Ponderable polemics, poetic

WordPress site of poet Mark Lucker

The Lake

  • Open

    I long for the sound of an old wooden screen door slamming oak frame, wire mesh heavy, with a new spring so the initial slam triggers recoil – residual wood WHAP! Thump! clunk. Nothing to stop an old wooden screen door save gravity those doors were rapt percussion a backbeat to youthful adventure The one Read more

  • Trivium

    I It was here that I found myself – as much as one teenager can It was here that I tallied a notable string of personal firsts, nails hammered logs split fish caught girl loved cars driven stick shift, mastered full beer drunk jukebox played girl kissed Held her hand, first Pristine milieu for my Read more

  • Frogs

      – Mark L. Lucker © 2017 http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd Read more

  • No French Cuffs

    Plaid flannel shirts of my Northwoods youth smelled of beer and pine cones boat motor gasoline and fresh caught sunfish wood smoke and filtered Winstons when I was a kid the intertwined, pungent aromas of cervelat salami plumbers’ grease, house paint mingled freely, locked in square-patterned fibers, always-rolled-up sleeves no amount of Fels-Naptha soap could Read more

  • The sign

    Sawed-off fence picket turned sideways points eastward, sort of you are – we are – ‘that way’ if signs are to be believed The sign unaware you have been gone thirty years, plus your house,over twenty anyone driving north on Crow Wing County Highway Three would believe they could turn, still find you I know Read more

  • Breezes

    summer comes to a close autumnal breezes waft rustling memories of those days when the close of summer had more definitive endings sun-drenched days of youthful frolic, innocent play, done swimming, playing with frogs in holes dug on sandy beaches at grandparent’s homes; ‘the lake’ summer Xanadus of childhood one year, scenic backdrops for advancing Read more

  • Homage

    I went all Santiago once on a sunfish that weighed nearly a pound it was long before I knew Hemingway, the power of words, the pull of the water I battled the monster as only a nine-year-old could; with every fiber of my being strained to matching tautness of six-pound-test line at the end of Read more

  • First dance

    A ma-and-pa resort, small lake north woods of Minnesota small office behind quaint bar, twelve small cabins dozen aluminum rowboats to use; minnows, worms, leeches for sale amenities, ala Angler’s Edge Joe & Gloria’s place The bar a hangout for township locals grandpa Ivar and I frequented the nicked, cigarette-burn speckled polished, yellow-varnished bar for Read more

  • A musing

    You seduced me. Drew me in played me for the fool and I bit took the bait tried to dart away only driving the hook in deeper now here I am at your pondering mercy; throw me in your creel fry me up toss me back let me swim away or watch me flopping for Read more

  • Road trip, 1965 –

    When I was a kid we planted trees by the lake 72 pine seedlings hauled north in milk cartons arranged on the back floor of a ’39 Dodge the trees and I were small, green, pliable in need of nurturing the Dodge sits now in a junkyard, the remaining pines scrape the sky I remember Read more