2026.09.29
When I was a kid
I thought life could be anything
Anything at all
Endless horizons
writing
Poems, an artist book and notes kept on a phone.
Nico Antuna Cooper holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. His book Where am I in this desert was published by Duende Nuevo Press in 2019, and his thesis, Burning, was completed in 2020. Shorter poems are kept in the notes app on his phone; together with his camera roll, they form the archive this site is drawn from.
Where am I in this desert
PUSH THE WHEEL or the wheel will push you
Poems, paintings and photographs in 36 pages. The full book can be read here.
Burning
Burning is about occult magic, the Catholic eye, the mind jewel, and the color of my skin under the summer sun.
From the project statement. The visual poems below come from the 2019 sampler.
list of poems
- 01 i am
- 02 prodigy
- 03 holy weather
- 04 pollution shines bright in the summer rain of ciudad mexico
- 05 glimpsed
- 06 oda al sol
- 08 ouroboros (part i)
- 09 sediment
- 10 the passive man
- 11 nigredo
- 12 guero
- 13 aloe
- 14 the lovers
- 15 américa smog and the dry rio grande
- 17 duende
- 18 to have game
- 19 oasis / mirage
- 20 still waiting
- 21 oración
- 22 aguas
- 24 phantoms
- 25 july
- 26 dreams bled gold
- 27 suns
- 28 electrical storm / alluvium
- 29 the space in between
- 30 crazy dumbsaint of the mind
- 31 ladder to the sun
- 32 alpha male
- 33 xeriscaping
- 34 indigo
- 35 ouroboros (part ii)
- 36 ocean
- 37 culture
- 38 roads
- 39 fruit
- 41 watercolors
- 42 prisons
- 43 scarab
- 44 baptism
- 45 correspondences
- 46 as above so below
- 47 a billionaire’s night
- 48 morningstar
- 49 stones
- 50 oils
- 51 crossed wires in the mind sky
- 53 rain dance
- 54 how to keep calm in a storm
- 55 amorillo
- 56 fuegos artificiales
- 57 ouroboros (part iii)
- 58 summer rain
- 59 espiritu
- 60 a zen flame
the archive
The photographs and poems on this site are fragments from his phone.
Over several years he kept photographs in his camera roll and short poems in the notes app, with no plan to show them. For this site, AI was used to sift through that archive. It sorted the photographs by light and subject, read the notes and matched poems to images.
The fragments appear as they were found, with the dates they were written. The notes appear in full below, under keep. The same archive is arranged three ways: fotografía, liner notes and memoria.
keep
Short poems typed into the notes app on his phone, dated the day they were written; newest first.
2026.03.24
Ladders
Where I'm from
There's no ladders
Except the ones
You build yourself
2026.03.07
The Dream
Is really
In the place
I Dreamt It
2025.12.26
I dont like art that is too fragile
Reality is chaotic and damaging
My art is anti fragile
The more distressed it is
The more beautiful it becomes
2025.11.24
The present
Is wondrous
Staring at the paint on the wall
So many details
In the evening half light
2025.11.21
INRI
Ser peregrino
Es fácil
Solo hay que andar
Y
Yo ando
En la sombra
De cristo rey
2025.11.21
Asi me siento
Y no me arrepiento
Veo el cielo y me callo
La oscuridad
Un regalo
Que la vida me ha dado
2025.11.13
Breathe in
The cool air
Of the creosotes
The mountainside sings
2025.11.08
We live on a border
A liminal space
A bridge
A threshold
There is another bridge
Between us and God
All you have to do
Is walk across it
2025.11.07
But then
Sometimes
All of a sudden
I feel fantastic
Sitting in the laundromat
Watching the clothes move
I feel great
2025.10.12
Pilgrimage
I walk the river
Where they built the wall
And washed my feet
All of life
Is one long pilgrimage
Walk
Walk
Walk
2025.06.05
Veo la caída de la luz
En los azulejos
Techos frentes al cielo azul
2025.05.26
I saw
The Sagrada Familia
Under Construction
Blessed myself
With the holy water
Coming out the fountain
Below
Forever
In God's
Last
Cathedral
2025.03.25
Incense
A burnt offering
Myrrh
Human Clay
Prima Materia
2025.03.10
The Architect's Truth
I put my finger into reality
Deliberately
And the waters ripple
Outward
From it
2025.02.20
El Paso
A vast plain of dryness
With cruel soil
Where nothing grows
And the harsh winds tear out all roots
That's where I'm from
2024.11.04
Materia Prima
The fruit of the earth
Is the fruit of the vine
Schist marl or desert clay
Like the vines push their desperate roots to the watertable
I push my soul to God
2024.11.04
Primordial
Yet Elegant
Like the first civilization
To emerge from mud
2024.09.16
Commerce
I am not afraid of commerce
It makes the city move
It rushes blood to new places
Brings new art to life
Without it
Things waste away
Dying on the vine
2024.08.16
This is a dream
This is all a dream
This is what it looks like
Spilling out of the Godhead
2024.08.01
Sometimes
Going up feels like going down
And to go up
You have to go down
2024.07.23
I find my life between the Sacred and the Profane
You know that I drink from the cup of the best wine
2024.05.28
Franklin Mountains
Seeing the Franklin mountains
In an old photo
Awakes my soul
The way it did
In the distance
From Cruz's home
When we were in high school
The star lit up bright
Guitars in our hands
Totally sober
And hopeful
2024.03.06
Adulthood
Is the slow extraction
Of all color
From a whitening fabric
2023.05.30
I'm walking on infinite rooftops
Looking over infinite sunsets
Walking along the freeway
City lights in the distance
A desert summer night
Is life more beautiful today
Or have my eyes just changed?
2022.10.29
Belief in God
Is to have faith that the shapes coming out of the noise
Are meaningful messages from heaven
2022.07.31
Scala dei
Ladder to God
Priorat
2022.04.04
Wine Key
This is a waiter's
Corkscrew
Or better said
A wine key
Because it opens up
Bottles
It also opens up
Situations
At the bottom
Of the bottles
2021.06.16
The bright sun
Burns me
With anger
And me
Burning inside
With anger
Until the cool breeze
Under a tree
Brings me down
Another day
Passed