Category Archives: Poetry

Verse – Words with Enemies

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Words with Enemies

You smile, and I’ll smile
and all the while we’ll
talk behind each other’s back
(but just to those we know
will have OUR back).

Then you will use a word
with just that tone, a word
that tears the skin from my back
(flaying piece by piece
and leaving bloody flesh.)

The words that I will then say
in return will burn and scar
and pierce you front to back
(I know it should be peace I seek,
but I won’t turn the other cheek.)

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, January 4, 2015

 

Limerick

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Mops waiting for guests to use at the Shoemaker residence.

Mops waiting for guests to use at the Shoemaker residence.

INTRO TO LIMERICK: Driving to Steve and Nadja Shoemaker’s this morning, we texted Steve revising the estimated time of arrival. Steve responded with this limerick and photo from his iPhone:

We love to have guests who show up
When they told us that they would turn up.
But please don’t come early
Or we will be surly,
It’s then that we start to clean up!

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, January 2, 2014.

Verse for New Year’s Day 2015

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ghost kites

ghost kites

 

Old Year, New Year: Old Kite, New Kite

A large blue Delta from Oregon
with two wide trailing tails
mice-eaten, torn by storms,
but still flying. The line knotted,
re-tied after “Hands up, don’t shoot”
and “I can’t breath” and cops killed.

ISIS and drones, beheadings and bombs,
spying on all, torture for some,
my country bought by corporations,
yet Vivaldi still sung, crops harvested,
children born and hugged and taught.
Last year’s kite crashed many times.

A large red Delta for Christmas
with a new line, new tails.
So far blue skies and a steady breeze,
but storms are predicted, injustices
multiply like mice, discord does not die.
This year’s kite, too, is fragile, vulnerable.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, January 1, 1015

Verse – Almost 2015

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On the Seventh Day of Christmas
It was New Year’s Eve:
Fifty Drunkards drinking,
Forty Fatsos feasting,
Thirty Flighty Females flirting,
Twenty Macho Males maneuvering,
Ten Cute Couples kissing
And Kathy Griffin and
Anderson Cooper
ki-i-bitz-i-ing on TV.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Dec. 30, 2014

Editor’s Note: Sometimes Steve’s a little over the edge, even for Views from the Edge. But we publish him because we love him, and because we’ll be his overnight guests in a few days. Never look a gift horse in the mouth!

Poem # 38 – Loneliness

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O the loneliness and the fear
I feel when I go into the wilderness
Where the jackals and the wolves
Howl for my soul.

Out there, I’m alone. Only God,
And even Him I’m not so sure of.
Why the wilderness? There there is
No running from fear, pain, myself.

Naked and alone I must look
At myself. A grain of sand in a
Hostile world, trying to be so important
But only hanging on to the rock
Who gave me birth.

emptychair– Dale Hartwig (1940-2012) loved the wilderness. He went to his cabin in northern Michigan whenever he could.  Poem #38 was written during advanced Parkinson’s from his room at the Care Center in Grand Rapids, MI. Dale was one of seven classmates who gather annually for reflection and the renewal of friendship. Since Dale’s death, there are six. An empty chair preserves Dale’s seat in the circle.

Poem #76 – The Prairie

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The prairie at night is dotted with light
Of farms where people live and love,
Fight and hate, and celebrate.

Now and again the lights congregate
Like happy peasant women
Singing their songs, dancing their dances.
And I am not so alone.

– Dale Hartwig (1940-2012), looking out the window from his room at the Care Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan where Parkinson’s Disease had left him alone.

Joseph the Widower – Christmas Eve

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Steve’s poems and verses often capture something very large in a few short lines. His “In the Stable” manages to keep the earthly and the heavenly together: an iconic smile at the end offered to a grief-stricken Joseph in the shame-filled, smelly stable. We publish “In the Stable” again for those of you who, like Steve’s Joseph, are dealing at the same time with grief and hope on Christmas Eve:

The shame that old man Joseph felt
in taking Mary to the barn
was mainly that, of course, it smelt:
it reeked with sheep shit, donkey dung,
and cattle plops. The widower
knew wives who whelped were never clean
themselves until the midwives pour
the well water over their loins
and legs, wash front and back. His first
young wife had died in giving birth
to their third child. He shook his fist
at heaven as she lay in filth
and breathed no more. Sweet Mary mild
step-mother, virgin, pushed and smiled…

– Verse by Steve Shoemaker; introduction by Gordon.

CLICK “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” to hear today’s live BBC broadcast (10:00 a.m. EST) from King’s College, Cambridge England.  Merry Christmas to all our readers.

Verse – In the Stable

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The shame that old man Joseph felt
in taking Mary to the barn
was mainly that, of course, it smelt:
it reeked with sheep shit, donkey dung,
and cattle plops. The widower
knew wives who whelped were never clean
themselves until the midwives pour
the well water over their loins
and legs, wash front and back. His first
young wife had died in giving birth
to their third child. He shook his fist
at heaven as she lay in filth
and breathed no more. Sweet Mary mild,
step-mother, virgin, pushed and smiled…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Dec. 24, 2014

Limerick 453

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If you see a REAL angel, you duck;
You know you’ve just run out of luck.
But those on TV,
It’s easy to see,
Make you feel like you just have to
…..buy lingerie.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Dec. 18, 2014

NOTE: Steve seems to be into angels again today as he was with “Victoria’s Secret Angels” last week. He also seems to be re-making himself after the example of our friend Dale, whose poems and verses were mostly untitled.  There’s still competition. Dale’s were listed in numerical order, as in the previous post on Views from the Edge post “Poem #5”. Steve’s limerick is #453!

 

Verse – Sirens

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The women of the choir
were flirting as they sang,
eyes rolling, tilting heads,
the lilting voices rang
the changes in their moods
enticing males who heard
the notes and interludes,
but knew it was absurd:
to trust a single word….

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Dec. 22, 2014

Editor’s Note: Hmmm. I’ve often wondered why Steve sings in three choirs. Maybe Steve and the rest of the basses, tenors, and baritones come to rehearsals as Tritons, the male equivalents of  Sirens?

Triton Fountain, Rome

Triton Fountain, Rome