Tag Archives: Steve Shoemaker

A Long Road

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Yes, Race Street went from north to south
in front of my high school. I’d drive
each day from home and risk the wrath
of Mr. Rice when I’d arrive
five minutes late because I’d wait
for both the Larson twins who lived
with three more brothers down the street.

No, that was fifty years ago
and now I live a half mile east
of Race Street, but each day still go
that way to town. I drive right past
the football field where we would cheer
and hold the hands of those we loved.
How did we get from there to here?

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, December 28, 2013

No coach ever

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There is no “U” in TEAM,
so I’ll not pass to you.
Winning isn’t everything,
it’s the lonely thing.
All for none,
and none for all!
When the going gets tough,
the tough say “Enough!”

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Dec. 22, 2013

Verse – Caregiver

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as teacher minded others children
and cared for her own
her spouse of forty years was sick ten
then left her alone
by dying way too young
…………………………….his special
brother needed aid
with meds and moving thinking mental
health have his bills paid
her mother needed visits daily
she was ninety-eight
all thought god treated her unfairly
she just smiled at fate

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, December 19, 2013

Limerick on Heinlein’s Razor

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My first thought was that he was horrid.
The language he used was quite florid.
Perhaps he was mean
or not very keen–
is it wrong just to say he was stupid?

Steve Shoemaker’s limerickized version of Heinlein’s razor (sometimes called Hanlon’s razor): “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

Two plus four

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…… 2 + 4 =

Laughter and giggling,
Crying, hair-pulling,
Yelling, “That’s not fair!”
Snuggles and duets.

Two runny noses
Wobbly first steps
Sibling jealousy
Sibling loyalty

Car seats and strollers,
Diapers and powder,
Cribs and big-girl-beds,
Two shoes but lost socks,

Exhausted parents,
Yelling in restaurants,
Rich baby-sitters,
No baby this year.

-Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, December 11, 2013

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 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

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?

O Let My People Go

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For ten or twenty, thirty years or more
the song was sung before the Civil War

by southern slaves in secret. First a call,
and then a sung response that came from all

around, “O let my people go!” And then
another voice, another poet, sang

out still another call, “Tell King Pharaoh!”
And then, “This world’s a wilderness of woe…”

“O let my people go!” Old Lincoln heard
the sad song sung and gave the legal word:

Abolish evil slavery first here,
and finally across the land. For where

no freedom is for some, at risk we all
will be. Each one must listen for the call:

to set each prisoner free.

– Verse “O Let My People Go” by Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, October 23, 2013

Spirituals! (The first one published in 1861, “O Let My People Go,” was transcribed by a YMCA missionary sent to help escaped slaves at Fort Monroe. –Dena J. Epstein, “Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War,” Univ of Illinois Press, 1977, 2003.)

Editor’s Note: Harriet Tubman was the Moses of the Underground Railroad.