{"id":661,"date":"2024-02-05T09:32:06","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T15:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/?post_type=product&#038;p=661"},"modified":"2025-09-05T12:57:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:57:36","slug":"asking-my-liver-for-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/product\/asking-my-liver-for-forgiveness","title":{"rendered":"Asking My Liver for Forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>by Rob Cook<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<style>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t#tab_container_660 {\r\n\toverflow:hidden;\r\n\tdisplay:block;\r\n\twidth:100%;\r\n\tborder:0px solid #ddd;\r\n\tmargin-bottom:30px;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_660 .tab-content{\r\n\tpadding:20px;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\tmargin-top: 0px;\r\n\tbackground-color:#fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tfont-size:16px !important;\r\n\tfont-family: Open Sans !important;\r\n\t\r\n\t\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\t}\r\n#tab_container_660 .wpsm_nav-tabs {\r\n    border-bottom: 0px solid #ddd;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_660 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a, #tab_container_660 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:hover, #tab_container_660 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:focus {\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tcursor: default;\r\n\tbackground-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_660 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a {\r\n    margin-right: 0px !important; 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\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n#tab_container_660 .tab-content{\r\noverflow:hidden !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n@media (min-width: 769px) {\r\n\r\n\t#tab_container_660 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\n\t\tfloat:left !important ;\r\n\t\t\t\tmargin-right:-1px !important;\r\n\t\t\t\t\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_660 .wpsm_nav-tabs{\r\n\t\tfloat:none !important;\r\n\t\tmargin:0px !important;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n\t#tab_container_660 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_660 .wpsm_nav{\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n@media (max-width: 768px) {\r\n\t#tab_container_660 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_660 .wpsm_nav{\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t.wpsm_nav-tabs li:before{\r\n\t\tdisplay:none !important;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n\t@media (max-width: 768px) {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t.wpsm_nav-tabs{\r\n\t\t\tmargin-left:0px !important;\r\n\t\t\tmargin-right:0px !important; \r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\t#tab_container_660 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\n\t\t\tfloat:none !important;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t}\t\t\t\t<\/style>\r\n\t\t\t\t<div id=\"tab_container_660\" >\r\n\t \r\n\t\t\t\t\t<ul class=\"wpsm_nav wpsm_nav-tabs\" role=\"tablist\" id=\"myTab_660\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li role=\"presentation\"  class=\"active\"  onclick=\"do_resize()\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#tabs_desc_660_1\" aria-controls=\"tabs_desc_660_1\" role=\"tab\" data-toggle=\"tab\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Overview<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li role=\"presentation\"  onclick=\"do_resize()\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#tabs_desc_660_2\" aria-controls=\"tabs_desc_660_2\" role=\"tab\" data-toggle=\"tab\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Excerpts<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/ul>\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\t\t  <!-- Tab panes -->\r\n\t\t\t\t\t  <div class=\"tab-content\" id=\"tab-content_660\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane  in active \" id=\"tabs_desc_660_1\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p style=\"text-align: left\"><em>After a subtly disturbing, two-month illness of fatigue, depression, creepy psychological states, psychotic rage, and tickles of low-grade nausea, I woke up the morning after Thanksgiving, 2013, with an itchy chest and abdomen. My immediate, pre-conscious reaction: liver is hurt, dead in six months.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"sm_text\"><strong>Praise for Rob Cook's Other Work:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"sm_text\" style=\"text-align: left\">\"Eschewing neat closures, Cook creates poems that arguably compose one long gesture, the sections open to and echoing each other, all held together by the pain of a unblinking awareness as well as by a ubiquitous freshness in the writing\u2014if Cook sees a worn linguistic or perceptual path in front of him, he always veers off in a new direction that challenges both himself and his reader. Fueled by a deep dismay, the poetry goes beyond Surrealism, for Breton's 'astonish me' is no longer sufficient; the many contemporary outrages of Cook's 'always lurking, indefinable country' require instead a poetic that can register the shock of 'castrated hymns' and 'the statues of sharks inside our mouths.'\"<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">\u2014Philip Dacey<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"sm_text\" style=\"text-align: left\">\"Cook writes admirably rhythmic poems, For instance, \"After the Psalms Have Gone\": <em>there is a door \/and a book of gold\/and a road made of light\/and mountains blowing\/among the windy fallen stars.\u00a0<\/em>The beat of the line mirrors the revelations that are the subject of the poem and his easy and unembarrassed contemplation of the spiritual is refreshing. His tying of the intimacies of personal experience into a larger cosmic picture gives his work a profundity that might not be apparent at first glance.\u00a0 You have the admirable clarity of \"The Book of Iowa\u201d\u00a0<em>I climb out of bed, listen\/to you digging a cold space\/under the crows and cities of corn.\u00a0<\/em>One has overall an impression of a poetry fuelled by melancholy and dismay, which disdains easy conclusions and simple joy. The vigour of his language and the startling freshness of his imagery are undeniable, as is his talent.\"<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">\u2014Gareth Spark<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><strong><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-643\" src=\"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/rob-cook-headshot.jpg\" alt=\"Rob Cook\" width=\"200\" height=\"250\" \/>Rob Cook<\/strong> lives in New York City\u2019s East Village. He is the author of six collections, including\u00a0<em>Blueprints for a Genocide\u00a0<\/em>(Spuyten Duyvil, 2012) and\u00a0<em>Empire in the Shade of a Grass Blade\u00a0<\/em>(Bitter Oleander Press, 2013). Work has appeared in\u00a0<em>Asheville Poetry Review, Caliban, Fence, A cappella Zoo, Zoland Poetry, Tampa Review, Minnesota Review, Aufgabe, Caketrain, Many Mountains Moving, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Colorado Review, Bomb (online), Sugar House Review, Mudfish, Pleiades, Versal, Weave, Wisconsin Review, Ur Vox, Heavy Feather Review, Phantom Drift, Osiris,\u00a0<\/em>etc.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane \" id=\"tabs_desc_660_2\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<P><strong>2014<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI dragged my body to the end of my street<BR>\r\nand there was no new year.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI watched the cinder blocks<BR>\r\ngrowing legs and fur.<BR>\r\nThey had no place to sleep<BR>\r\nor stay warm. And no,<BR>\r\nthey were not cats.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI saw a diseased liver on the sidewalk.<BR>\r\nNothing stopped to sniff<BR>\r\nor taste it. But it smelled<BR>\r\nlike a pouch of rancid diamonds.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nIn one house a phone vibrated<BR>\r\nuntil it fell to the floor.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nIn another the children were forcing<BR>\r\nshoes to eat each other.<BR>\r\nOr maybe one child was simply<BR>\r\nchewing his lips.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe houses\u2014and no one knew<BR>\r\nwho left them there\u2014were dark<BR>\r\nand absorbed none of the afternoon light.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nAnd on the smallest known world\u2014<BR>\r\ntwo men\u2014father and son\u2014waited<BR>\r\nto hear the name of the thing<BR>\r\nplundering their insides.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI thought I heard a flock of geese\u2014<BR>\r\nI turned around, twice,<BR>\r\nbut it was just a radio chirping<BR>\r\ninside a car parked at the wrong<BR>\r\nwind coordinate,<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nand above us, by a storm deviation or less,<BR>\r\none uninterrupted cloud mass<BR>\r\nlike the lid of a garbage can<BR>\r\ncemented to the sky where nothing moved.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI lured my body to the end of my street<BR>\r\nbut it was a lie all along\u2014<BR>\r\nthere was no new year.<\/P>\r\n<hr>\r\n<P><strong>Washing Away the Permanent Color Yellow<\/strong><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI took my liver from its swollen house<BR>\r\nand washed it carefully with a cloth<BR>\r\nmade from my troubled yellow silence.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI washed my liver until it licked my hand.<BR>\r\nI washed my liver and it leaked<BR>\r\na poisonous ocean breeze.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI let my liver play with all the other livers<BR>\r\nI freed from that fatty ditch in my side.<BR>\r\nI watched them squirm like sponges on the bed.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nBut then their squirming stopped, and I felt the nausea<BR>\r\nof a hermit crab when the livers froze into a fatal<BR>\r\nmoonlight, scavenging the tiredness for their shells.<\/P>\r\n<HR>\r\n<P><strong>Blackness over Motel Country<\/strong><br>\r\n<BR>\r\nIn the dead solar systems of my sleep<br>\r\nI can see through the sky\u2019s lit windows,<br>\r\n<br>\r\nbites left by liver-scarred spiders<br>\r\nwho\u2019ve snuck into bed with me,<br>\r\n<br>\r\ntheir deep fatigue mined<br>\r\nfrom the hospital north of Mechanicsville.<br>\r\n<br>\r\nI\u2019m frightened because I think I see God\u2019s hair bleeding<br>\r\nbehind one of the windows.<br>\r\n<br>\r\nIn another a man scribbles<br>\r\nwith a No. 2 pencil the word RAIN all over his walls.<br>\r\n<br>\r\nAnd in the closest one a woman tucks a can opener<br>\r\ninto a dark shawl, though I can\u2019t be sure,<br>\r\n<br>\r\nperhaps it\u2019s a brown medicine bottle; the woman\u2019s mouth moves,<br>\r\nI know she sings the color of sadness,<br>\r\n<br>\r\nthe parable of my terrors buried all over the sky<br>\r\nby the dragons that created us.<br>\r\n<br>\r\nBut when the manager of the Marion Motel<br>\r\nsays: \u201cYou know where to come for the best possible sleep\u201d<br>\r\n<br>\r\nand the way his voice eliminates everything,<br>\r\nas if it\u2019s already purchased the nightmare coordinates of my coal-black planet,<br>\r\nit\u2019s difficult to tell if the tunnels between bathrooms<br>\r\nhave dried into dead rivers<br>\r\n<br>\r\nor if he knows the mattress where Aaron Tosh<br>\r\nand his unmarked trails to Chicago<br>\r\n<br>\r\nwere buried with a cocktail of bullets<br>\r\nand transplanted telephone confessions.<br>\r\n<br>\r\nMaybe the woman who nursed my advanced<br>\r\njaundice can still see my yellow eyes<br>\r\n<br>\r\nmoving through the winter of room number six.<br>\r\n\u201cI got sick without once leaving my childhood,\u201d I tell her.<br>\r\n<br>\r\n\u201cThe pine needles will not hurt you from there,\u201d<br>\r\nthe woman says through her conduit of ash tray static.<br>\r\n<br>\r\nIt is not my own voice, the despair of the television<br>\r\nthat doesn\u2019t end. \u201cI am always watching from<br>\r\n<br>\r\nthe livers that came before you,\u201d she says<br>\r\nwhen the sleep creatures pass like a blur of doctors<br>\r\n<br>\r\nand their searchlights of mist. Maybe she discusses<br>\r\nmy elevated comet count with the man selling<br>\r\n<br>\r\nthe letters left in the vacancy sign, a blinking between<br>\r\nvoids where one interferon raven roosts.<br>\r\n<br>\r\nMaybe I hear the bird remnants of her father praying<br>\r\nto some unforgiven meteor in the ceiling\u2019s camera stains.<br>\r\n<br>\r\nI\u2019m always close to a strength that doesn\u2019t belong anywhere<br>\r\nbecause when the manager washes the sky\u2019s curtains, I can see<br>\r\n<br>\r\nto the end of the universe, the same woman sitting<br>\r\nby a lemon-colored house with all of my pills purring in her lap.<\/P>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t \r\n\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n <script>\r\n\t\tjQuery(function () {\r\n\t\t\tjQuery('#myTab_660 a:first').tab('show')\r\n\t\t});\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\tjQuery(function(){\r\n\t\t\tvar b=\"fadeIn\";\r\n\t\t\tvar c;\r\n\t\t\tvar a;\r\n\t\t\td(jQuery(\"#myTab_660 a\"),jQuery(\"#tab-content_660\"));function d(e,f,g){\r\n\t\t\t\te.click(function(i){\r\n\t\t\t\t\ti.preventDefault();\r\n\t\t\t\t\tjQuery(this).tab(\"show\");\r\n\t\t\t\t\tvar h=jQuery(this).data(\"easein\");\r\n\t\t\t\t\tif(c){c.removeClass(a);}\r\n\t\t\t\t\tif(h){f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+h);a=h;}\r\n\t\t\t\t\telse{if(g){f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+g);a=g;}else{f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+b);a=b;}}c=f.find(\"div.active\");\r\n\t\t\t\t});\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\t\t});\r\n\t\t\r\n\r\n\t\tfunction do_resize(){\r\n\r\n\t\t\tvar width=jQuery( '.tab-content .tab-pane iframe' ).width();\r\n\t\t\tvar height=jQuery( '.tab-content .tab-pane iframe' ).height();\r\n\r\n\t\t\tvar toggleSize = true;\r\n\t\t\tjQuery('iframe').animate({\r\n\t\t\t    width: toggleSize ? width : 640,\r\n\t\t\t    height: toggleSize ? height : 360\r\n\t\t\t  }, 250);\r\n\r\n\t\t\t  toggleSize = !toggleSize;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t<\/script>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0Rob Cook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":662,"template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[28],"product_tag":[44],"class_list":{"0":"post-661","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-poetry","7":"product_tag-rob-cook","9":"first","10":"instock","11":"shipping-taxable","12":"purchasable","13":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=661"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=661"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}