Long Stucky Poems

Author’s note: The following is in haibun form—poetic prose (microfiction with less than 200 words in this case) coupled with a haiku. It was written in response to a writing prompt to (re)tell a Christmas...

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Consider the (Dreaming) Birds

By Mark D. Stucky
Jesus told us to consider the birds of the air.
I have pondered parakeets (budgies) in a cage
routinely performing what seems impossible.
No, not flying. (They fly rather poorly.)
It’s the posture...

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Trucker Duckie

His P.I.C handle is:
TRUMP DOGG

Road incorrecto políticamente 
rolls his 18-wheeler Hogg

Transporting border illegals is the 
			  Primary cache crop haul
Outfoxing blue Smoky Bears
			is his favorite Duckie call

Just like the Big Don,
dodging the Law
is...

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(Note: In this abecedarian poem, I redacted the name of the particular denomination to protect the innocent and to universalize the context. Fill in your own favorite groups! Prejudice against those perceived to be “other”...

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(Note: This poem was written shortly after the 2022 Olympics and after Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos rode their rockets in a new space race for billionaires.)

Races

By Mark D. Stucky
Our country had a Space race
to...

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(Author’s note: This poem is a humorous satire on how a modern media mentality would view the story of Christ’s Ascension.)


The Ascension (with Rewrites)

By Mark D. Stucky
Look!
Up in the sky!
Not a bird.
Certainly no plane.
It’s super...

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Divine Name Calling

By Mark Stucky
In our beginning,
        God whispered into DNA dust,
        and “Adam,” infused with breath,
    ...

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 Quantum Theology

By Mark D. Stucky

Spirit filled the formless void
before matter and energy were born,
before infinitesimal became infinite,
when, from a singularity, a speck of nothing,
the biggest bang birthed everything.

And still the Creator of the quantum...

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Quantum Acts of Kindness

By Mark D. Stucky
Our universe collectively consists of tiny acts,
        as innumerable particles
        in indeterminate positions
  ...

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Gilded Crosses?

By Mark D. Stucky
Shiny icons gleaming on altars?
        And hanging from necks on gilded chains?
        No. Not back then…

Not golden,...

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Ain’t nobody here, 
but us plucky chickens
Ghetto goose-stepping,
every fare-thee-well welfare day!

Ain’t nobody here,
but us unlucky chickens
Urban legend has it,
that we been KFC set free

Now ain’t we pretty henpeck  clucky ...
USA   Grade A...

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A Theology of Boxes

By Mark Stucky
Praise God for “boxes”
        that form infrastructure for living!
Praise God for customs, conventions, and traditions
        that...

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How Would Jesus Vote?

By Mark Stucky
Would Jesus vote for striking others’ cheeks in tweets?
Would Jesus vote for grabbing others’ genitals?
Would Jesus vote for separating children from parents?
Would Jesus vote for ceaseless scandals and lies?
Would Jesus...

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Words in the Wind

By Mark D. Stucky
Winds carried away the words
that Jesus, the Word made flesh,
wrote in the dust,
while sitting near a trembling woman,
who was the accused,
who was bait in a trap.

“Adultery! Law! Stone! Death!”
Harsh...

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Jericho Roads

By Mark Stucky
At the end of the rock-strewn road,
fell the walls surrounding Jericho.
Spared from destruction,
were a harlot’s people,
the family of Rahab,
Israel’s unlikely ally,
and unlikely ancestor
of peasants and kings
and the King of kings,
who came to...

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Love Sciences

By Mark D. Stucky
If romantic love requires “chemistry,”
how elemental for love is physics?
Negative and positive charges
lustfully attract one another.
But proceed with caution!
Matter and antimatter
explosively combine and
annihilate each other!

Could other science disciplines
facilitate our quest for...

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Bathing with Bathsheba

By Mark D. Stucky
As you bathed bare below the high palace
were you intentionally seductive?
The citadel was in plain view,
and so apparently were you.

Or were you simply innocent,
and the king abused his power?
Was it...

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Jurassic Prayer

By Mark D. Stucky
We asked our preschooler to pray,
and with dinner plates before us
and our hands folded,
he paused in silence
and then roared in imitation
of a wounded, angry dinosaur.
We all laughed at the incongruous “prayer”
from...

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Salvation in an App Store?

By Mark D. Stucky
Google Maps won’t work
for the way I feel lost.
Is there a salvation app
I can install on my phone
to download redemption today
and upload my soul when I die?

Since there...

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Purgatorial Perceptions

By Mark D. Stucky
In the basement, I heard fluttering sounds
coming from inside the old chimney.
Cautiously opening the clean-out trap,
I came nose-to-beak with a panicked bird.
Having fallen down the depths
of the narrow furnace flu,
it now...

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Juice Ex Machina

By Mark D. Stucky
When wine ran out at the wedding in Cana,
why did Mary request and expect Jesus
(who seemed slightly exasperated)
to act as an on-demand, divine liquor store?

Yet, gallons of fermented juice of...

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The God Behind the Curtain

By Mark D. Stucky
Curtains sometimes keep apart things that need connecting
and conceal things that, in their time, need uncovering.

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,”
the hiding humbug Wizard of...

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(In memory of the 19 children and two adults killed by gun violence in Uvalde, Texas on May 24, 2022…as well as the countless others who have and who will suffer similar fates.)

Firearm Requiem

By Mark...

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(Author’s note: This poem is a humorous look at how the pandemic changed our technology, our relationships, and maybe even our spiritual quests.)


God’s on Mute

By Mark D. Stucky
We forgot how to talk
during the pandemic.
Glitches often...

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The Art of the Devilish Deal

By Mark D. Stucky
Did Trump sell his soul to the devil in 2016?
As his part of the deal, could he lie, preen, cheat, and tweet?
Could he distort, divide, deny, demean,...

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