Jack Cooper | Nocturne

Nocturne

Moments before,
outside in the summer air
where a tree of heaven rose,

above an old oak door
and a gray stone stair:
something shone —
I did not know.

The lamp yellow glowed;
leaf in shadow struck,
repose breezes scold —

at the edge of shown
that I must learn

in the dark, alone myself:
strange, night only may have.


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John “Jack” Jackie (Edward) Cooper is the creator of These Are Aphorithms, author of TEN (Poets Wear Prada, 2012), TEN … More (Poets Wear Prada, 2016), and translator of Wax Women, with French texts of the original poems by Jean-Pierre Lemesle (International Art Office: Paris, 1985). His work has appeared widely, in print and online, most recently in The Opiate, Rat’s Ass Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, and Paris Lit Up 7. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he is editor and co-publisher of Poets Wear Prada, a small press based in Hoboken, New Jersey. He lives in Paris.

Jack Cooper | While We May

While We May

A fecundity of seed drifts

On the breeze and greenth wakens,

Thickening the tongue and in the eye —

Drunkenness to look on . . . 

All enrapt in a cool spell;

Shivering under a slight stole of rain.

Coin, flitted, of the elm, frittered —

Literally, fluttering butterily — away.

Glows grass (and grows) with her near-glad strength:

Proserpine’s lengthening sad,

Mad turn from afar: Did she not? Come back?

Neither of us lived nor should we ever have loved.



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John Jack Jackie (Edward) Cooper is the creator of These Are Aphorithms (http://aphorithms.blogspot.com), author of Ten (Poets Wear Prada, 2012), Ten … More (Poets Wear Prada, 2016), and translator of Wax Women, with French texts of the original poems by Jean-Pierre Lemesle (International Art Office: Paris, 1985). His work has appeared widely, in print and online, most recently in The Opiate, Rat’s Ass Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, and Paris Lit Up 7. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he is editor and co-publisher of Poets Wear Prada, a small press based in Hoboken, New Jersey. He lives in Paris.