Category: Uncategorized

Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

GRIEF UNBOUND, by Michal Mendelsohn

For the women butchered
with clitoridectomies
not to feel intimacy
passion or mutuality in sex
but mutilated
I grieve.

For the women forced
into loveless marriages,
custom be damned, to be
slaves to men who care little
for them or their bodies or
personhood
I grieve.

For the countless, innocent
female victims of war started
by men to advance their egos,
who have been raped, defiled,
left as untouchables
I grieve.

For the silent victims of domestic
abuse, beaten, left with broken bones,
internal injuries, splenectomies, who
cover for cruel spouses out of fear and
misplaced loyalty
I grieve.

These women do not whimper
They speak without a sound.

Performed by Val Cole

Holiday Feedback
By
Derrick J. Johnson

This land is so cold,
Covered in snow,
Filled with memories,
Of a time from long ago.
Nostalgic thoughts don’t seem right,
In the prismatic aura,
Of bright holiday light,
But these feelings still remain,
For they are all the same…
A rush,
To find the right gift.
A rush fueled by adoration,
As emotions flow so swift.
A mad rush,
That leads me all about.
No escape from the anxiety,
That appears when she’s near.
My feelings are hidden beneath the exterior,
Of this seasonal holiday cheer.
Oh, it is a madness,
That wears me out,
It wears me out…
Filled with anticipation,
Yet daunted by feelings of dread,
Moving with the spirit of the season,
As conflicting thoughts swirl in my head,
And images of the affection I want to win…
Under the mistletoe,
We converge from different directions.
Then we share a tender moment,
But fail to make a meaningful connection,
Parting with regrets,
For what could have been…
But somewhere in that frosty December,

In the memory of the fleeting kiss,
Is a time of lucidity I remember,
As calmness replaces holiday bliss,
Because I need this,
I need this…

11/30/21

Performed by Val Cole

Out Back, by Peter Gall

Tufts of new and old grasses
The living and the lived
Chipped and chimed and chowed
Down by new growth

Multi-colored leaves, leaving
Musty, misty, moist and mossed
Resting place of the mulched
Making mewing, mushy sounds

Sticks and stones and broken bones
Of bark and branch and briar
New flowering, ripening to the ripest
Old falls and fallen rising

Forests of forgotten fires
Black, blackened and blown
Winds that whine and winge
About the burnished breezes

Gradual, grading and growing
Light at the end of the funnel
Of roots, roomed and running
Rings around new bows and branch

Sprouting, sporting the new looks
Of leaves, leaning and lowing
To summer, suns and songs
Of the fierce, unforgiving out back

Performed by Val Cole

The Plastic Water Bottle Tossed
Carelessly In The Middle Of The Road
By A Pimply Teenager Wearing Too
Much Makeup And Too Little Clothes.

The last drop was swallowed, but the
cap was carefully screwed back on.
A chipped black fingernail pushed down
on the button. She didn’t even look at the
water bottle flying down to the ground.
Scraping its side on the gravel, the poor bottle
lies. It waits expectantly to be placed in the recycle
bin. But instead, an H3 Hummer rolls right over it.
Only a hiss is heard from the bottle losing it’s only
friend, the cap. But no one ever puts them back together.
The water bottle lies in the middle of the street for days.
No one understands it. It feels so alone. It feels rejected
and neglected. The clouds turn gray and the poor bottle is
carried away. On the side of the curb it lies. All broken
and hurt and missing its friend. A group of uniformed children
walk by the bottle as it thinks that finally it will get home.
For children are taught the beauty of the earth and will surely
not destroy it. But one happy kid kicks the bottle out of his way as
another one spits out his chewed flavorless wad of gum.
The bottle no longer feels like living. It has lost its faith in humanity.
Trash day! The bottle thinks. It will get swept up by the street sweeper
and it will be saved! Here it comes. It’s close. Finally I will be free. The
bottle feels the wonderful bristles of the sweeper brush it away. The
bottle begins to fall into the hole in the side of the road. It hits the murky
bottom with a thud. The bottle begins to cry and moan, but still no one
pays attention. A wave of gray water washes the bottle into the sea. The
bottle doesn’t know how to swim, but it floats. It drifts on the surface of
the sea for one hundred days. A whale filter feeds the poor bottle and
excrements it a few days later. But the whale will never be the same. The
whale’s digestive tract is permanently damaged. And the whale will die.
The bottle feels like it’s its fault the poor whale has washed up on the
sandy shore. A loud cry of despair is bellowed by the whale as it drowns
in the stale dirty air. The bottle has become numb. It doesn’t care about
anything anymore. It doesn’t even try to fight the gray gull as it pecks it
with its beak, holes into the bottles side. It could care less that the pieces
the gull pecked will kill the gulls nest. The bottle lies still as a pelican
swallows the bottle along with the tiny fish at its side. The pelican flies
far back into the land. And drops the bottle on the sand. For days the
bottle melts in the sun, but still it couldn’t care. A group of girl scouts pick
up the bottle and other trash. The bottle ends up in a black plastic bag in
a green trash can full of other crushed plastic bottles. A big green truck
stops and a little man with chubby hands picks up the black bag and flings
it onto the truck. The bottle has lost all feeling as it rides in the truck and is
thrown into a big hole the size of a 100 feet pool. The bottle slowly rots in
the bag, but not quickly. For 7,000 years the plastic bottle waits to be able
to feel again. Anything. Even pain. But the humans are dead. And the
animals are poisoned. A desolate land of plastic bottles and caps never
to become one again. Finally on a mercury day, the plastic bottle decays.

T.Riv

Performed by Val Cole

Points of Love, by Mary Eastham

The storm was unexpected
New Yorkers swept inside by snow.
In 4B a woman bathes her lover
careful not to wet his broken hand.
The Egyptian newlyweds
living in the building’s only studio
give their dream children names
underneath a tent of bedsheets.
Twin sisters, designers, in Versace mules
play spin-the-bottle
on their penthouse terrace
with models from Milan.
Alone in her garden apartment
a Venezuelan widow
listens to vinyl records
she once danced to
with her husband.
And outside, on the street,
as the snow unfurls around them
like a ream of white velvet
let loose,
a girl in a scarf
the color of blood red calla lilies
says ‘yes’
to a proposal of marriage
while riding on the turned up handlebars
of her lover’s Rusty Schwinn.

Performed by Val Cole

Sing to me…, by Damian Gajardo

Sing to me! Oh my lover, sing with joy and excitement!
Sing to me!, Oh my dear, contemplate the turmoil inside,
Bring to me!, Oh my wonderful, manifest a glory in peace,
Bring to me!, Oh my counselor, the fragrance of wisdom,
Incite in me!, Oh my dearest, the innocence of childhood,
Ignite in me!, Oh my colorful, the scent of creation,
Let me be someone!, let me bring something, so I too,
can return to you with honor and humility, incomplete,
truthful and thankful.
Grant me the days ahead with love and tenderness in submission,
in the swaying grass above all the waves in the sea,
for pale is my soul in the vast greatness!.

Performed by Val Cole

SWIM, by Lori Martini

Your eyes have disguised

The pain you’ve kept inside

But I’m not blind to see

As kind as I am you are to me

Truth is what I seek and have received

I’m drowning in the deep blue waters

Masqueraded through your eyes

They’ve got me hypnotized

So I’ll dive into the shallow waters

Knowing I may not make it out alive

Though cool to the touch

You would penetrate as I burn til I’m dust

As the waves crash behind my back

And I’m washed upon your shore

I don’t know how I can stay afloat

For every breath I hold while under your spell

I pray it would last before I’d need to come up for air

I have exposed myself my soul lie bare

Yet I’m like a capsized boat that lost its sail

And it’s flooded me and I cannot bail myself out

And I cannot control the way I feel

Awake from this dream

Oh how I wish it could be real

So surreal yet I must be imagining

It doesn’t matter if I lose or win

Til I figure this out I’ll float til I learn how to swim

Performed by Val Cole

Thanksgiving Thanks

Thanksgiving Thanks
Thanks for the land
that used to belong
to someone else
Thanks for the food
that is grown and picked
by people that aren’t allowed
Thanks for the stuff
that is made by people
that don’t get paid enough
Thanks for the country
that was built
by the disenfranchised
Let’s consume on this day
to maintain an economy
that benefits the capital
that was earned by people
that didn’t get it