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, not
where I had been
But I was a wistful nine.
Then,
sometimes now
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2018
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd
At age seven I nearly killed the pubescent
birch tree anchoring our Minneapolis backyard
stripping it of all its bark, roots to four feet up –
the physical limits of my fanciful reach
As Mrs. Kime’s most intrepid first-grader
I planned to build a birch bark canoe, ala
the Chippewa we were studying, but
my grandiose vessel never took float
paddling confined to parental retribution
albeit with forgiving landlord-absolution
not George Washington, there is no notoriety
from well-intentioned arbor-indiscretion
Half a century later, the birch tree still stands
defiant, smugly secure in its survival: Midwestern
winters, drought summers, visionary first graders
I too, still stand – resilient and unfazed, rooted in
long-forfeited yard, having weathered erratic seasons
dubious choices, those who tried to remake me
I remain a curious, risk-taking, idea-prone dreamer
Neither of us ever produced a working canoe yet
our respective rings share a distinctive trait; denser,
late, wood – thick ring dating us to a particular summer
the growing season that solidified respective chronologies
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2018
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd
Living now in a place
where, in autumn most
leaves stay put
clinging to their branches
without pretense
never having the
decency to abandon their
vibrant green for
appropriate, earthy hues
A few adhere to my more
familiar, season-bound
tradition, true natural order
small in numbers
generally unnoticed
It takes keen effort to
scrounge enough of a
collection for
traditionally crunchy walk
Which is cheating
The jumpable, enjoyably
scratchy, towering orange,
brown, red, yellow leaf piles
I crave are hopeless here
my native Midwest seems
further away in fall than
during the absence of winter’s
winter’s snowy blankets,
frosty windows
for I know full well
the curative, redemptive
potential of a fall
leaf pile on a man’s soul
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2017
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd
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 dogs
jokester accountants
fantasy-inducing housewives
subconsciously,
automatically I calculate
throwing angles to
accommodate now-grown trees
front yard rock gardens
odd statuary
before realizing with
laughably wistful irony that
all these years later
while I still have enough arm
to get them their news
would this generation even
understand the concept of
computer mouses
with cords
for their tales
landing on their doorsteps
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2017
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd
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 find increasingly larger
chunks of ancient igneous,
sedimentary curiosity, to store in
boxes in my room, much to his
daughter’s eventual, excavating-her
grown-son’s-vacant-room, chagrin
rocks, and my self-motivated,
D-I-Y study of them, still serve me well
curiosity being a developed skill as
much as a personality characteristic
Where my parents simply indulged whims
Gramps saw wisdom in Fool’s Gold.
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
you always smiled – warranted or not – but
really, when was it not, for us?
I cannot for the life of me conjure up
you at forty, thirty but especially not now
I imagine your asphalt black beard still thick,
neat, coarse…tinged gray, framing sly grin
your perpetual smile-induced squint turned
permanent as well-earned crow’s feet
‘imagine’ is all I can do
I have aged gracefully, so I’ve been told,
a goal you will never attain, a good-natured
insult I will never get to hurl your way
you left, life went on
The plans, hopes, dreams, big ideas we
discussed to death oddly survived yours
some of mine came true, differently than
we could’ve ever dreamed, but still true
the shared versions departed with you as
my road strangely and happily diverged from
plans made, starting with your leaving,
life taking me along for the journey much as
I have taken your spirit within me
The calendar now ironically tells me that
the years since you left match the numerals
you wore on your South High football jersey
the same numbers I have always worn for
company softball teams, and just because
I see you so clearly now – slashing through the
defensive line of time and memory, breaking
into the clear, smiling and always running free
*Johnny Wilkins 6/11/58 – 8/9/79
“…and there’s nothin’ short of dyin’
that’s half as lonesome as the sound
of a sleepin’ city sidewalk
and Sunday mornin’, comin’ down…”
– Kris Kristoffferson
There is no respite from the escape
the night before, sketchy
adrenaline rush of
getting there, staying there, leaving
behind whatever it was
trying to find whatever it is
oblivious as to whatever it should be
ambiguity used to fuel contentedness
but years, miles, time
have dulled senses, pinched off
feelings of adequacy
going with the flow when the
stream bed is just withered sand;
grounded flotsam
of sun-bleached opportunity
weathered dreams
honed to dull, polished smoothness
but the stream no longer washes over them,
channel a conduit only for what was
any chance at rejuvenation
lies in torrential rains
that would wash away the dust
only to disappear once again
in the heat of another day
Stepping out into the street
putting aside metaphor, remembrances
reality is shrill comeuppance
here you are, who cares where you were
you don’t know where you’re going
though the morning is warm you fight the chill
inexorable creeping of time
paranoia of memories and the truth
assuaging balm of reminisces
warmth; pulling the collar of invincibility
up around your throat
There is a cold front moving in
experience has taught you
your wherewithal to combat the elements
no match for this brewing storm
the only sensibility and clarity afforded
by all who’s, what’s, where’s, why’s
you have been
the person you have become
knows instinctually, without regret
hunkering down, waiting it out,
no longer a viable option
out-of-place and time,
weathervane
spins incoherently
vagaries of the squall tells
only from where the wind blows,
not to point you in a direction
in lieu of a compass, it will have to do
headed down the street
the wind at your back, in your face
the city beckons you to
impossibly attainable anonymity
promises you will be forgotten
but only for now,
only today, only tomorrow
There is no respite from the escape
still, you got out – ironically,
you would consider going back if
you only could remember
where you had been, why you were there,
how you got here from there
in the first place
this is what the morning brings
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2017
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd
Happily-ever-after
mythology
prefaces every sequel
continuing
character-driven sagas
story arc only
tacking an index onto
volume one,
three, sixteen in a set
having read this scene
repeatedly
life movies
annotated script
writing, rewriting books
they were based on
playing
déjà vu-all-over-again
never more than
countless times
here-we-go-again
monotony of
changing times
changing directors
same cast of characters
different roles
replaced actors
haven’t-I-
seen-this-show-before?
Exit, stage right
enter stage left
either or,
vice versa
prefacing intermission
act one ends…
next!
time to regroup, recast
strike the set
endings are simply
ellipsis
masquerading
as comfort
to the ill-at-ease
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2016
Waiting for an oil change
customer area big-screen TV
Rachael Ray cooks pasta something
a grandfather across from me texts
the coffee is respectable
volume on the TV isn’t but
Rachael is Rachael it doesn’t matter
she cooks rhythmically zzt! zzt! zzt!
the unmistakable garage sound
of tightened lug nuts al dente
oppressive smell of new rubber
I remember the first car I owned
cherry ’69 Plymouth that needed new
Goodyears that first summer of ’78
smooth white sidewalls cost
me extra, almost out of fashion then
there are none on display here
young blue-shirt guy at the counter
says with bewilderment they can
special order white sidewalls
I smile, tell him I’m just asking
sit back down where the grandfather
is still texting joined now by a young
woman in red dental-office scrubs
scrolling rapidly through her smart phone
both oblivious to Rachael, moved
on to odd vegetables zzt! zzt! zzt!
This is the proverbial rubber-of
memory-meets-the-road-of-fantasy
I am whizzing down thin blacktop
’69 Plymouth, white sidewalls,
windows down, Rachael’s hair flying,
staring longingly from passenger seat
talking about stopping for pasta…
zzt! zzt! zzt! ZZZZT! My name is called;
my newly lubed, innocuous sedan, ready –
leaving hygienist, grandpa and Rachael to
their respective rubber-scented reveries
– Mark Lucker
Ponderable polemics, poetic 