KENNETH NORMAN COOK

KENNETH NORMAN COOK

O BRAVE KNIGHT

The slayer of one thousand dragons.

Heralded throughout the land.

Beloved by all the fair maidens.

Worshiped by all the young boys.

Praised by all who proclaimed his name.

O brave knight:

with your shining silver armor,

your sword of sharp, glistening steel,

your heart of unconquerable courage,

your noble steed with flowing white mane

and your undaunted iron-will.

O brave knight:

How then did such a tragedy come to pass?

She stood before you with her silky golden locks,

her soul-capturing eyes of azure-sky, icy blue,

her long satin gown of shimmering rainbow colors

and her heart-melting, angel-shaming, divine face.

Slain like a bleeding dragon, crawling in the black mud.

Disgraced as a wanton bastard throughout the land.

Despised from jealous rage by all the fair maidens.

Hated and mocked by all the disenchanted young boys.

Scorned by all, as the weak, cowardly traitor

who sold his sacred honor for the love of a woman.

Driven to his groveling knees by the fiery song of the siren.

Shriveled in the shadow of the warrior-destroying goddess.

FINIS

Come, o come swiftly, thou terminus.

Come quickly hence, thou gatherer of flesh.

Enwrap me in thy strong, ropy arms.

Embrace me with thy white, skeletal hands.

End me… Complete me… Finish me… Devour me.

Take me back to my roots, my origin, my beginning.

Return me to the inky, empty, dead, dark, eternal void.

Hurl me into the black, thick, hollow, everlasting nothingness.

Come, o come swiftly thou Harvester.

Come, o come quickly thou Reaper.

Take me…

Take me…

THE ONLY PAIN THAT MATTERS

Yours is the only pain that matters.

To hell with the spine-chilling wails in the night

by the myriad mourners who sit and rock

on the edges of their lonely beds; fingers

clutching and tugging their stringy, sweaty hair.

Yours is the only pain that matters.

Screw the nameless, sorrow-filled thousands

who grit and grind their teeth in brain-liquefying

agony at the irreplaceable loss of a love they cannot

dare to live without; who stand paralyzed with

soul-obliterating, unimaginably intense sadness.

Yours is the only pain that matters.

You don’t give one single solitary damn about the

forgotten nobodies who huddle and clutch themselves

in pathetic fetal positions in the dark, dusty corners

and the deep grey shadows of sick, abject loneliness;

their pale faces saturated with hot tears; their glazed

eyes flared wide from personal, unseen terrors and

their white, lanky limbs trembling with a nauseating

horror that thrusts their punctured hearts up into their

throats with a hot, thick, clogging bang and thump.

Yours is the only pain that matters.

Yours is the only heart that breaks.

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. Here is a writer with over one thousand poems in his writing arsenal. Be prepared for a literary roller-coaster of emotions, imagery and intense imagination, for this is the poetry of Kenneth Norman Cook.