Ponderable polemics, poetic

WordPress site of poet Mark Lucker

memories

  • 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

  • Snapshot

    The picture was taken from too far away the two of us sit on the apartment steps the manicured shrubs on either side dominate we are framed, she and I, by wrought-iron railings Still, it is the only picture of us that I have she wears sunglasses and her acorn-hued hair cascades over her right Read more

  • Guardian pal

    Like a shadow you know is there but disappears when you turn to confront it it’s there, but he’s not Following discreetly, benignly nourish part of the atmosphere minus the trench coat Sometimes light diffuses instead of illuminates My father’s memory, legacy, aura follows me no, I am not paranoid just aware of the oddly Read more

  • Comfy

    Certain memories are a favorite pair of old slippers; ragged, tattered, not much to look at, but comfortable in a way nothing new could be once you plucked them from the garbage; second thoughts? hard to part, sometimes, with a never-complaining old friend then again, sometimes it’s best to just let the dog chew ‘em Read more

  • In focus

    Grainy black-and-white squares of life framed in sometimes dated white; glossy paper mosaic tile dioramas snippets of life that have given way to phone-shot, high resolution videos that show all, tell virtually nothing You can’t sift through a file full of instant gratification videos, you can’t scroll through a pile of snapshots of folks in Read more

  • At midnight

    Laying in the darkness midnight rain sounds like frying bacon splattering conjuring up the aroma of a time in my life when I took such pristine moments for granted Read more

  • Clear Cut

    Memories are tree stumps What was, isn’t anymore what was alive, now is dead though it harbors new life; pain, bitterness, wistfulness, love, remembrance, regret thrive like so much lichen On occasion a new shoot sprouts from the stump, drawing its nourishment, its potential new life, from the decayed remains of what had once been Read more