Two Poems

by Robert Cook

Three Recipes

i.

flour, salt and
three drops of
placental blood

bake in a lead pan
and leave at the door
of the afflicted

ii.
​
boil lotus,
gold leaf
and amarine

lick the pot’s lid
dry, then fast
till the border

iii.

cloak gallstones
in corpse flower
and blessed thistle

bury under ash,
harvest in snow,
serve with rice 

Crossing

I saw a toad at a crossroads
that had waited so long
for its mate or the rain or a lift
far away from here

it had emptied itself out,
flattened itself to the earth
so wholly that its carcass
shone like weathered tin

At the flyover’s juncture
was a dead brown hand
waving in synchronised grief
in a trio of mourners

three arms buried to the wrist
in stone, hands thrusting out
in admonition of fate,
the forced second glance

showing me ferns in algal concrete
that had dropped a tricolour banner
as the dead toad’s shroud,
tra, o, and ire decipherable

the orphan ferns singing
it to its reptilian underworld,
vegetal hands offering the path
to the toad’s amphibious soul 

Robert Cook is originally from Kent in England, and now lives and works in Brisbane, Australia. He is a father of three, and has worked as a registered nurse since 1992. Now in his fifties, he is a definitely older, though of course not actually old, emerging poet.