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Today SHINE welcomes Chicago-based poet, Neil Coleman. Neil brings us two poems: "For Ever and More" and "Yourself, No Longer." Thank you, Neil, for sharing your gift of words with SHINE international poetry series! For Ever and MoreA shiver. Then another. I'm taken. Awakened. And it ends. the lively banter, the easy laughter of dream now a misty memory of a moment never there "Are you awake? Oh, good. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Don’t worry. I will never leave you. For Ever and More. Now, go back to sleep.” Almost pitch. Midnight sky. A sliver of moon. The stars illume And transcend I’m thrilled, ecstatic in my insignificance. As I grasp to behold, a shiver takes hold “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Beyond wonderment's clench. A hunger unsated, a thirst never quenched. Cavemen and apes stared with open-mouthed gape No painter, no piper, no ploughman escaped The peril, the promise This scintillant sight Every poet and priest and prophet rattled, Each tortured soul and soldier embattled. I am the breath-hold of your fright I am the fear in the night. For I was right there with them as I am here with you. You need not fear. For I’m already here and I will never leave you. For Ever and More. Now, go back to sleep.” “ ‘Lord, deliver me’, you cry. And you shall be delivered. But not yet. Now, go back to sleep.” Yourself, No Longer A path. Any path. Any cock-eyed slip of the slope. Rocky and thatched and webbed with enstrangling vinery. That elusive journey taken toward a moment. Any moment. Any fleeting tick of the tock. Blinding and shrill and creaking with soul-crushing constriction. That fugitive time spent moving forward. When you reach the vanish of that path and stand at the bell-toll of that moment, unblinking, unbending, unwavering, on the threshold at the gatehouse of purpose to travel onward, to look inward, to seek deeper, is paradise found, showering upon you the boundless courage to be a stranger to yourself no longer.  Neil Coleman is a Chicago area poet and writer. He doesn't sleep well because he worries about most everything, from the future of the human experience to the starting pitching of the Chicago White Sox. UGH! Drawing inspiration from everything and anything, Neil crafts poems and stories that explore a wide range of themes, from love and loss to fear and faith.
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SHINE - International Poetry Series
From the international poetry community, we have a "luxury of stars," as Sylvia Plath might say, and it is my honor to provide a home for their words through SHINE Poetry Series.
NOW IN PRINT!
Stars Over the Dordogne
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