Three Poems : Jerome Crooks

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Jubilee

 

it seems small to me
the night terrors
the struggle to quit smoking
when I stop to think about today.

the fields will lay fallow all year
the smokestacks will not burp
so that we can feel the sky
you saw fifty years ago
with the same awe in the face everything.

 

We ordered a rickshaw this morning
to be pulled by Quicksilver
            the worlds fastest superhero.
yet you walked

We prepared the long table
lamb, squirrel, rabbit, and a herd of geese.
you only want a light supper

A choir of angels is on hand
with fifty year old beards
saluting ‘I love you’ in sign
spinning guitars in time
            to the spinning 22 inch platinum
            rims on the rickshaw.
you sit

            until the band strikes up Tequila
            when He interrupts saying
“I didn’t take away the weight and give you new knees to sit.”

and you dance the way you danced
after your first reconciliation.

 

It was a great party and felt fifty years long but
there is someone on the phone
            says they’re from Ethiopia
            says they want an interview.
They’ve been watching you
and want to write you into
their Book Of Jubilees
to pray through you
forever.

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Jerome ‘Rev Rome’ Crooks was raised in Buffalo, NY and Deep Creek, VA. Twleve years ago he moved to Pittsburgh, where he served as poet laureate of South Oakland for severn years. He currently lives in Shadyside and is finishing work on “The Moment I Feared”, his first manuscript.