Ponderable polemics, poetic

WordPress site of poet Mark Lucker

elegiac poem

  • Elegy for Them All

    Twenty-two. Thirty-four, twenty-seven thirty-nine Cancer, leukemia, suicide insidious bastards, each ‘gone too soon’ ‘in a better place’ sycophant salutations of condolence We hardly knew ye Sons, daughters of old friends. A cousin. Classmates of our children. All too vivid reminders “There but for the grace of God…” not at all feeling full of grace single: 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

  • Elegy for Them

    Twenty-two. Thirty-four, twenty-seven thirty-nine Cancer, leukemia, suicide insidious bastards, each ‘gone too soon’ ‘in a better place’ sycophant salutations of condolence We hardly knew ye Sons, daughters of old friends. A cousin. Classmates of our children. All too vivid reminders “There but for the grace of God…” not at all feeling full of grace single: 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