Casting

There is no fascination.
like that of
observing shadows

even as a child the idea of
light playing
with objects and time
was more than
simple diversion

As a kid spending summers
at grandparent’s
lake home
my east-facing room
beckoned each morning to
make an appearance

I came to see mornings as
welcome respite from
wasteful sleep
marveling at the
birch-tree-kabuki-cum
wakeup call

I knew every nook of
the birch stand
right outside that window
and often woke to
dancing leaves on my
pillow
forever endowing me
with the joy
that can only be found
in knowing that
the sun
and its friends the
shadows
were willing, gracious
playmates

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2021
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

As you were saying? (hour 9)

‘Yer mother wears Army boots!’
a common insult
tossed around with impunity by
young boys of another era
playground epithets
meant to insult, sans vulgarity
or other references
that might get you a fat lip or
blackened eye

‘Yer mother wears Army boots!’
also served as
group-to-group affront
kids you didn’t know or
wanted warned off
same methodology
as one-on-one slur usage
though with more derogatory
tone to group shout-outs

‘Yer mother wears Army boots!’
a screed lost on
my kids generation who
all grew up in an era
where mom wearing Army boots
was nothing more
than factual statement
to a generation wondering why
footwear would be insulting

For Mother’s Day
my eldest son
Army reservist visiting a base
with ample shopping
gifted his mother a regulation pair of
genuine U.S. Army boots
fulfilling her wish for
hiking attire, and allowing me
one more, later in life
opportunity to toss out one more
‘Yer mother wears Army boots!’

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2021
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

Decomposing

In autumn
when leaves blanket
my yard
I hope
unlike most others
for rain
before I rake

The added
mess of raking
wet leaves is much
preferred
for it hastens their
decay and
olfactory air

Intoxicating

I inhale my youth
forest floor of
Hanson’s woods
where she
and I would

walk and
where we once sat
on a log
surrounded by dead
leaves and
their
moldering aroma

punctuating
everything that was
of me and
her smile has faded
but scents of
the earth
that forest

remind me
of a time when all
was right, and so
was she and
so were we and

now the
smell of decay
keeps
her alive

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2021
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

C’est la vie, no

There once was a time
a long, not forever ago
when a girl told me a
secret not shared with
just anyone but she and
I were a thing and she
was the first, of a sort
and what she told me
shouldn’t have made me
do anything but draw her
closer and yet it did just
the opposite and I don’t
even really know why it
did that but maybe that
is where the problem was
because the ‘it’ that got
the blame was a nothing
that I should have been
concerned about and as I
was young and stupid in
such things maybe just
maybe if I could go back
and see that the problem
was me then just maybe
what she took as a firm no
would’ve been something
with more substance than
nothing and I could have
and I should have just said
‘It’s okay” and maybe just
maybe since I can’t change
what was I can someday
find her and tell her I know
it shouldn’t have changed
anything but would it be
just me sharing my problem
at least giving her a chance
to return the cold shoulder
she should have been able
to cry on or have both our
shoulders now atrophied?

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2021
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

You’re on

Famed actor John Barrymore
is said to have commented
from his deathbed
“Death is easy.
COMEDY is hard.”

I can attest to the comedy part
will take Barrymore at his word
on the moving on as
death is one of the few
things in life you can
do expertly on first try
without any practice

It has also been said
‘life is not a dress rehearsal’
on that point I beg to differ
having run all my lines
I want my center stage moment

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2021
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

Back roads nonet

Road tripping through the rural Midwest
multiple stops at towns, map dots
places so obscure people
living there don’t know where
they happen to be
Blissful in their
remoteness
and my
envy.

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2021
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

Strolling

Driving the highway
pay my respects to
squinched raccoon
squirrel flattened like
bearskin rug

‘Roadkill’ is what
people call these
roadway unfortunates
but I think that misses
so many marks

For it wasn’t
the road that killed them
but the innate urge we
all share to
periodically hit the road

Some creatures just
take that in a more
literal vein than others.

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2021
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

Reminders

Digging weeds in
my New Orleans garden
deeply rooted
interloper
cones up with a tank
dangling from roots
a section of gold chain
bracelet, necklace?

three years after
Hurricane Katrina
newly purchased home
I was a transplant
having come to help with
regional revovery

It became sadly routine
broken china
a distinct pattern
though none of the
recovered pieces ever fit

Later, more casual
dinnerware
lots of silverware
mangled forks, bent spoons
a butter knife
a gravy ladle

Large bolts
metal floor joist supports
popped up in our
garden or lawn
kicked up by lawnower

I kept it all in a tub
in the garage
not as souvenirs
but as a remembrance

Recovered artifacts
from unwanted
time capsule
recent history
brought to life
tragedy
aa sobering,
ongoing harvest.

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2021
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

I’ve never even been to Ohio

“He stayed that way for a long time and when he aroused himself and again looked out of the car window the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood.”
– Sherwood Anderson, ‘Winesburg, Ohio’

I think whenever you leave a place
you should do so on a rainy day
never a sunny one as those
color perceptions inaccurately

Rainy days give you a better sense
of reality; rain is always going to fall
you are always going to get wet
you just need to be prepared for rain

As a young child, on long car trips
with my parents I would kneel on the
backset, elbows perched on rear dash
as I watched the road, our trip, recede

My mother would admonish me, only
half-joking, to turn around, see where
I was going, not where I had been
it was sound, yet impractical advice

For where I was had been adventurous
which piqued my curiosity for whatever
lay ahead, my expectations most always
lived up to, as I saw everything as new

Rainy days, in particular, gave me a sense of
the rhythm of life; sunny days, cloudy days
times of a few sprinkles of annoyance
days when the downpours washed away…

Traveling in the car also had the advantage
of metrical accompaniment of the wipers
on our boat-sized Plymouth Fury, then on
rainy days at home, I longed for same

I think whenever you leave a place
you should do so on a rainy day
leave the sunshine to its promises
cleanse all with rain on the road

– Mark L. Lucker
© 2021
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

Summer of then

I remember searingly
when I need to and
when I don’t
days of youthful summers
grandparent’s lake home
woodlands of
northern Minnesota

Only child
only grandchild
given free rein to roam
explore
discover
understand
all on my own terms

I remember searingly
when I need to and
when I don’t
sitting on their dock
watching
the lake
the birds, fish
other people
self-taught in the fine art
meditating
though at the time I
thought it just
being lazy

I remember searingly
when I need to and
when I don’t
sights
sounds, smells
birds by their calls
trees by their barks
paths by how I had
walked them

I remember searingly
when I need to and
there is rarely a time
when I don’t

– Mark L. Lucker

© 2021

http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

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