Black August

Jack Cooper

Swollen skies —
great mobile bruises of cloud;

and at the brink blue hopeful,
lightly brightened by wish,

rendered invincible
and white with the sun.

John Jack Jackie (Edward) Cooper is the creator of These Are Aphorithms (http://aphorithms.blogspot.com) and the author of Ten (Poets Wear Prada, 2012). His American English translation of Wax Women, with French texts of the original poems by Jean-Pierre Lemesle and photographs by Henry Jacobs (International Art Office: Paris, 1985), drew acclaim and dedicated full-window display from the Gotham Book Mart in New York — legendary fishing hole to the “wise” — released in the United States the following year. His work has appeared in Brownstone Poets 2013; The Venetian Hour, Dinner with the Muse, Part II; CLWR 49, CLWR 50, and online (exitstrata.com); forthcoming, in the Unbearables anthology “Somewhere to Nowhere.” His whereabouts have been numerous, like his names, but, unlike them, currently unknown. He is editor and co-publisher of Poets Wear Prada, a small literary press based in Hoboken, New Jersey ― birthplace of baseball and Frank Sinatra. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.