Two large butterflies careening through my backyard flirtatious, they are Yellow, black, all I know little of butterflies understand graceful Arriving as came unassuming nimble in their calming methods – Mark L. Lucker © 2023 http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd

The weather is dark and dreary The smell of dirt and leaves pungent to my nose It’s the perfect night Hurrying down the deserted road stretching out before me dark and desolate I have somewhere I need to be SSHHH what’s that? I just heard…

An idea switched to life. Like a light-bulb, receiving power. An elk living in the bayou. Using a carport for shelter. Eating beets from the garden. A jacket of fur, the color of cinnamon. A tremor from the cold hits. Elbow deep in mud. Bucket…

Sweet notes of honeysuckle linger in the air Mixing with the whisky on his breath I bury my face in the crook of his neck Melting into him like chocolate chips in cookie dough He becomes my altar Where I bend and pray In worship…

I walk with you so slowly that my feet are dragging in the dust of the trail. My eyes are gritty and can hardly see but I kept trudging toward the free landaroooo. Then a whispie little cloud began to speak to me and asked…

They don’t make Easter any more The way they did when I was four My father wears a jacket and tie My mother too and so do I My auntie sings Blue Bayou Under the carport with cousin Lou At my elbow are the beets…

When I go into the wild I am not a hunter of elk or a wearer of a camo jacket Besides throwing my boots in the trunk, I pack my all purpose ruck sack with a thermos of beet juice sticks of cinnamon gum savory…

Recently, I’ve been helping the moon learn to speak. She has always been silent, much like I was growing up. Perhaps she was afraid she’d embarrass herself with her words. Or with how she sounded. I told her that most likely, people would be soothed…

The Old Hunter The hunter peeled the cinnamon-skinned hide away from its flesh before parsing the parts among his containers, the beet red blood pooling and freezing into the frigid earth. Yellow jacket wasps crackled angrily like electric shocks around the containers of meat, and…

An Epic Journey Circling, flitting, diving, and sailing, the two butterflies chased each other over the fields of beets, ruby-sweet waiting to be picked, bitten, and dribbled. In summer’s highest heat, they flutter close to bright buds near the slow-moving gentle waters of the bayou…