Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

—-

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
when the world narrowed,
words ran out,
and history bent to will
because men chose not to step aside.

All of this
happened before you.
But none of it
relieves you.

You are my heart.
Not my pride.
Not my ambition.

Because of that,
I will not lie to you.
Remember this.

Protect your mother,
for she carried you
from dark into breath.
That crossing binds you
long after you have a name.

Protect your sister,
for in her safety
our house is judged.
What reaches her
reaches the name you will carry.

Protect your wife,
not as possession,
but as the one who keeps you standing,
when love becomes work,
and work becomes vow.

Protect your children,
for they are tomorrow
watching you now.
What you do not hold,
they will be made to bear.

So, son,
when the moment comes
hold the line.
Stand fast

Performed by Val Cole

—-
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 stitch
A guy that has money is the perfect hire
And thank God he validates my darkest desires

Sure he might call a woman a pig or a bitch
And he might not help me if im stuck in a ditch
But he’ll make America great again in no time at all
You’re exaggerating when you say “empire fall”

He tells it like it is and I really kind of like him
A hell of a lot smarter than that Sleepy Joe Biden
Iran was a threat, he did what he had to
If you support terrorists, shame on you!

Do your own research. You get the jab, you’re a fool!
The media is fake, unless it Fox News
I don’t really think it’s your right to choose
Take that abortion money and buy some comfortable shoes

Only God can judge me, but he says I can judge you
Because I’m sparkling and special and I pray for the jews
I’m proud of ICE agents ridding us of our sins
If they can’t speak English, why the hell let em in?

No they’re not quite like us civilized and refined
They’re more like animals with crazed savage minds
And I’m sure some nice kid will get out and pick berries
Just as long as it ain’t my darling son Larry

No I won’t wag my finger if your collar is blue
I’ve got steel toes on every one of my boots
Growing up in a family with mining roots
No way them and commies were in cahoots

Question them not us – we’re on the working man’s side
Now look here you bum, I can’t give you a ride
I’ve gotta get home to my shiny boob tube
To refuel my anger with the 5 o’ clock news

You’ll see in due time
It’ll all work out
Don’t die and comply
Shut your questioning mouth
Pay your taxes, thank the lord, and praise the red, white, blue
God Bless Americans!
(The ones like me, not like you)

Performed by Val Cole

Editor & Visual Design by Adam Bilyea

Produced by Matthew

Poetry by Adriane P. Reesey

aGREED RuiNATION

contracts signed in clean rooms
ink dries while something else erodes
buildings rise as the footing gives
doors open for some, close on others
numbers climb while something fails

Performed by Val Cole

——

In Neglect

Can I fit into your box?
Will you let me in?
I can contort myself, I’m quite the performer— I’ve always been good at this.

Watch as I bend! Move! Twist and sit!
It looks unorthodox as I bend.

move.

twist.

sit.

Yet my comfort is found residing within you.
Your light! surrounds
Your warmth! unbound

“OUCH!” you’ll proclaim as I bend.

move.

twist.

sit.

“I’m sorry!” I’ll profess.
I’ll still love you with unrest.
I hurt you from obsess.

“What is this obsess?” your light asks of me.
“My love for you.” I’ll confess.
All my fears, repressed.

Can I fit into your box?
Will you step into mine?
I can distort myself, I’m quite the reformer— it’s how I stay with you.

Watch as you bend! Move! Twist and sit!
But your light does not fit.

stationary.

rooted.

Illuminating.

“What is this abscess?” your light shines on me.
Ignore my wound—it’s not of your hands.
I do not bleed, these won’t exude.
All my fears, possess.

In neglect.

Performed by Val Cole

—–

BIG YELLOW TAXI

What you do to me is expensive to my body and
brain, like going on a shopping spree and then
not being able to pay for it Turning and
turning on my pillow until I just can’t
turn anymore and morning comes
too quickly. Are these bags under
my eyes worth it if I don’t ever
get to lift that black tee over
your head and push my hard
nipples on to your chest? I’m not
at all so profound any more like some
Joni Mitchell song. I’ve seen both sides
now ten times over, and the laugh’s on
me, but maybe I just think too much so
expensive to my body and brain, whatever
is left of it and after you have given me what
I wanted, will you lay your head on my
thigh and kiss me softly and slowly, or do
I have to wait impatiently until morning to
see the sun rise all over again?

Performed by Val Cole

—
POEM:

Another Rain-Soaked Love Letter
By
Thomas Koron

As I walked on through an endless downpour,
Across the dark street, the pouring rain swept.
It had been days since the last time I slept—
Wondering if you loved me anymore.

Once I made it home, I unlocked the door,
Then placed the keys where they were always kept.
Into our dark, empty bedroom, I stepped
And left my wet shoes on the wooden floor.

At first, we were close, then both became scared,
And separated to think things over—
Hoping time might help to make things better.

Over on the nightstand we had once shared,
I reached across a wrinkled bed cover
To hold another rain-soaked love letter.

Performed by Val Cole

—–

Neutralize

They arrive faceless,
as if shame were standard issue.

Vans idle.
A neighborhood becomes a diagram.

The public word is enforcement.
The private one is containment.

In the desert, tents flower—
soft-sided, seventy-two to a bloom.
Toilets flood rice with sewage.
Water tastes metallic, instructional.

A mother at an airport
learns the grammar of absence:
no food,
no water,
no sky.

Her daughter folds inward
like a closing book.

They call it civil.
They call it procedure.

History calls it rehearsal.

At Fort Bliss—
where the enemy once had a face—
a boy turns off a light
and wakes in an ambulance.
A body becomes leverage:
fingers tightening
where refusal lives.

Thirty-two dead in a year.
Four more before January settles.
One ruled homicide
in solitary confinement—
as if loneliness were not already lethal.

“Poisoning the blood,”
the phrase travels cleanly.
What do we do with poison?
We neutralize it.

Neutralize:
to render inert.
To make lifeless.
To subtract breath from belonging.

There are those who imagine
a gentle subtraction of millions.

But mass removal has a sound.

It is a child crying
into government bedding.
It is a fist correcting
a refusal to disappear.
It is a country rehearsing
how to forget its own reflection.

Inside the tents
people whisper their names
like contraband.

I am not poison.
I am not blood to be purified.
I am a body with a sky in it.

That is what will not neutralize.

Performed by Val Cole

—–

Anger of a Kind

Anger of a kind
rests in the contours
of our palms,
inexpressible

Anger of a kind
with clenched fist
demands hearing of
why & wherefores
to this satiated life

Anger of a kind
bleeds from open wounds
& wombs, distended
bellies, machine-gunned children
nerve gassed children, & little girl children
killed by tomahawk missiles

Anger of a kind
wretches at the politicos,
foreign & domestic,
whose wart-healing
short-term gain
infects itself & all
that it touches
with promises & putrescence’s

Anger of a kind cries to a limpid
unconsciousness not
to accept anguish, suffering,
murder, ignorance, nor placation
solely because they have always been
or, because they have always been paid off

Anger of a kind stands
witness for all that come after,
sometimes
having used a tempered edge
for the necessary righteous action
& final will for change,
& that swift bitch–change herself

This anger is kind
______________________________________________

Adriane P. Reesey

aGREED RuiNATION

contracts signed in clean rooms
ink dries while something else erodes
buildings rise as the footing gives
doors open for some, close on others
numbers climb while something fails