Thaumatology and Other Poems

By W. Joseph Lutz

W. Joseph Lutz's poetry has a great variety of styles and subject matter. One theme that is frequently found is that of boundaries and limitations. These are treated sometimes with laughter and sometimes with a great sense of loss and sorrow. It is, of course, a facet of the human condition that everyone can understand. The stories vary greatly, from a lapsed academic searching for the holy grail to a high school baseball pitcher who gets injured and has to give up his dream of a sports career to a small-town alcoholic who can only find solace from the stifling confines of his too organized life by indulging in a late night tipple. There is optimism and joy as well. His answer to the long wait for help is expressed in two words--"it comes." It will come. It always does come, not always in the way we expect, but undeniably "it comes."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Oct 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798385200290

W. Joseph Lutz

W. Joseph Lutz started writing back in college, then stopped for a few decades and in the past few years started up again (better stuff now). In addition to being a poet, he is an actor, a hiker, a stamp collector, and a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of poets.

Book preview

Thaumatology

I saw it very briefly

From my car window,

Just a block from home,

A white squirrel, albino I guess

Is the correct terminology, so very rare.

I had never seen one before

Except in zoos and museum displays

I was tired and busy and had no time

To walk one block to where it was spotted.

A week later I took myself back,

Hopeless at this point, it could be anywhere

Within a dozen blocks. I hope

It’s still out there, that it hasn’t been captured

And now sits stuffed on someone’s mantel.

So now I go from tree to tree.

Passersby must think me strange,

How raptly I look into the crown,

Standing still for minutes at a time,

Trying to discern the slightest movement,

Then disappointed, moving on to the next.

I missed it, you see.

I missed my chance.

For miracles, if they come at all,

Can come at the most inconvenient times,

They seldom occur at church with the light

Filtering through the stained glass windows,

But when you’re doing laundry, calling

Your mother, taking out the trash,

Giving a friend a ride to the doctor,

Crying over another friend’s loss,

Or when you’re weary, sick and scared

And find yourself at the end of the end

Of the end of the rope, then sometimes they appear,

And you don’t even have to deserve them,

You don’t have to believe beforehand.

You just have to be ready to receive.

IN RECOGNITION

On the wall, just back of the register

Was the photo, Employee of the Month.

A somewhat homely girl, hair askew

With a smile as big as all creation,

Obviously happy to get this award,

Certainly glad to BE noticed

For once . . .

I came back a few weeks later

And she was still there.

Had she won it a second time

Or had the manager not come round

To picking a new one yet?

Still there, her eyes still bright

Her smile undiminished.

Manchester Maryland High School, Class of 1911

Curled and crumbling photo on the wall,

A little more there than a dozen

Of the oldest kids I’d ever seen.

Such solemnity at seventeen.

Knowing that youth was quickly ending,

No more the touch of a basketball

Or the making of crafts for the county fair.

Few, if any, would go to college.

That was reserved for the very rich.

But boys to the farm or father’s business

And girls to the all too serious chore

Of bearing and then rearing children.

All take their place without complaint

Except for the one, who on certain nights,

At the edge of the woods where no one could see

Beneath the waning moon would drink

Until the onerous boundary lines

Became ever so slightly