Ponderable polemics, poetic

WordPress site of poet Mark Lucker

  • Call me, Ishmael. Leave a message.

    We all have within us some Captain Ahab obsessively pursuing something, someone unattainable physically or mentally we quest something lost never obtained hadn’t the courage or stomach for a diem you could never carpe uselessly we quest a time we came close nagging should haves gnawing what ifs crimes of passion not worth prosecuting each… Read more

  • Delivered

    walking old neighborhood streets first time in forty years strolling the paper route I once sped through on bike chucking news, sports, imaginary touchdown passes blithe in my accuracy – papers always landing where intended most of the time remembering homes, faces cantankerous folks the best tippers comforting offers of lemonade, hot cocoa incessantly yapping… 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

  • Stratas

    As a kid I collected rocks – as many colorful pebbles as my six-year-old jacket pockets could smuggle via subterfuge mom and dad later humored my geologic interests with a small, paperback, field guide to rocks – which I always took with on trips we took – grandpa in tow – playing along, helping me… Read more

  • 33 (For Johnny)*

    Twenty-one years was not nearly enough; we had just embarked when you left. Thirty-three years is not nearly enough to erase what is indelibly sketched not a pencil caricature, a dimly recollected photographic snapshot or grainy home movie just you, at nineteen, before illness rudely smudged and dog-eared the picture you are smiling, damn it… Read more

  • 1958

    Eight-by-ten, glossy women’s gowns a snowy hue men’s jackets polar-colored pants black, everything else radiant shades of grays drearily brilliant tones off-black, dark-white vibrant portrait in celluloid Twelve adults, a young boy bouffants and buzz cuts, ogling camera, mischievously dead serious, mindfully aware playful magnitude of the day fighting off hangovers practicing feigned solemnity due… Read more

  • Fading away

    Small, sporadically mowed rural-church cemetery familial in feel generations grouped eternally spontaneous, asymmetrical layout seems unforced, movingly casual in its nostalgia a rainy, gray day along narrow township gravel road cars parked, haphazardly We buried an old soldier. local VFW could only muster honor guard of three men bent, trembling, purposeful fingers wrinkled khaki, faces,… Read more

  • Put on your shoes

    “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”       Laozi Our journey has finally begun there have been fits, starts, delays in getting here; now finally underway, I am ill at ease The irony, not lost on me An inveterate wanderer, – ‘Mr. Spontaneity’ to friends, family I do not… Read more

  • It’s all in the card

    Greeting card aisle all celebratory sins at your disposal birthday, anniversary shout-outs long-time-no-sees Thank-yous! Love you! I’m sorry! pronouncing gratitude for things and flings sorry-you’re-feeling-blue get well tomes Good luck! kiss-offs congratulatory over-priced nods to milestones earned, attained, survived sweated out colorful, sentimental, creased tagboard matching-envelope; touchstone marked by mirth! merriment! maudlin mooning! four-ninety-nine a… Read more

  • Morning coffee

    Saturday Early, but not too I bring her a cup of coffee rich stuff, the good stuff our special Saturday blend She stirs gently, like the brew setting the mug on her nightstand pheromones blend with aromatic Arabica Saturday morning alchemy dissolves into Saturday afternoon – Mark L. Lucker © 2017 http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd Read more