Ponderable polemics, poetic

WordPress site of poet Mark Lucker

life

  • Beings, being

    I was once hanging out with an eclectic group one of whom casually asked if any of us believed in ghostsbefore I could answeranother said “Not ghosts, but angels”bringing awkwardnessblank looks all around While I couldn’t see myself I like to think I was more contemplativethough it got me pondering whysomeone would staunchlybelieve in one Read more

  • January, won

    The first day of a new yearcliché is the currency we traffic innew pages are turnedexpectations for whateverlies aheadexceedingly optimistic self-talk, public proclamationspersonal plans for change, regenerationrenewal carries vagueexpiration date mentally stamped at factorywarning us with certaintylike a gallon of milk ‘hopes will curdle if not used by…’Those with calendars still hanging from walls,refrigeratorsripping last Read more

  • Red Hook, Brooklyn. 07/27/24

    Sitting on the fringe of large patio contemplating retaining wall perch, New York Bay lapping gently every table, chair, square foot occupied genial reverie of twenty, thirty-somethings enjoying summer Saturday night companion and I well beyond the demographic   Our backs to Staten Island, I squint my mind’s eye at ancient brick-warehouse-turned-hip-brewery easily imagining much Read more

  • Sampling

    Sitting at a brewery rural, northern Minnesota tasting a variety of beers, ales small flights of five A couple – mid-twenties sits across from us they too, are sampling each other – first timers comparing dating app peccadillos head-scratching mismatches awkward exchanges preferences for beer types, each other quickly give way to comfortable laughter Another 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

  • Visionally

    Been here too long seen way too much my empathy has decayed piles of rubble-pity hope was a chrysalis birthed ugly butterflies that now flit from dead plant to dead plant Paradox eternal doing right things for eventual wrong reasons appeasing, ignoring those doing wrong things for right reasons conundrums abound doing good where ‘good’ 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • Eternal, spring

    “You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.” – Jim Bouton Life is a scorecard; an encrypted story in exotic-to-the-unwashed hieroglyphs, easily, quickly translated by those versed in the language. We can excitedly, precisely Read more