walking
dancing
heartbeat
breathing
poems
music
all have
rhythm
living
dying
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 30, 2014
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 30, 2014
Time
6
Category Archives: Poetry
The three-year-old Pastor’s son
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
“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
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
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
Charlie Wisseman – Acrostic
Charlie Wisseman
(An Acrostic)
Craft? Art? What is this new construction?
How is it even worth debating?
An artist surely in conception,
Real thought, and then the Thing creating…
Look well, each level may be hollow,
Inside another world is waiting,
Enlightenment may sometimes follow.
Wise man is right: so much is hidden,
Inside surprises, jokes, a giggle…
So secret are the ways to open
Sweet Sarah herself has to struggle
Each time a new box by the craftsman
Makes entrance into pure existence.
And who would know of so much hidden?
Now a pathologist, for instance?
-Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 1, 2014
Verse – No doubt
No Doubt
I know he is guilty,
I know what he did.
He was wrong,
He was wicked,
He lied and deceived.
I’ll never forgive him,
I’ll never forget.
My resentment I’ll
Hold in my heart
Till I shrivel and die.
I know I am innocent,
I know I am right.
“The opposite of faith
is not doubt–
the opposite of faith
is certainty.”*
* Anne Lamott
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 28, 2014
Verse – 2 under 3
2 under 3
John and Caroline
1 plus 1
equals 3
or more
when you
add a boy
and girl
to a young
couple both
who work
outside the
home as is
done today
you take him
and i take her
after day-care
after au pair
after nana
after nanny
we are so tired
there will never
be another
well maybe
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 27, 2014
Fear and Faith
The resurrected
Jesus was a man
and not a Zombie.
He was raised to be
alive, and not both
dead and living when
God seized him by his soul
and set him free.
He was not thirsting
after blood, was no
Vampire, did not become
immortal, but eternally
had life–there is, you know,
a difference… Jesus
spoke and drank and ate
with all his students,
the Disciples, though
they had all run away
when those with sword
and club, the Roman
soldiers, came to show
this upstart Rabbi
Caesar still was Lord.
The undead try to scare,
but Jesus said
“Have peace–you do not need
to be afraid.”
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 21, 2014
The Red-winged Blackbirds
Yes, he protects us well, his red
and yellow shoulders flashing as
he flies. And when he perches, flares
his wings–the epaulets go wide,
his long, sharp beak thrust like a sword,
his cry is menacing, a shriek.We see him at the very peak
of tree, or tip of cattail, lord
of meadow, marsh, his own wetland
small harem. We each build a nest
and raise, mostly, his chicks. The rest
have genes from yet another birdbecause the male from the next field
can fly by, flash, and we will yield.-Steve Shoemaker, April 17, 2014
Views from the Edge 