Category Archives: Poetry

A Limerick for World’s Greatest Cubs Fan

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Map to Wrigley Field from Urbana, IL

Map to Wrigley Field from Urbana, IL

For the Cubs 1-0-7 long years
Crying No-Series-Winner sad tears.
Yes, I live far away,
But soon on that great day
Baby Bruins will sure hear my cheers!

– Steve Shoemaker, Cubs fan writing 154 miles from Wrigley Field in honor of Harry Lee Strong, world’s greatest Cubs fan.

Steve and Harry are lifelong, long-suffering “Baby Bruins” fans hoping the sports heavens are about to open after the 107 year drought since the Cubs last won the World Series. Harry, pictured below in his tux, and his dog with the Cubs tie, have been “dressing for success” in Harry’s “Cubs cave” farther away in AZ.

Harry Strong holding picture with Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks and Cubs memorabilia.

Harry Strong holding picture with Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks and Cubs memorabilia.

 

 

 

 

Verse – Why do you fly a kite?

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Steve's kite

Steve’s kite

Why Do You Fly Kites?

You kid of 72,
Reliving your childhood?
Child-like, or childish?

Prairie winds are strong,
Annoying to some.
I choose to revel in them,
Let the wind lift my spirits,
Carry kite and me skyward.

But you can no longer run,
Cannot pull the kite aloft,
Cannot even trot…

A delta kite lifts itself
In even a mild breeze.
When high above,
I tie the line to a stake,
And sit with beer in hand,
And look up.

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Oct. 26, 2015

Verse – Weight-Loss Plan

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Each year pounds have started to show.
On belly and butt they do grow.
I decided then
That I would lose ten
And I only have fifteen to go!

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, September 24, 2015

Verse – Thanks to a Longfellow

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Lives of women all remind us
They can do all that men can.
And departing, leave behind us
Children’s footprints in the sand.

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, September 20, 2015

Verse – The Ubiquiphone

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The Ubiquiphone

The thermometer outside would tell
The temperature, heaven or hell.
The paper brought news.
The neighbors shared views,
But now I just look at my cell.

The mobile that I use instead
Of books that I often had read
Has also replaced,
Has simply erased
The facts that I had in my head.

My computer I never go near–
I’ve not seen my desk for a year.
The next phone that I buy
I’m afraid it will try
To make even my spouse disappear!

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Sept. 13, 2015

Verse – Bedroom Battles

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Bedroom Battle

The Groom learned quickly to please
Not pull blankets away from her knees.
But if the Bride takes them, too,
Then all he can do
Is lie there naked and freeze.

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Sept. 13, 2015

Verse – Kansas

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on the prairie
the wind turbines
can be seen
for twenty-five miles

after dark the red lights
in unison
seem to blink
as blades slowly turn

a football field high
the inscribed circle
is a full acre
echoing irrigation

from the air
only the green circles
can be seen
windmills disappear

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, September 12, 2015

Verse (Limerick) – The 20-Year-Old

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The 20-Year-Old Video Gamer

His braces and pimples have fled–
His face is now handsome instead–
Yes, and now it appears,
But for all his teen years,
We’ve seen only the back of his head!

20-Year-Old Video Gamer

20-Year-Old Video Gamer

  • Steve Shoemaker, Urbana,IL, Sept. 4, 2015

Verse – Eugene Field…

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Eugene Field
is Spinning in his Grave

The computer, smartphone, and iPad too
Are all that this child could want.
With Clash of Clans, and Auto-Theft 2,
I’ll always be so smart
School studies can suffer–no homework tonight–
I might watch a little TV,
But my brain is exploding, I’m feeling all right,
There’s nothing the matter with me,
I’m happy as I can be:
With computer,
Smartphone
And Pad.

Now Mother and Father will sputter and fuss–
They don’t understand at all.
For Granny and Gramps said, “Read! You Must!
Or all your grades will fall!”
But we take exams on computers at school,
No notes, but txts we snd!
The Principal axed the No Gizmos rule
So our school-wide strike would end–
“Unions Forever, my friend!”
With computer,
Smartphone,
And Pad!

  • Steve Shoemaker, September 2, 2015
  • NOTE: Click HERE to read Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac posting on Eugene Fields, author of such poems as “Wynken, Blinken, and Nod”.

Verse – ?

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Question Mrk

Question Mrk

Sending a son or daughter off to college is hard for a parent.

Steve captured the sentiment in this piece “written in 1988 when my son, Daniel, left home to go to Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.”

 

 

 

To choose a title first is such an act
of pride (as if one knows just where a thought
will go.) Is “Saying Goodbye to Our Son”
a better choice than “Letting Go?” And when
is specificity superior
to breadth? Do only parents know the fear
of being left behind when children leave?
Is every parting death, a tiny grave?

A title should invite…entice…alert
the reader to the text. But what comes next?
That is the question. Eyes will open wide
and see new truth. Will truth lead to the good?
We hug and hope and wave goodbye. The path
twists back and then away (“A Brand New Birth?)

  • Steve Shoemaker [Published in Presbyterian Outlook]

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