SLEEVES OF AIR
I pant in revelation of my new found liberty.
The soaring sleeves of air on which I, the bird and defiance rides.
The hazards moving upwards
where lofty silhouettes of womanly breasts dwell.
The incalculable yearning to inhale ecstasy
To nether lie, nor kneel at the burning hoof once again.
Gone are the fraying wings rimming the plain
And between stone and sky
vertical risings clothed in climates crown
cast their voiceless visions.
I do not stretch my hand with wasteful gestures
or follow lonely paths to gutted souls.
My fores are waged in memory of a distant tramp. I am content!
Upon waves of glitter my sun beats down.
But not to guide me across the vastness of time
but to oblivions end.
Let Gods gift to me be silence
and haven from the followers.
Religions wail shall remain unknown
as my gala breaths me to the true conclusion.
No lonely earth will rise, nor totter from the mound.
In the dusk, death is my champion
and those of you who have my memories,
like parishioners of the budding soil
It is you who grant me time to be.
Jerome Coleman 2007
TEN DOLLAR ROOM
Alone in a strange hotel
Unseen echoes speak
I looked at my face in a mirror
And yet, my lips were still
The voices, oh those voices!
“You’re alone, you’re lost, and defeated”
Endangered, I try to break away
But, from what?
My God! I’m raving mad
They’re in my head!
I’ve finally made contact
They call out to me!
God yes, I cry!
Divine am I, inside and out
Impervious to harm
I eagerly listen for direction
Self-intoxication, that sense of wonder
I, a navigator of uncharted seas
The dauntless adventurer
But, somewhere in the background
Hovering in sorrow
Necessity regains control.
Once walking airily, I glance down
There’s no net below me!
And I fall from my cerebral tightrope
Still alone in a strange room
Deluded, and yet!
In spite of everything
I want more!
Jerome Coleman 2006
Deliverance
A Crack high
THE DEEP EXCURSION!
Visionary fantasies coming from primitive desires to kill, maim, or destroy a foe.
Passions so fatal that I hunger for blood.
My deep shame no longer asserts itself.
I’m enraged and there’s no solution,
But to provide the service of death.
Merciless, swift, and all so lasting.
I, the contemporary thinker,
Now spewing forth,
From the bowels of hells rage.
No longer sticking pins in dolls,
But, unabashedly bashing their heads in!
It’s complete distress, mental I am,
Charging, churning, chopping flesh into ruin!
Carnal fluids blossomed red.
From penetrated meat.
I remained aloft, seething - ablaze in fury!
Utterly convinced that injurious powers,
Possess my thoughts.
A secret wish had been fulfilled,
Hopeless and terrible.
I’m afraid of myself!
Still hostile, and deeply alarmed.
I pass back, through that deep foreboding world and depart from my dream.
I lay in a icy standoff,
breathing cautious relief.
Then awoke with a jolt!
In staggered awe.
Jerome Coleman
AS A LEAF
Now in the final act,
I look back upon the past,
And prophecies told.
Dreams real as life itself,
Where only time awaits me,
And memories fade.
Visions of stout trees,
Provoked by endless winds,
Are weeping their leaves.
I am, that last leaf,
Twirling downward,
In anticipation of the end.
Yet, a harvesting breeze,
Urged from pilgrimage,
Lures me on,
In exhaling verse.
Beguiled in radiant desire,
Upward I flew,
Flesh and blood aloft!
Mystical sounds, that angels sing,
Resound around my soul.
In prudent awe,
Of spiritual oneness,
I trumpet my thanks,
For all that I was,
And all that I am.
My heart holds no sorrow,
I dream, and the changing,
Dream I live.
Our performance is brief,
Moreover, time is of no matter.
Only my flesh, a-
Prop of life’s stage remains.
So it is in this final act,
My soul lives on, and on,
To show in Paradise.
Bravo!
Jerome Coleman
Death, It's ok
Unending nightmares
AMONG LIZARDS IN TREES
Somewhere
far off among lizards in trees
are mutes, that parrot a vile language.
It’s where colors are unseen
and the blind and the mad
whisper to the deaf. . .
Their lips
will never heal the tongues complaint.
Hence they advance like a brooding devil’s spawn
Crawling, bleeding the earth of midnights dream.
What God will resurrect them in their flesh
when only dusty slate
matches the gray of their core?
Their mutters are the tyrant
we strangle in slumber
and such an anger awakened!
Soon becomes spears in flight.
O Let the rains come
to wash their hollow aim
from perceptions cruel cause
Or be swept away
like waste in the street!
Still we march on under clouds of dust
until our eyes rime with ash.
But our wounds will heal
and tomorrow the gates will open
that we might bless their throbbing blood
with roses.
-Jerome Coleman
TO DREAM ABSURDITLY!
Toward the heavens
Which will judge me in the end.
I lift my head in awe.
Watery sunlight spreads in rings
Luring me upward and deeper into my vision until ginger flowers ignite the soft blue
Like blood flaming to a crest.
Time swirls madly with shimmer and blaze and I frolic past my shadow as if I were on a speeding train to the moon.
Oh Yes, I’ll even confess my eagerness.
A thousand waves of passion
drowns me a thousand times,
Still I stand, intrepid, proud
like a jade statue in the green -haired forest.
Fairy tales and magic flutes chatter, speckled fireworks stream higher and higher hurling their eager colors heavenward.
I’ve been walking for so many years, so, if you please
Allow me this dream of absurdity.
-Jerome Coleman
Freedom of Thought
Change
IT SEEMS SO OLD A PAIN
I gaze back through forgiving eyes
With wisdom and simple sweeps of kindness.
Past the days and rage into his mind
That seems so old a pain.
I measured every sorrow suffered
Then embraced them long
But the hurts are many, as I have learned
In that certain slant of light, that burdens an earthly wound.
It’s where scars are found
And years are piled high with memories.
I wonder if you hurt to live?
Roar now! Soon our souls will numb
The drums will beat and being but an ear
We can only listen.
This seal of despair, the need to hold on
What I have done with it, won’t rewrite
The banners of anguish I sport.
He doubtlessly did his best, yet loudly falls
His time-bleached bones in my primitive judgment.
Unforgotten wounds, like the coldness
In the stare of death, are but cobwebs on a ceiling
Gathering the dust of loss, and to what end?
I will miss you Father.
Forgiveness
