Michael Cook’s poems give many pleasures. Some have a zenlike concision, others an imagistic yet thoughtful narrative flow reminding one of Wallace Stevens, and still others a playful quality in the best tradition of light verse. These are poems to savor for the sheer joy of companionship with a deep and wide-ranging mind and heart in his adventure with words and rhythm, images and drama.

The Rise and Fall of the Mind

What do you do with the terror

that creeps up in the night?

What do you do with the feeling

that nothing is quite right?

You watch it overwhelm you

then suddenly you find

it hits you like a crashing wave -

it's the rise and fall of the mind, yes,

the rise and fall of the mind.

What do you do with the laughter

that echoes in your thought?

You watch it seize and shake you

like a mouse the cat has caught.

Hysterical, not happy,

you're trapped in a double bind -

and then the laughter ebbs away -

it's the rise and fall of the mind, yes,

the rise and fall of the mind.

What do you do with the future

when you haven't any light?

Your mind is a drunken monkey

lurching in the night.

You must change your life, steady yourself,

get vision, because you're blind -

caught in eternal ebb and flow -

the rise and fall of the mind, yes,

the rise and fall of the mind, oh no!

the rise and fall of the mind...

The Brain, The Mind, and The Self

The brain is locked inside the skull. Our plight.

We're trapped, it seems, by bony limitation.

The brain is always cloaked in dark. No light

can penetrate far past the eyes dilation.

But the mind is free to roam around the world,

and dies to put together information.

It sees the light, and wonders why it's hurled

into this life. And then, in trepidation,

it sense boundaries, calls them birth and death,

and paces, restless, wondering where to go.

The search for Self inspires some to know

the life of God, mindful of each breath.

But as the brain is not the mind, the mind

is not the self the self can never find.

Michael Cook grew up in New York City. He attended Northwestern University where he studied theatre and film. After a brief stint movie-making in Hollywood he came back to New York, and turned to the study of mathematics.

After receiving his doctorate, he studied philosophy and theology for a year at seminary before going to Rockefeller University to do post-doctoral research.

He has co-authored four musicals, two of which have been produced: Le Shotgun Marriage (in summer stock) and The Lysistrata Affair (in an Equity Showcase).

He works on Wall Street in New York City, where he lives with his wife and best friend, Melissa.