Ponderable polemics, poetic

WordPress site of poet Mark Lucker

growing up me

  • Traveling

    On family trips when I was eight, nine plastic, primary-color cowboys, Indians, soldiers, animals fought and romped in a synthetic, nappy, dark-blue rear-window battlefield meadow Other times, it was a fuzzy ledge on which to lean, and watch the road fading, while my mother half-jokingly admonished me to turn around, see where I was going, 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • Art of Flying

    Flights of fancy via wings of balsa when an extra nickel added a propeller we took wing on wind-looping imagination gliding sometimes to gentle landings more often crashing with aplomb-tinged disappointment when repairs were beyond the pale Images silently soaring, frozen in in time and flight still life, real life in balsa and backyard – 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

  • Secured

    We kept colorful marbles in old Mason Jars, pilfered with Grandma’s blessing rabbit’s feet and other youthful treasures smelled like Grandpa’s Dutch Masters under that cool flip-top lid Our baseball cards were safe beneath our beds, in rubber- band locked P.F. Flyer boxes our glass and cardboard personal Fort Knoxes Read more

  • Oracle

    He was a shaman always clad in sacramental wool plaid shirt, dirty cap there are no mountaintops in Minnesota’s northwoods Enlightenment here comes from atop decaying tree stump aside rustic leaf and pine needle carpeted trails cutting through towering pines, birch, oak you stop, sit for a spell solemnity in this place dictated with wry Read more