— Poem :—

       love of the silent twilight
                      the benediction
                   that is in your hands

moving waters of tenderness
on the burning glitter of my madness

                              quiet hands
asylum for my bewilderment
     when phantoms of other worlds seek after me
peace to my spent spirit

    come to me when the day is sleeping
    still my conflict with your aloofness
                 and I shall be a burst of star-dust
                         to rend the weary curtain
                                            of your monotony

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—: Paris Roofs :—

the tops of roofs
over a misty city
bring to me
faint regrets

things lost
glimmering
that came not to the end
but left before
it was finished
spires of hopes
that died strangled

and love lost in the fog

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—: Invocation :—

Sun,
come down upon the ground
and spread your feet upon its chill.
Let them drink you to dregs
the cold mountain streams,
and the frozen reeds in the river
let them
bend to your power.
Come into the houses of people
fill them with heat
and with stress.

And flow into the pores of the indifferent,
energize their meekness—
who look for rain
and are not content with cloudburst.

Sun,
do not mistake the indifferent,
who walk with loose hands—
beat upon them, scorch them
and bring to their attention
fire
and tropic darkness
and childbirth under a southern sky.

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—: The Liberator :—

Keys turning
     rattling in the loose locks
          opening high the doors
that close again
like death-hours coming faster

the walls are white
and the line of beds is staring
all the bars go up and down
and none of them lead outward

       and leaping eyes
                  and stiff limbs
         follow the crunch of the keys

I am powerful now
and I will break those that carry the keys
       with little hammers
       small hammers
       which you will make for me
              and hide in the porridge

I will break all their heads
and lay them in neat rows
       and we shall wave high the keys
       and open wide a million doors
and all of us shall dance in the snow

and that poor woman in the spiral casket
shall warm a wooden doll to her dress
and lean her hair in the fire
the grating shall be taken from about the fire
and the woman and the keys shall go within
        all of us
            shall
               dance
                   within

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Emily Holmes Coleman (1899-1974) was born in California, and attended Wellesley College. Moved to Paris in 1926, began publishing poetry inTransition magazine, and wrote a novel—The Shutter of Snow (1930)—based on her experiences of being institutionalised. Worked as the society editor and staff-writer for the Paris Tribune, and was secretary to anarchist writer and political-activist Emma Goldman.

Goldman recalls: “I started for Saint-Tropez, a picturesque fisher nest in the south of France, in company of Emily Holmes Coleman, who was to act as my secretary. Demi, as she is familiarly called, was a wild wood-sprite with a volcanic temper. But she was also the tenderest of beings, without any guile or rancour. She was essentially the poet, highly imaginative and sensitive. My world of ideas was foreign to her, natural rebel and anarchist though she was. We clashed furiously, often to the point of wishing each other in Saint-Tropez Bay. But it was nothing compared to her charm, her profound interest in my work, and her fine understanding for my inner conflicts.”

“Writing had never come easy to me, and the work at hand did not mean merely writing. It meant reliving my long-forgotten past, the resurrection of memories I did not wish to dig out from the deeps of my consciousness. It meant doubts in my creative ability, depression, and disheartenings. All through that period Demi held out bravely and by her faith and encouragement proved the comfort and inspiration of the first year of my struggle.” (Living My Life, 1931)

During the summers of 1932 and 1933 Coleman spent time at Hayford Hall in Devonshire, England, rented by arts patron Peggy Guggenheim, and home to numerous poets and artists, including Djuna Barnes,—with whom Coleman was close—who wrote the novel Nightwood while staying there (published in 1936).

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