Webshots

I started shooting again after a 10 year haitus, due to burnout. This morning, I received notice from Webshots that my Star Wars album had been featured as one of the top three for today. After all this time of not working in the field of photo journalism or photo art, it is most encouraging to receive notice and meet a lot of new people from the experience.

Love is a Mystery

CLICK HERE....Love is a Mystery

The Shadow of a Lion

©2007 Wayne Cook

She lay in his shadow; their bodies blocked the light
Crushing his face against her breasts in the night
It wasn’t hard to remember embraces long ago
The ones when time stopped and morning turned to go

She remembers his hands, the fingers and his care
She remembers his muscles, his eyes and his hair
She remembers how she compared him to Orion
She pauses and remembers the shadow of a Lion

She felt his breath across her skin warm and slow
Comfort was the gift that age had left them now
One last time he rose to cover her mouth with his
One last time they left the earth behind their kiss

I can’t go on writing these lines without tears
I can’t go on remembering the nights behind the years
I can’t sing without sadness and I know I can’t return
As my my heart relives each night's sad reminder as I yearn

Off The Beaten Path

My Secret Garden

(With assistance and consultation from Rebecca Quintana)

I'd like to lie under a tree with you up in the piney woods
Amongst fragrant needles, where two, akin to us may have stood
The poem and the poet repose, however long it may last
The love of written word and ink, off the beaten path.

It's strange, yet wonderful, this lovemaking through phrase
The twining of sinew and hearts could while away the days
We stitch our souls with no direction, and never stop to ask
For the love of this tiny thread, off the beaten path

I often wonder through page upon page, how this comes to be
So different from my love of wife, this loves is scattered free
It makes friends of unlikely fellows, rejoicing in a secret dance
Love across mountains and rolling seas, but off the beaten path

Treasure these moments, they will be few, stolen from frantic life
The clock doesn't stop for any, not love, not friend; harsh that knife
But sewing together, this rich company, by poem we are cast
Love the phrase, the sweet company, off the beaten path.

Life and Love

©2007 Wayne Cook

Dedicated to Rebecca Quintana

I saw this young mother, with toddler in tow,
The woman, her daughter, taking life a little slow
For a minute, an hour, a day by the shore
Some sand, smiles, life and love

Her daughter, an angel of tender years
Clowned her to laughter and trails of warm tears
Eyes like almonds cheeks of velvet skin
It was joy to watch, and I turned and gazed again

The mother, a woman of rare beauty to see
It was easy to perceive her sensuality
Shapely of form, tawny her neck
Her husband should be at her call and beck

Her breast showed young beauty, but also of care
The babe suckled as mother freely shared
The mother nurturing the babe, cooed like a dove
Grand scene of tenderness, life and love.

She's Queen of the Smile

©2007 Wayne Cook
Dedicated to Sandra Turner

She’s a mischief maker of the wonderful sort
With grins and laughter and comic retorts
She’s the queen of the smile, and funny besides
So she laughs at adversity but may cry inside

A mother of sons, daughters, and wee bairn
Protecting the brood, sleeps when she can
By morning, by day, by night she toils
And builds the fortress, from evil she foils

Perhaps it’s silly to attempt to peek in
And watch the doctor as she heals and befriends
Yet I must look about, for this woman within
Is skilled as a nurse and creative with pen

A poet of brain and heart and breast
Her life dedicated to nurturing her nest
So tender, so delicate, yet tougher than nails
Her hands build the lives and watches them sail

Scorning mundane and creating fantasies
One woman, one heart, one grand mystery
She’ll build a gift with paper and band
For a child, her angel, with innocent hands

A woman of stature yet tiny compared
To the world around her that she guards with care
Advisor, consultant, a secret preciously held
I tell you this story because I must, her story tell

This beautiful mother, most precious to see
A dear sister I pray, someday be free
Free from the worry, free from distrust
Free from the weary, held by pure love

He Claims the Damned Souls

©2007 Wayne Cook

Up in the curl of the silver surf,
You can see him riding high
Proud as a peacock arching its neck,
An emerald against the sky
His eyes gleaming their triumph,
Though feet are tight to the board
His muscles tense in concentration
As he beats the old man once more

Old man of the sea you claim the damned souls
By ones and twos and tens
You lie with wet lips in silence until
The winds wail and moan again
Oh, the way of the sea, and the life on the shore
Are seldom ever at peace
The young take their chance
At the watery dance
And the old man, he waits patiently

Down through the tube, the surfer skates on
Laughing his joy neath the roar
The hungry wave charges as if to say
Have your fun, boy, but this is war
It’s the battle of wit and timing and skin
As muscle and bone split the tide
I’d sooner be buried at sea than live
With the lubbers at office and grind

But once in a fortnight, with quiet and malice
The ocean will silently claim
A soul, a body, and fingers and mind
The boy who dares to disdain
The power, the old man, who swims on below
He grins as the surf soaks the shore
No man can live that close to the edge
And not bare his soul to the Lord

We Still Have Hope

©2007 Wayne Cook

I went with her to the hospital today
Uncertainty written in our eyes
Yesterday I thought we were both immune
Today I want to cry

You can care and work and watch and love
You can drop to your knees and pray
You can see the sky with it’s lowering clouds
You can leave and run away

No matter how tough you are
No matter if you live or die
No matter if you were god yesterday
No matter how you soar and fly

What we don’t know could kill her
What we know is how much we love
What I hope and pray for is mercy
What I do is hold her hand and touch

Tomorrow….hands we must trust
Tomorrow, well, good or bad, we will know
Tomorrow we may have a war to wage
Today; today we….we still have hope

Lavender

Dedicated to my friend, Kate Anderson, without whom this page would not exist.


http://k8sfauxtoes.blogspot.com/


©2007 Wayne Cook

Sun cascades through its fragile skin,…
Delicate and and tenuous like secret sin,…
The flower glows with translucence and light,…
Speckles and lavender proud and bright.

Sometimes

©2007 Wayne Cook
A minstrel sings songs that sometimes tell a story
His stories are often made of blood and history
You can hear his guitar softly like a Sunday rain
And often love lost pushes through the poet’s pain

For a story is nothing less or more
Than a song that just cracks a door
And you’re left with emptiness for the rest to be told
But you and I both know that life is full of holes

Questions come but the minstrel just nods and sings
No answers come of this wise old poet king
The pain of desire unsatisfied, you start to feel tired and old
But the song and its interrogation go on and on

But stories nearly always pull us to the fire’s distorted grin
We rather enjoy the telling of the other man’s tasty sin
Transgression and forgiveness, not always hand in hand
You eyes tell a tail that isn’t hard to understand

Sometimes the repentance of our sins seems endless
Sometimes the fire just burns and dulls us
Sometimes the answers come for questions yet to be said
Sometimes those answers are just a crust of unsatisfying bread

Workin' Hands

©2007
Wayne Cook

Down in Mississippi back in 1962
They was pullin’ corn and filling trucks and listenin’ to the blues
It was hard work and hard money and Klansmen in the streets
You could hear the rumble of the people’s restless feet

Life was hard but life was good, and a story to be told
I liked what I felt and I liked just feelin’ bold
Courage was a word that we never thought about
We just did what we did and ignored the rolling clouds

There was thunder, there was noise, there were battle lines drawn
There was activists who were throwing the gauntlet down
All we wanted was a little work, a little fun and Saturday in the park
All I wanted was a good woman to hold with a lovin’ heart

Working long, workin’ hard, workin’ hands don’t often kill
You gotta serve somebody and we-all be servin’ still
So I work for my 5 dollars and a bit o’ supper going home
You take all your money and bank it in that brick house downtown

The Lion's Heart

Wayne Cook
©2007

You majesty, she said with hands in worship's respect,
I would my people and my honor protect,
Grant me this day one magnificent wish,
Send me out tonight with a Lion's heart my gift.

The king was struck with the young girl's plea,
No one else had petitioned him for such strange leave,
People had begged for favors, for pardon, for gold,
They had bartered and traded and left him cold.

Her eyes were as soft as they were direct,
His royal heart warmed; he could feel no threat,
He wondered and pondered this strange request,
And still his eye would yield to grant her quest.

He cleared his throat, like kings are wont,
Already he'd decided he would not this damsel taunt,
My young one, he said, as he stood to his feet,
My young one, what is the quest you seek?

She answered with a riddle, and true it rang,
The hall echoed with it's portent, implication, and tang
Sharp the word, sharp the intent, sharp now the eyes,
Sharp the finger that accused the evil stye.

He who keeps the entrance of lust and deceit,
He who winds the heart with vines of defeat,
He who wounds the man with soul in the dust,
He who speaks lies with honey, and breaks the trust.

Strong is the woman who evil loathes,
Strong is the cord that binds her to oath,
Strong is the soul that pursues the quest,
Strong is the Lion's Heart she grasps to her breast