Tag Archives: Steve Shoemaker

Verse – The Actress

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IMG_7630She’s small, as they say, for her age.
She’s four-foot-eight though she’s twelve
years watching this whole world revolve
around the red sun.
…………………………….She’s on stage
each day when at school or at home.
Her voice screeches loudly, can fill
her classroom and on down the hall.
She’s always the one in the gym
whose laugh or whose cry will resound
and reverberate as they play.

She screamed when she thought that she saw
a stranger beneath a large mound
of bedclothes in her parents’ room.
She took off one flip-flop and struck
her napping grandfather. The smack
was heard by everyone home.

The parents said she should have run
outside–and then called 9-1-1…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, June 5, 2015

 

Caricatures – the best we can do today

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Steve and I have been left speechless recently, but the blogging must go on! Steve sent this email yesterday (subject line: I’m still not writing poems) and granted permission to publish in this dire emergency.

“When in Seminary in 1966, my spouse of one year and I drove to Disneyland. For maybe $5 each, a sidewalk artist drew us as “Research Scientist” (true), and “College Prof” (merely a dream). Although I finally received a Duke Ph.D., I had been a Presbyterian Pastor by then for 10 years, and that’s what I did for 30 more–with some college teaching on the side. Nevertheless, many years of learning & teaching.” – Steve

Nadja Shoemaker (research scientist)

Nadja Shoemaker (research scientist)

Steve Shoemaker caricature (the professor)

Steve Shoemaker caricature (the professor)

Steve was dry as a bone…

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“until Saturday a friend asked me to write a funny tribute to mainstay in a community choir I sang with since I retired. Here is her picture & the light-verse-for-hire. Print it if you want. It’s all I got. (They read it last night at a party–at Ginny’s house–and gave her a framed copy.)”
1.
Ginny MahichThere’s a Ginny that lives in Mahomet–
Tongue and pen are fast, like a comet,
She sings a fine alto,
Or even soprano,
Bakes pastries, and writes a good sonnet!

2.
She goes to Beyler’s for her singing lessons
And she always pays for her sessions
She teases her Julie,
And if sometimes unruly,
A good Catholic, she makes her Confessions!

3.
Her demeanor is often quite merry,
The hats she wears: extraordinary!
And there’s alway a prank,
With her husband, Frank:
Their parties are all legendary.

4.
We all can agree, not one is a doubter
That Ginny Muhich is never a pouter.
So let’s give a cheer
For our Ginny so dear,
The Chorale would go under without her!

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 31, 2015

Two Line Verse

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Verse – Soul Food

Flowers in soil
Feed the soul

Soul Food Flowers

Soul Food Flowers

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL May 24, 2015.

 

Verse – Annals of Aging #12

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There was an old man with weak prostate,
Who overnight could not stay prostrate
For more than two hours
Without golden showers
In porcelain towers. His poor mate

Could never reach REM sleep all night,
And so every morning they’d fight
Till each took a bedroom
With a private bathroom,
And now everything is all right.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 14, 2015

Reunion after 50 Years

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Some will come we never knew
Others we knew well have died
Some faces have never changed
Eyes that smile or smiles that kiss

Age has bent and broken some
Motorcycles carry some
Others have three legs or six
Hair is gone or colored now

Eyes see less and ears have hair
Some wear aids and others should
Minds remember hearts recall
Or we cannot think at all

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 7, 2015

Verse – Grandma’s Garden

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To make grape jelly, she began
three years before by planting vines
along the back fence in her yard.

And now she lets her young grandson
pick purple clumps with his small hands.
With grandma he is never bored,

he helps her cook, and even clean.
She marks the doorway when he stands
to check his growth, just like the plants.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 3, 2015.

Verse – what we are supposed to hate

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wanting everyone to know
just how great we really are

or denying to ourselves
and to everybody else
that we have the skills and smarts
that could win 10,000 hearts

treating others as beneath
us or even inhuman

being irresponsible
for myself or for the world

worse is not caring at all
being dead before we fall
finally into our graves
death is god’s last enemy

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 2, 2015

 

Black Beatings – White Policemen

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How do you explain this? Watch and read Steve’s explanation.

Verse – We Serve & Protect

Sadly, some white policemen
serve themselves, their deepest fears,
on the streets American,
by protecting their ideas:
they think they hear their wives say,
I choose a black man today.

(Only this sort of a Freudian analysis, I think, can explain the extreme anger and violence.)

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 1, 2015

Verse – The Physical

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The annual report
says I’m alive,
but my most memorable
recent dream
is of a portico
that’s unattached,
that leads nowhere, that needs
to be rebuilt.

The parts no longer fit
together. They
may still look strong and sound,
but lie there in
the dirt and will not move.
The contractors
I hire all do their best,
to no avail.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 26, 2015