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.
Mountain 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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