Ponderable polemics, poetic

WordPress site of poet Mark Lucker

poems

  • Ode dear.

    My students engaged with our classroom material! Rh negative blood shows up with more frequency than authentic interest my high school sophomores academic pursuits escape without breaking a sweat until today, our unit on poetry contemporary poetic takes on relationships, life, old basketball players, the homeless and disenfranchised have left them unmoved, their empathy still Read more

  • Distance

    The expanse is self-inflicted a self-exiled expatriate; I am here, not there answered a calling, have since done my best at least pretty well considering restraints with which I had to work sometimes I feel my work here done my time here over needed elsewhere, so I try to believe but the work here is Read more

  • 3:22 P.M.

    Smiling broadly from the bottom step from yellow-and-black command ship my forty-two pound, thirty-seven inch Neil Armstrong plops dustily down Successful touchdown, Tranquility base. Home, The Eagle has landed. Perfect timing; his silver-and-black supply case is depleted, as is he. Time to replenish, explore local terrain, relax, recount the day’s adventure Pausing, he then runs Read more

  • Making note

    A cheap flash drive containing one document; PDF file of a note – my message of hopeful wonder, Robinson Crusoe-like whim I seal the technological romanticism tightly in a Mason Jar, throw it into the ocean at night as the tide predictably recedes Sitting on the beach I ponder as only a man with youthful Read more

  • From Here to Less Certainty

    A day at the beach we have been here before; I am trying to be Burt Lancaster as you hesitate to play Deborah Kerr with self-conscious protestations I have heard many times But today the kids are not with us, the friends who we accompany sit engrossed in their sun-worshipping, paperbacks, inflatable-floating oblivious to us Read more

  • Muse bemuse

    She has been a muse nothing more and everything less since we met as teens inspiration still flows from a fleeting reminder; hearing her name (commonly used by others out of parental laziness) the searing stubbed-toe pain of an emotional owie only she could’ve kissed and made better longing springs from trying to remember just Read more

  • Restraint

    I burn for you. Remembering school hallway posters advising when in flames, stop, drop, roll. Subconsciously heeding long suppressed laminated pictograms I have resisted the urge to do the safe thing whenever you walk in as my resulting floor gyrations would lack the panache to qualify as a mating dance ala National Geographic Still, I Read more

  • Renovating

    Vestiges of then subtly shade the now today is decorated with yesterday’s hues accenting modern life with retro-chic shades life-makeovers via t.v. show gurus who use family tschotskes as odd focal points visual statements from an old magazine viewed in current settings; obligatory oohing-and-ahhing at the big reveal fading into jaundiced indifference once the show Read more

  • Like son, like father

    The daughter of close friends looks at my son like that they have known each other since first grade – a time when looking at each other like that would have been unthinkable; icky, gross…dis-GUS-ting! Now she looks at him like that When I first noticed her looking his obliviousness was a comfort but now Read more

  • A musing

    You seduced me. Drew me in played me for the fool and I bit took the bait tried to dart away only driving the hook in deeper now here I am at your pondering mercy; throw me in your creel fry me up toss me back let me swim away or watch me flopping for Read more