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Best Poems Written by Cooper Etheridge

Below are the all-time best Cooper Etheridge poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Cooper Etheridge Poem

A Fawn and a Frog

A springtime fawn found a placid pond and knelt down for a drink.

She bent her knees into the mud,
And placed her velveted chin 
parallel to the pond 
and the dawn found 
the edge of the earth.

The touch of the fawn’s
Mouth made the water wake.
(and all things in it).

And as she drank,
the orchestra played the pond-song play. 

The whole pond awoke to the sound of the little, lapping,
fawn’s tongue-song. 

A tadpole was freed and ...Swam in the song.  

He surfaced. 

Greened in the dawn.

And surprised the fawn. 

He saddled her sweet new nose
With his bright green clothes. 
And she sneezed him
Aloft a red virgin rose.

Details | Cooper Etheridge Poem

Eraser

On my first day
I met a new friend.
We had the same new sneakers 
And sharpened pencils
And coloring books
And backpacks
And French braids
And rulers
And we smelled the same smells of our school. 

My pencil eraser broke off and fell to the old wooden floor when I erased my drawing too hard
And she picked it up
And said, “I’ll never forget you.”

Details | Cooper Etheridge Poem

An Empty Suitcase

My heart is an empty suitcase
That I store in the attic
It waits for me to fill it with all the things I need to leave. 
One time I took it down overhead 
stepping on the stepladder 
down to the hall to my closet,
And filled it with carefully folded shirts and pants and good looking things
Thinking about the tablecloths and napkins that were folded neatly at a great restaurant where I’d sit across from you
After landing and driving and picking you up and driving and sitting down. 

My navy blue, hardshell suitcase had an old airline tag that an airport girl abruptly ripped off before putting on a fresh new one. 

I thought about her green eyes while you and I had dinner that night. 

When I got home, I unpacked and threw everything on the floor and carried my empty suitcase back up to the attic. 

But when I got down from the attic stairs,
Your turquoise scarf was laying on top of the clothes
And I thought of your eyes
Before they closed
While I watched them 
last night.

Details | Cooper Etheridge Poem

Let Roots Bloom High

Buried so long in rules and obligations
To the earth, the roots have worked. 

Every time a raindrop falls on a petal,
It finally finds the earth
But the petal owns the mirth
Forgetting it started in the earth first. 

The sky births the snowflake
And the snowflake starts the river
Raging
And the doe in the meadow waits
Nervously

For the river to slow down and gently flow 
Through the meadow. 

Water interrupts war. 

Instead it finds life in a root
Of a plant
That makes a flower
That we must give to that little snowflake that started it all. 
Give to the roots and let them bloom
High.

Details | Cooper Etheridge Poem

Amarillo

There once was a man from Amarillo
Whose wife looked like an armadillo
The tooth fairy came
And left in shame
Empty, like his mouth on the pillow.

Details | Cooper Etheridge Poem

A Split Peach

It never got to ripen before it had started splitting at the seam.
It was still too yellow. 
Not soft enough. 
Too smooth like it was pulled out of the tree too soon 
before it had a chance to feel.

It never got to feel enough of the breezes
It never got covered in the morning dew and feel the sun slowly dry its un-ripened skin
And start again
Or ever feel the earth catch it when it falls
In the verdant valley
Where I laid you down in your grass-stained
white gown 
before it rained
And where I cried 
missing all your sneezes. 

Instead, it split too soon
Its heart broke before it got to fall.

Details | Cooper Etheridge Poem

Being Wrong

It’s an awful feeling to be wrong
Like a fish thrown back and having to explain the trick to others
Or a child at the chalkboard 
Walking back to his desk
After the equation was wrong 
And how it didn’t equal just right

Or mostly in work when we’re wrong
At the big meeting table
Beginning the lie
And lying to be right

Or massively in marriage
Singing the wrong song
To our lovely spouse
Playing ping-pong
And running like a mouse

And how we watch the news
Which is never wrong to us
And which we must discuss. 

And how a very young rock at the bottom of the Grand Canyon was thrown by some tourist and settled in a basin of abject agelessness. 
The rock felt shame. 

But being wrong is right. 
Like the ocean waves that fall back again 
And the erosion of the beach
And your tears
And how they stop and go on your cheek. 

Being wrong is right
Without our petty spite 
Being wrong on earth
Is a barn with mirth.

Details | Cooper Etheridge Poem

Hark

Hark

The captain spoke to the sick and starving
As he bobbled on the bow
And began
We will go there
Pointing his crooked finger as his dark, salty body dropped 
But with each upsurge he made another point
You are here because you got lost
I'm here to take you home
Down surge
I'm not sure we will make it
Upsurge
But you have strong oars made of Spanish mahogany one at a time
Down surge
Some of you are weaker and will think of dying
Upsurge
Others will pick you up because you are worthy of love
Down surge
Your stomachs are full of toxic blubber meat
Upsurge
You will endure for the purpose of Her
hug at port, wet and tired and lost
Down surge
You will not endure if you are proud
Upsurge
Down surge
And just his eyes. 
Only sounds of orphaned oars and flapping sails and rusty rudders. 

Two whales appear, each pick a side. 
Guiding, with twin wakes, and moving the boys toward there
Upsurge
Down surge
The whales were moving them there. 
Screaming to their distant loved ones
I'll be home soon

Details | Cooper Etheridge Poem

I Will Always Be a Seed

My calloused black skin got shoved in the soil by a white mans soiled thumb
Trying to make his mortgage off me

Buried
I found friends 
Barely breathing

But we sang. One friend was named Hosanna. 

We gathered ourselves together in song. 

Mother Earth appeared in the darkness. 

She pushed us together, further, until our sprouting threads joined hands in prayer singing,”Hosanna in the highest.”

And the farmer prayed while he and his children tamped us down in the dark wet black soil. 

But the choir was loud that day. 
Singing, “hail thee festival day”
And as we grouped, my new friends found the ground and the sun 

And bloomed a watermelon 
That plopped itself, all greened up,
Onto the farmers knees. 

And he hugged all of us. 
The green, the red, the white, and 
The black. 

Later, there was a picnic and the farmer kissed his wife. 

And she spit me out back onto the soil. 
I will always be a seed.

Details | Cooper Etheridge Poem

Birdlady

All the little feathers in her wings
Stood firmly at attention
And as she stood tall
Her straightened back
Unfurled the last twisted barbs
She stood on her tip toes at the station
Waiting for the fog to clear
The air's stomach was full of rain
She stood tall and taut
Gazing out over the rails, the buildings, the parks, her empty home, the little dots of strangers, she saw broadly
Her lost love and past
And just flew above it all