KENNETH NORMAN COOK

KENNETH NORMAN COOK

THE LONGING

Beyond the stuff of my dreams

and past my wildest imagination

there lies a craving… a desire

that has no name.

Beneath the deepest of my thoughts

and between the lines of my words

there sits a want… a need

of which cannot be spoken.

Behind the substance of my heart

and lost in the darkness

of my forgotten memories

there dwells a hunger… a yearning

for a something I cannot label

and I dare not touch.

For my soul is forever aflame

with a burning… an itching…

I long for that place, that home

where once I lived

in innocent, rapturous joy.

I long for that lost abode

where my spirit flew

among laughing silver stars

and my heart danced

with 10,000

singing golden moons.

KENNETH NORMAN COOK

FRIENDLY FIRE

My body has been set ablaze

by an unexpected flash of lightning.

My brain has been electrified

from a hot wire I didn’t see coming.

My soul has been blown into the sky

by a secret dynamite that was here,

right before my eyes all the time.

I am aflame… ignited… by friendly fire.

KENNETH NORMAN COOK

UNTITLED SONG OF PRAISE

She breathed in the radiance of the moon

and exhaled the stars,

while the dew quivered like liquid diamonds

on the drooping blades of grass

rippling at her soft, tiny feet.

She smiled into the morning sun

and the birds hushed their melodies,

while the wind waved the summer leaves

with silent, verdant applause.

She breathed out the wispy white clouds

and inhaled the sky,

while the Earth whirled like a mad carousel

across the black vault of eternity

and sang her name into the vast expanse of the heavens.

KENNETH NORMAN COOK

KENNETH NORMAN COOK is an American, born in the United States and raised in California in the 1960s. (English is his native language.) It was there in Southern California, in grade school that he began to fall in love with words, through a sixth grade English assignment to write a poem about Halloween. His entry was selected to be published in the school newsletter and that started him on a lifetime sojourn through the creative world known as poetry. After living away for many years, Kenneth is back in California, where he continues to write daily. He is a regular contributor to several magazines, including Wildfire Publications Monthly Magazine, where he is a co-contributor for a section on tips for writers. He has been featured in numerous poetry anthologies and has released a newly revised edition of his poetry collection, Shadow Walk With Me. He is also the author of a second book, This Side of Nothing, a third: a collection of haiku and senryu poetry, titled Theater of the Absurd, and a fourth: From Dark Corners and Dusty attics, which is a combination of older poems, both previously published, as well as published for the first time. Kenneth has recently released a fifth book, Strange Bedfellows: A Collection of Erotica & Limericks.