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short poetry by Hugh Cook

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The Fish

Late afternoon.
Hamstrung by shallows,
A fin in the sun.
I killed it to eat.
Dead, it was so beautiful
I left it as spoiled meat.

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Van Gough

Van Gough
Commits his ear to history:
History
Commits Van Gough.

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Sunflower

Since I am not a sunflower,
The spring
Is not sufficient
(without you)

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short poetry
Shortpoems

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Cherry Blossom, April 2003

Fresh blossoms.
No thought of falling.
Behind closed eyelids,
Smoke.

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Odysseus on Delos

The quick flames eat.

The white ash feathers to the sky.
The light pours down, as light
On Ida and on Samothrace descended,
Lucidities of light to make more pitiless
All deeds of daylight.

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Warpoem

Nausica. The daughter of a king.

Dreams of the pulse of a beating moth.
Dreaming of dolphins leaping and turquoise tiles.
Nausica earnest as Odysseus tells his stories:
How swords gashed echoes from the sky,
How heroes clashed, and one narneked the other,
Gorbelled his skull, trophated his endention,
Debaunched his orchids, and called forth
The hidden pitches of panic
Out from their lair of bones.

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Warpoets

The warpoets are singing

Oil, profit, peace, power,
Sweet lubrication,
Pumping in through the back border,
Drive-in window war.

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Publication details: "The Fish" and "Van Gough" were first published in Craccum on 12 March 1979 and was first posted on the Internet by Hugh Cook on 2003 March 21 Friday. Copyright © 1979, 2003 Hugh Cook. All rights reserved.

"Sunflower" was first published in Craccum on 10 April 1979 and was first posted on the Internet by Hugh Cook on 2003 March 21 Friday. Copyright © 1979, 2003 Hugh Cook. All rights reserved.

The poems "Cherry Blossom, April 2003," "Odysseus on Delos," "Warpoem," "Warpoets" and "Raw Materials" were first posted on the Internet in 2003. Copyright © 2003 Hugh Cook. All rights reserved.