Who never let women leave
Not because he loved them,
But because he feared empty rooms.

He cheated not for thrill,
But for survival.
If one left,
Another would still be there
To say
He mattered.

But he didn’t believe them.
Not really.
Because how do you trust
A kiss
When your first touch
Was betrayal?

He told women he loved them,
But didn’t know what love was.
Just that it sometimes came
With skin
And silence,
And left
Without warning.

He hurt women
The way he was taught love feels.
Then hated himself
For becoming the echo
Of someone else’s crime.

He’d lie awake sometimes
Beside a warm body,
Colder than he’d ever felt.
Wondering
If the boy inside him
Was still screaming
In the corner
Of that first classroom.

Wondering
Why nobody came.

He tried therapy.
Walked into the office
With trembling hands
And sat down
Like a guilty child.

He said,
“I don’t know who I am
When I’m not being touched.”

He said,
“I think the first woman
Who loved me
Was trying to erase me.”

He said,
“sometimes I don’t want to exist—
But I’m too stubborn to leave.”

The therapist said,
“you were hurt.”
He shook his head.
“no.
I was made that way.”

And still,
Some nights,
He dreams of the sister
Who said “I got you”
And didn’t.
He dreams of the girl
He hurt,
Who looked at him
Like he was the monster
Under her bed.
And he wonders
If the monster
Had a mother
Who drank herself numb.

The poor little boy
Never really left.

He just grew taller,
Learned to flirt,
Learned to fake charm
And hide the rot.

But when the lights go off
He’s still there,
Knees to chest,
Waiting in silence, for someone
To come back,
And mean it.

But in the silence, all the things we didn’t learn, remained.

Because all he ever wanted
Was for someone to stay
After they saw
Everything.

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Like the tides, life rises and falls.
At times, you’re soaring—
High,
Reaching toward the endless sky,
Your crest catching golden light,
Dancing in the sun.

And then—
You’re pulled low,
Crashing down,
Breaking hard,
A surge of force,
Scouring shores,
Leaving driftwood behind—
Fragments of dreams
That once were ships.

We, the sailors,
Adrift,
Charting unknown paths,
Searching for home,
Holding on
Just to make it
One more day.

And then comes the stillness—
A hush.
Waters calm,
Sky mirrored in a sea of blue.
No wind. No fear.
Just peace.
Just breath.

So when the skies darken,
And storms begin to howl,
When waves rise tall
And clouds press down—
Hold on.

Be strong.
The ocean cannot break you.
The storm cannot drown you.
Because you know:
Beyond every wave,
Stillness waits.
Peace returns.

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Seated alone on the couch, weary from the day’s labor,
full of hard drink and a heavy meal, he was content this
birthday affair may pass without incident.

A bottle of twenty-five-year Scotch adorned his lap.
He made certain she saw him swallow the sleeping pill she
insisted he withhold until after the party.

He told her he did not want a party, yet she persisted
on account of the supermoon conjoining with Venus
and Mercury being no longer in retrograde.

Nonsense, he muttered, as a tranquil haze washed over him.
The band was warming up out back and guests were arriving
when the initial assault was launched.

Her advance was clumsy and ill-planned.
He stirred upon approach, stiff-arming her to the ground.
A subsequent attempt succeeded with a flanking maneuver

that sent his bottle to the hardwood floor.
“Don’t break that bottle,” she shouted. “That’s my favorite bottle!”
He swept her shins and they tumbled about the room,

laughing and cursing each other. They tumbled into some guests,
spilling their drinks. The guests did not approve.
She retreated to the kitchen. He meandered into the yard

with a fresh glass of whiskey. “Thanks for coming,” he said to
the new arrivals, then stretched onto the cool lawn grass
and gazed upward to the heavens.

He spied the constellation Taurus in the north sky,
invited a blessing of good health and a sign of his longevity.
He awaited the sign as the whiskey-sleeping-pill cocktail took hold.

His eyes grew heavy as coins when a shout was heard
from the house: “Don’t break that glass! That’s my favorite glass!”.
Taurus leapt to his feet and smashed the glass against the sidewalk.

An anxious silence befell the partygoers as Libra emerged
onto the patio. She declared she would bust his head,
then pounced like a wildcat, kicking and clawing at him.

She bit his ear. He yanked her hair. She pushed him into the dirt,
him pulling her down and working her into a chokehold
until she relented.

Taurus relaxed his grip, and they sank into the earth gasping for air.
A passerby stopped to inquire if there was a fight.
“It’s hard to tell sometimes,” he heard someone say.

She heard it too, then climbed atop him, cheerful and triumphant,
glowing like a banshee in the April moonlight.
“You obstinate son of a bitch,” she exhaled, then collapsed in a heap.

And he held her awhile like that, until the cicadas quieted their
evening symphony, the earth rotated eastward to Gemini,
and their breathing fell once again into synchronous rhythm.

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Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

My friend, you’ll see the shore where the blue sky
pours its buckets of glaring sunlight; nearby ridges beckon
with wings of fresh green foliage.

A chilly wind often wafts in from the Pacific; this is San Francisco.

When you arrive,
you’ll find the Golden Gate Bridge, like cherry blossoms, linking north
and south.

We could lounge on Baker Beach,
and at Fisherman’s Wharf, savor the coastline. At Pier 23 Cafe, we’ll
drink and dance.

We could set our chairs facing the waves,
gazing at a myriad of stars in the brilliant night sky.

With the fatigue of life’s long journey behind us, we see a crowd,
a host of yellow daffodils,
fluttering and dancing along the beach like the women we might meet.

=====

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

One may pave the sided streets from his neighbors guile,
To a diligence of a leader; or to an acid’s chyle.
This zephyr from the switchgrass of soulstice,
is unabridged by my mama’s veiled smile.
One’s true veilon is dogged behind the child.
Child who refused to find skin in war, to who has
witnessed it all, yet they won’t believe.
Won’t believe, won’t believe , won’t believe.
Groping my private xertz, to revise who I once grieved.
This Earth, prudently gritted dirt we walk on, and the prune treats.
Grown man said!; “it is zilched the sweat glands of my palms,
the taste of my siblings sugar to respirate the misconceived.”
My brutalized hope of humankind, we still appease to rise.
We’ll rise, we will rise, In the morning glow of the righteous side.
We’ll yet to rise, they must see us arise, In the sweet scent of soaking in our own pride.
One cannot sell what is lurking behind closed doors;
Devil’s dolor, my daughter’s death, or child he mourns.
Giving hordes in the vessels of lore. Given my miscarried soul’s blood,
the shedded personality in her core.
In all of humankind, we subdue to rise.
We’ll rise, we will rise, in the morning glow of the righteous side.
Yet to rise, grab my ear darling;
In the sweet scent of soaking in my own pride.
Taught from the mimes of cheat,
It interprets the spirituality of a celestite; connection, clarity and peace.
Dip my feet in water of wheat, ingredient to a carbohydrate.
One nutritional yeast, another way to cure me.
Time will hibernate, clocks return in time,
My son will call to mind how humanity
turned one’s back on selfless dehumanitized wide.

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

My light was out when the message bore
the state of the child’s condition
and brought me kneeling to the floor
and reading what the father knew—
the object as inviolable, though reason claimed we too
would not cease in giving way
when met by forces, I recalled
my own children and imagined they…
Oh, God, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

By light, I sought to reconcile
Esse and affliction
To no unknowing dying child
to each his own condition (human)
through surreptitious bloody trial, the alter on which He too
long ceased in giving way
when met by suffering, hear Him call, Talitha cumi
on The Day.
Oh, God, You can.

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Number 1

I watch him carry my mother up the stairs as if she is the thinnest piece of glass,

She is full of cracks.

I turn on the shower, a waterfall of memories.
Rubber ducks in the tub as we pretended to be mermaids.

My mother huddles in the shower, scared and unsure.

A
Wave
of
grief.

Memories of warm arms that once provided endless love now shake under waterfalls of grief.

And the rubber duck is somewhere in the endless garbage.
It mourns as it’s outgrown its usefulness.

I wrap my mother in a towel.
She shakes and shivers in the frozen tundra of Pepto-Bismol tiles.

As she dresses, I see the stomach that once created me, the body that once gave itself for my
existence.

Grief runs down my face,
silent heartache.

And she says, “Please don’t cry, I always hate it when you cry.”

Number 2

I nod,
the lump in my throat swelling like a tide that won’t break.
I press my face into her shoulder,
fragile now,
paper-thin skin wrapped around bones that once lifted me from scraped knees.

She smells of lavender soap
and something older,
something like the end of summer.

We sit in the kitchen,
her tea untouched,
hands resting on the porcelain mug as if it might fall through her fingers.
The silence isn’t empty.
It’s crowded with what we don’t say.

Outside, a bird taps the window,
confused, maybe,
or persistent in its search for light.

I remember her laughter,
not today’s tight smile,
but the belly-full, unafraid kind.
When her body was a shelter,
when her hands made magic from dough and crayons and lullabies.

Now I wipe crumbs from her lap,
a quiet reversal of time.

I whisper, “It’s okay to forget.”
But I lie.
Because every moment she forgets,
I must remember harder.

She looks at me,
not through me,
and I grasp that one solid moment
like a child clinging to a nightlight.

And when she says, “You’ve always been my brave one,”
I pretend not to break.

I carry her words like she once carried me,
a fragile weight,
sacred,
unspoken.

Number 3

In the morning,
I find her in the garden,
hands trembling over tomato vines,
the air thick with the scent of basil
and sun-warmed soil.

She plucks one, red and full,
holds it up like something sacred.
“I used to grow these for your sandwiches,” she says,
as if I could ever forget.

Back then,
her fingers were sure,
kneading dough,
flour in her hair,
the kitchen warm with rising yeast
and afternoon light.

She taught me how to wait,
how bread needs patience,
how basil bruises if you press too hard,
how tomatoes sing when you pick them ripe.

And one summer,
between sunburns and the scent of garlic,
she handed me a record,
black vinyl, sharp-edged,
Alice Cooper’s snarling grin.

I laughed,
surprised at her rebellion.
She only said,
“Even mothers need noise sometimes.”

Now, the bread rises in her absence.
I dust the counter with flour,
turn the stereo low,
his voice a time capsule,
a strange kind of lullaby.

She watches from the table,
basil leaves trembling in her palms,
her eyes wide, like she’s trying to remember
what rebellion felt like.

I bring her a slice, still warm.
She smiles,
but forgets to eat.

I eat for both of us.

Outside, the tomatoes keep growing.
Inside, I grow too,
learning how to hold what’s slipping,
how to love what is unfinished,
how to grieve with full hands

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

(Sci-Fi for Rob Halford, Written While Sitting On a Curb
Outside Steven Spielberg’s “Amblin’ Entertainment”
Universal Backlot Office, Bungalow 477)

Ravages of starlight
beat upon his head:
This battleground,
a smoking field of dread.

His body feels the pummel
of wars so vast and cold.
His mission is to “…do
as (he’s) been told.”

His only thought is to the symptom
and how he might profane the foe.
His wrists are cracked from strains
he’s brought from outland,
vanity in tow.

Dark Elder.

He crosses state and continent,
politics on full.
Three billion lives
melt quickly to his pull.

He stands, a smirking victor.
His flags dot all the earth.
He slaughters all
not of his cherished birth.

A land of locks and machinations
pulling minds apart like bones.
No more the moon
no more the spray of sunlight.
The land is dry and cold.

Performed by Val Cole

POETRY:

Uncle Ricky, a Gentle Giant
Uncle Ricky, a brilliant soul
He gave his near and dear a softer grace
With his gap-toothed smile on his face
His laugh filled a room as he told his vivid stories.
A smooth swagger, a heart in bloom
A brother, father, mentor, uncle, friend, and garden healer
When he gave advice, it felt like gold
And wasn’t afraid to be bold
Uncle Rick, sharp and fly with a thinking grace
He could light a flame with his looks and charm.
He was a plant whisperer, sunshine sower, and dream weaver
But when he felt ill, the skies grew gray
But he was finding a way
Whether it was a wink, a grin, a knowing nod, or with God’s guidance.
Now, when I work and continue to help clients heal with massage
He is a light within my legacy
Forever etched in every part
His presence reminds me of God’s power that never yields
His memory will always be my quiet and enlightening guide
His love won’t cease, his story shall forever rise, and lives
So we just don’t say goodbye, see you later
As you remain, a star eternally in the skies