Category Archives: Poetry

Illinois Tornadoes

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God did not send the tornados.
Evils come from nature just like
Blessings. Gentle rain, tomatoes
Sweet corn, food for all the livestock
(Beans and field corn), also come from
Mother Earth–we need look no
Further.

……….Of course, there is now some
evidence from science: we know
Homo-less-than-sapiens cause
Causes of the storms as well as
Food. Will we be able to make
Changes, or will we try to take
No responsibilities as
Eden’s ungrateful gardeners?

-Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, Illinois, November 18, 2013

Editor’s Notes:
1) Steve lives on the wide-open plains of Illinois.
His home is a sitting duck.

Steve's prairie haven - home of the Urbana "Morning Chorus"

Steve’s prairie haven – home of the Urbana “Morning Chorus”

2) The Editor wasn’t able to accomplish the original
form of the poem. The ten .s were added to bring the
spacing into conformity with Steve’ poem.

The Pianist (an acrostic)

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Jowls quiver before he will play a note,Raise arm now

Each beat and accent felt inside his frame.

In a swoop, the sounds will float,

Enter the air above the piano–same

Mozart motions when he directed, played:

Yes, fellow genius, centuries apart…

Drums, trumpets, strings, a dance, a dirge–all made

Entirely one, unity from the start.

No score for pianist. Eyes are often shut

Keys are played from memory, mind…and heart.

BACKGROUND:The San Francisco Symphony, Directed by Michael Tilson Thomas, played tonight at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. The Mozart Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major (1786) was performed by Jeremy Denk, who in September received a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant. He is a writer for the New Yorker & has a blog recently selected by the Library of Congress Web Archives.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Nov. 15, 2013

The First Snow

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And the first deep cold
This year came
Before the lawn chairs
Were inside
The old brown shed.

The fall leaves
Bright red and yellow
Froze in mats
Unraked and unbagged
Under the thick snow.

The bird bath
Cracked and the hoses
Split from ice
Expanding cruelly
Relentlessly.

Will my clear
Procrastination
Be punished
All winter long or
Will a warm week
Bring forgiveness?

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, November 13, 2013

The Waiting Room

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The voices of the visitors
would drop when they entered
the almost empty anteroom
and stood before the blond wood door
of her positive pressure room.

The air could exit but could not
bring more bad bugs into her lungs
immuno-compromised by stays
in this or other hospitals.

Her breathing stopped on the 4th night
as cancer squeezed another last
breath from exhausted failing lungs.
The empty room keeps breathing out.

[Abigail A. Salyers, 12/24/42–11/6/13, received a Ph. D. in nuclear physics from George Washington University, later did Post-Doctoral studies in Microbiology in Virginia & was the first female tenured Professor in the microbiology department at the Univ. of Illinois. She was elected President of the 40,000 member American Society for Microbiology for 2001-2. She was the author of several books & hundreds of professional articles in her field.]

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, November 7, 2013

November Frost

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White hoarfrost
red Sumac
leaves shriveled
red glistening
in November
morning sun
between seasons
of shriveled
and not yet
leaving blue eyes
red with brilliance
beyond belief

– Gordon C. Stewart, November 5, 2013

I’m no poet, but sometimes I have to pretend I am. My early memories include the beauty of the Sumacs along the coast in Rockport, MA. Every time we left the house, the Sumacs were right there inside the yard with the white picket fence.

There is something about a Sumac tree that is all its own, the red pods in summer set among the green leaves, the red-orange leaves in autumn, the leafless willowy structure with a bare beauty all its own in winter.

This morning’s walk with Barclay, the five month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, took us through the fields covered with hoarfrost. We came to the Sumacs. Barclay sniffed the ground. I, too sniffed. Such brilliance goes far beyond belief.

Verse – The Cancer Joke

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She knew cancer
better than almost
anyone else
in the hospital.
Although not an MD,
she had taught
in the Med School
while doing research
and writing books
and using her Ph. D.
to produce others.

Cancer Society money
had come to her lab
of busy bees for years.
She sat on panels
of judges that chose
who would study which
type of the deadly C.

Now the crooked cells
that had begun in her throat
had caused spots, as they say,
on her lungs and heart
and in her bones.

As a pastor married to the lab
headed by this agnostic,
I knew how to visit
folks given the death sentence:
listen, touch an arm, a shoulder,
remember good times together.

She wanted to tell me a joke.
I leaned close to hear the raspy voice
above the hissing oxygen.
“A microbiologist’s joke
is only one millionth as funny
as a regular joke.”

She raised a needle-filled hand
to touch my worried brow
bowed over her dry grinning lips.

-Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, November 5, 2013

Editor’s Note: Steve was “married to the lab” at the University of Illinois through one of its research scientists, his wife, Nadja.

After the Joyful Concert

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Post Concert Animal Triste

Sixty of us sang
under one baton
spirituals and folk
songs to SRO
crowd of friends and fans
standing clapping some
shouting AMEN when
soloist filled church
with his ringing sound

Now the silence rings
through the empty space
in between my ears
early the next day
snatches of the songs
come and go glow then
fade finally bring
ashes to my tongue

never again sing

[Post coitum omni animal triste est–after sex all animals are sad] Steve Shoemaker
Urbana, IL, November 4, 2013

Verse – Late October Rain

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Later it would not be grey,
dismal, lukewarm, fall in waves.
Now it soaks the fallen leaves,
mutes their colors, strips the tree.

Clouds and fog…is fog a cloud
held close to the ground by grief
at the loss of summer? Half
harvest completed, work stalled.

City street lights dim above
stay on in the daynight gloom.
Windshield wipers swipe the storm.
There is nothing here to love.

– A cheerful verse 🙂 by Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, October 31, 2013.

Chocolate Chips

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Although I eat a small handful
right from the bowl (poured there because
there is no crinkly sound tell-tale),
just like Grandpa D did – cookies
need just half as much as are called
for on the yellow package (they,
of course, each year want more chips sold
than were the year before), so I
achieve the perfect dough-chip mix
by not following directions –
just like the old man when he’d fix
them (he taught me sales resistance…)
but then he’d put the Nestle chips
he’d saved into the Cream of Wheat
(you can’t eat too much chocolate.)

– Verse “Chocolate Chips”
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, October 29, 2013

Rejoicing and Mourning

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Verse – Romans 12:15

We often get the biggest gifts just when
we need them least. When we are poor, folks stay
away. They do not even see us then:
invisible, we starve. We work all day,
all night, but if we strike it rich, we find
new friends who buy us lunch, and bring
us business, give us tips on stocks,
and lend us their vacation homes. Remind
me what the prophet said: we are to sing
and dance and eat the fatted ox
with those who celebrate. But we must then
search out the poor who mourn or else we sin.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, October 25, 2013

“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”

– Paul’s Epistle to the Romans chapter 12, verse 15.

Editor’s Note: Have you noticed that we don’t talk about the poor any more? Why, do you suppose?