Category Archives: Humor

The three-year-old Pastor’s son

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Verse — Nobody’s Perfect

The three-year-old Pastor’s son
could have heard the word in one
of several places (no, not
in Church…) and in those days, not
on TV. But there were kids
at the Day Care Center, kids
whose parents smoked cigarets
when they picked children up each
night–he may have learned his speech
patterns from them. Surely his
folks never dropped an F-bomb,
but when the kid’s cake slid from
his plate at the party for
his Dad in the Church Parlor,
the boy swore like a sailor.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 28, 2014

Verse – Vanity

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“Vanity, Vanity, All Is Vanity…” Ecclesiastes

There are companies (for profit, of course)
that feed the egos of people in choirs
throughout America. They hire a hall

(Carnegie, Kennedy) or Cathedral
in Europe needing cash, and for a fee
will fly or bus us singers there. A “FREE

Concert Today!” is the result, and folks
(tourists) are dragged in off the streets
to hear the songs of BROADWAY! or of BRAHMS!

(Or aged aided ears are wheeled from “Homes”
with “Music Clubs” to fill the seats or pews.)
The “Concerts” never seem to make the news…

So if you’ve heard the singers who have said,
“Yes, WE sang THERE!” you know that they have paid.

Verse – A la recherche des amours perdus

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A widower for 20 years,
at 88 he lived alone
and sat without TV or tears
in the front room of his own home.

His grandson asked him if he read
the books nearby on dust-free shelves,
or called his daughters. “No,” he said,
“They have enough problems themselves.”

“I mainly take a backward view
of past, of people, understand?
I think of things I can’t tell you.
You’d call me a dirty old man.”

His housekeeper said he asked her
once if she’d go to bed with him.
He smiled when she said she was sure
her husband’s view of that was dim.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 21, 2014.

 

Delivery Boy Education

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Fritzen was the German name–
“Fritz” was what he called himself.
I was just the high school boy
hired to drive my rose-red car:
deliver Flowers by Fritz.

At the University,
back in 1959,
girls in the sororities
(yes, then they were all called “girls”)
received flowers from their “boys.”

Actually they smiled at me,
then they read the little card–
usually they smiled again.
If they did not like the name,
I thought, “humiliation.”

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 111, 2014

Six Feet Eight

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We stopped for lunch in Kentucky.
Over the years I’ve heard them all,
the jokes about being tall:
“How’s the weather? Basketball?”
But the waitress surprised me…

“You’re so tall, you make me feel
like a woodland creature,” she
said while looking up at me
from a height of five foot three.
A child once was original…

I’d gone to read poetry
to the first grade classes. They
sat on a red rug. Said she,
“Please, O please, don’t fall on me,
Mister Tree…”

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 30, 2014

Make Me Laugh

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Life is grim, dry, flat and grey:
…Make me laugh…
Comics are heroes to me:
…Make me laugh…
We all want to chuckle, play:
…Make me laugh…
Your antics, quips inspire me:
…Make me laugh!

I love being here with you:
…Make me laugh…
We can sing then we can dance:
…Make me laugh…
I would spend a year with you…
…Make me laugh!
We can bounce, bounce, bounce!
…Make me laugh, laugh, laugh!

-Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 27, 2014

Perhaps Steve had George Burns and Gracie Allen in mind.

Verse – Diabetes Doctor

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“Well, technically you are obese.”
(This followed by a stunned silence…)

“But I’m just twelve pounds over my
ideal weight for a man my size!”

“Your Body Mass Index is more
than ideal: 26.4.”

(She is quite small, from India–
the size of a fasting Gandhi.)

“I just want you to be healthy.
How much exercise do you do?”

“I mow the lawn in the summer.”
(I don’t say on a nice tractor…)

“But now, you know, it is winter…”
(Her British accent is a winner.)

“Could you eat smaller meals? Less fats?
Much fewer carbs? And exercise?”

(I think of running up a hill…)
“Could you prescribe a better pill?”

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Feb. 26, 2014

Her Best Valentine’s Present Ever

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Our wedding anniversary
was coming up. My card said, “Free
Pass: you can have one fantasy
night with Michael Jordon! I’ll pay
for the room myself. I can say
I will not have a jealous day.”

The year was 1993–
the three of us were in our prime.
The Bulls were going for a Three-
peat. She would lust for him each time
she saw him playing on TV.
I set the date for their big game…

Her ticket cost one hundred bills,
but she was with Chicago Bulls
and MJ in his shorts, it’s true–
with twenty thousand others, too.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Feb. 25, 2014

Flood Watch

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Two days ago the fields were white
for not harvest but snow and ice.
The cold front now is to the east
and we have rain and wind and heat
and flooded roads.
…………….. She drove the four-
wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee too fast
and aquaplaned into the ditch,
and then yelled S.O.B.! at him
for telling her it would be much
more safe than her blue Ford…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Feb. 21, 2014

Watch out for the Flake

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southern drivers in snow

we moved from chicago
in september
…………………the first
snow flake fell in the month
of january
………………we
saw a driver swerve to
miss it and go straight in
the ditch

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Feb. 12, 2014