I eschew sex.
Firmly entrenched
now in middle age
I have found the act
wanting, boring
the physicality dull,
unimaginative
old hat
Sex
has lost its interest
in me
shunning sex,
I have discovered
making love
It is the side effect of
experience
the residue of having
love, lost, found
I am the artist
who has traded Play-Doh
for the potter’s wheel
– Mark Lucker
“Love is like tartar sauce; it looks like hell, you have no
idea what’ in it, but you always seem to find it tasty”.
– Me, circa 1990
Witticisms, coined phrases of my
younger years linger around me
trailing like stray dogs following
me home from the butcher shop
‘scat! go away! don’t follow me’!
But I am not that stern in rebuke
and what amused others in the
ubiquitous then often stagger
occasionally into the now
which I oftentimes take as
permission to trot out my
verbal dog-and-pony show
sans pony, awash in dogs
blank stares quizzical looks
remind me that as times change
so do my own sensibilities
though at times logic succumbs
to temptation falling off the
cleverness wagon with a thud
“life is an accordion” I have oft
noted “the harder you squeeze it,
the more discordant the music”
offending more than a few
aficionados of squeeze box music
puzzling others of a musical ilk
tone-deaf to my whimsical bent
With age comes fresh insight new
opportunities, chances to start over
with new audiences who have yet
to hear my-one-about-the…
everything old becomes new again
keeping me in the spirit of going green
salvaging scraps for one more turn
instead of leaving them on a pie pan
outside my backdoor for the stray
benign dogs they are to come nosh
– Mark Lucker
“There is no honor amongst thieves
even less with trailer-park debutantes”
Early life lesson from a bartender who
worked his bottle opener like a scrapyard
crane operator dumping rusty Chevys
spun a corkscrew as a master drill press
operator teaching an apprentice
But that was years ago, when the price
of a drink was considered cheap tuition
whether auditing the neighborhood class
or undergrad-afterthought clubbing
Now I know better
You pay for the best education paying
attention to detail, not with Franklins
People tell tales; life instructs,
proctors its own tests
sometimes you get your grade
rarely are you offered extra credit
Life’s tests are not standardized
multiple choice essays true/false
Just do the homework
skip the cramming
know it or you don’t
Seeing it living it understanding it
where, when it all went south
when you’ve reached the summit
how you did it, maybe could again
sometimes you just walk away
platitudes, platypus, Plato;
you’ve read enough to be dangerous
a grandma once told me with sad irony
“You buy ‘em books, you buy ‘em books”
And never the twain shall meet.
What I have learned and can impart
from this side of the weathered bar?
Be polite, play nice, share your toys
Life is not always fair because it isn’t
Love and laugh – a lot and with gusto
Look both ways before you cross life
And never trust a vagabond with a GPS.
– Mark Lucker
Cozy Den of Iniquity
Wither thou goest
oh, hibernating rodent!
Preach thine prediction!
Misdirected
Celebratory
nod today to the wiener;
happy ground-hog day.
Boondoggle
Slovenly groundhogs
stay in bed, Tweet conjecture;
masses, pacified.
– Mark Lucker
Ponderable polemics, poetic 