Robert P. Cooke
Robert P. Cooke is a retired teacher and safety trainer. He enjoys sitting at the kitchen table, writing poetry and looking out the window at his wife’s flowers. He lives in Highland, Indiana.
— From March 2024Mountain Flowers
When I was sixteen, / pickup truck, load of hay, / there was nothing I’d rather see / from the window than women’s underwear / hanging on a backyard clothesline.
March 2024Lumps of Coal
He was ten and drove a team of mules / through the shadows in mine shafts, / pulling a wagonload of coal / that glinted in the carbide light / anchored to his cotton cap.
January 2024Selected Poems
— from “Reading Lu Yu in Winter” | I wonder how he was able to bear the cold of China, / Traveling the rivers and outpost roads. / The fires he wrote about were always small, / A few willow twigs or scraps of bark.
October 2012Leaning Back In My Chair, Feet Up On The Garden Table
I find nothing to do / And fall asleep under the sun / Near my wife’s peony beds.
August 2011In The Third Century B.C.
I’m growing fatter at each winter’s coming. / My wineglass filling up again / As I sit behind the wall of my garden.
November 2009An Anthology Of Chinese Poetry
“All has come to nothing,” he writes. / In old age his clothes are tattered and thin, / His hut without a door; sick, / He suffers bad dreams.
April 2007
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