Tag Archives: Steve Shoemaker

Tower of Strength

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Why Atlas, Samson, Hercules, Paul Bunyan
and Superman aren’t with us anymore…
and why the latest SuperHero won’t last.

He was strong. Unlike some men his size
power pulsed, constrained–there was no fat.
He stood tall. His eyes looked down on those
passing by who turned and stared, impressed.
He would smile. He joked when asked his height,
Five feet…twenty!” Childhood awe returned
(big is best, is boss.) Authority
is imposed. The strong do what they want.

He had never been a little child–
young, but never small. Assumed adult,
he was proud to grapple, fight and hold,
lift and shoulder, carry, guard, protect.
Work was good, but work was never done.
Satisfaction was postponed. Trials like
cancer cells dividing, unrestrained,
overwhelmed him. Tasks enough to make
gods despair. Then buildings built decayed,
bridges fell, and wars blazed in the land
he had calmed before. He went to bed.
The world’s weight will break the strongest man.

-Steve Shoemaker
[Published in Response, Journal of the Lutheran
Society for Worship, Music and the Arts, No. 3,
1976.]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Apologies to Steve for the formatting. The first three lines were originally centered. The blog hasn’t cooperated this morning. Art fell victim to technology. BUT without te3chnology “Tower of Strength” would not have come your way.

Join Steve at Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church in Chaska, MN Tuesday, October 1 at 7:00 p.m. for a Tuesday Dialogues program featuring Steve’s poetry.

Atlas and St. Patrick Cathedral

Atlas and St. Patrick Cathedral

The Donkey’s Questions

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Matthew’s Gospel has two asses (donkeys), not one, in its Palm Sunday narrative. “They brought the ass and the colt, and put their garments on them, and he sat thereon.” Steve Shoemaker’s versed ponders the scene from the standpoint of the colt.

Verse – The Donkey’s Questions on Palm Sunday,
according to St. Matthew

He searched for just the right stick…
but then he never hit me? Why
go to all that trouble? Pick
the answer: 1. that he would try
directing the singing? 2.
to lean on when the day was through?

Why does he ride on my mom
while I’m just trotting alongside?
What does “Halleluja” mean?
Who’ll pick up clothes after the ride?
Now he shifts and rides on me–
he breaks the stick and makes a “T.”
His face looks like he’s had a loss…
Is he thinking of that cross?

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL,

Verse – A Stain on the Moon (Brain?)

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While driving home last night, I saw

a full moon in the eastern sky.

There were no clouds wandering by

(I’m sorry, Wordsworth…), but I saw

a line, a dark smudge–vertical–

move from the upper right and fall

quite slowly (like a tentacle)

down to the lower left. 

                                               I called

my spouse at home using my cell

(risking the lives of all around),

but she saw nothing.  Could it be

a floater in my eye?  Windshield

bugs, butterflies?  Or could it be,

as some have thought, that I’m crazy.

 

-Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, September 19, 2013

Howling at the Moon

Howling at the Moon

Howl at the moon with Steve Tuesday, October 1 at 7:00 p.m. at Shepherd of the Hill Church Tuesday Dialogues: examining critical public issues locally and globally: “Emancipation: Becoming Free – Go Fly a Kite!”

The GPS

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Lost in Chicago

Parking now is privatized,
on-street prices very high,
all hotels have also raised
valet costs in the same way:
everybody wants to make
as much money as they can
before bankruptcy will take
everybody down just like
Detroit.

Mile Magnificent is still
mostly white except for men
parking cars or begging on
sidewalk sides. Inside, women
wear their diamonds on pale hands–
colored hands wear vinyl, fill
buckets, pails, trash bags, and cans:
garbage left behind by all
the rich.

Foreigners drive taxis, make
more here than at home. Send back
salaries and tips to help
families survive. I stop,
lost on lower Wacker Drive,
lower Michigan, no help
here from GPS, “Now drive
east 500 feet and stop.”
(I’d be in the lake…)

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, September 9, 2013

P.S. On Tuesday, October 1 Steve will bring his poetry to Tuesday Dialogues at Shepherd of the Hill Church in Chaska. Free and open to the public.

Supersweet Corn – Acrostic Verse

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Iroquois corn and squash

Squash was planted by the Iroquois 

Under corn stalks with the climbing beans.

Protecting the soil from weeds, the leaves

Even shaded earth worms.  Illinois

Researchers much later found the genes

Sweeter than the rest to make the corn,

White or yellow, taste best from the store.

Even though corn from the garden has

Enough health inside to cure most ills,

There are some who still will go buy more.

 

Corn that’s grown to be so super sweet 

Offers all a treat to taste and eat:

Rush the husks from stalk to table–feast!

Never argue:  roast OR boil is best!

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL August 27, 2013

Are Rainbows Real?

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Rainbow over the IL prairie.

Rainbow over the IL prairie.

They can be seen by other eyes than mine–
but rainbows are mono-directional:

they disappear if you will face the sun.
If you move toward a rainbow you will fail

to ever reach it: always up ahead,
elusive, magical–the circle seen

only above the earth. Sometimes instead
of one, two bows appear, and in between

a darker band in contrast to the light
below the palette of diversity.

Beyond prediction, measurement or fact,
a rainbow’s truth will live inside the eye.

– Verse and photography by Steve Shoemaker on the
plain behind his prairie home in Urbana, IL.

Hitch-hiking

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The Hitch-hi8ker

The Hitch-hiker

A friend
said that when in college
in the 1940’s,
he once hitched a ride
in the car of a guy
who drove to an airport
and flew him in his plane
all the way to his school.
…
But another driver
who stopped at his thumb
was drunk and about rolled
the car at the first bend
in the road.
…
He mused: Only some
Samaritans are good…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, July 24, 2013

Someone really died?

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Verse – “We All Used to be Equal Under the Shroud”

About half way through my life
(I am now 3-score and 10)
funerals became the new
thing, “Celebrations of Life,”
with friends (no enemies would come)
saying fine or funny things
about the very special one
who sadly couldn’t be there then
because the ashes were still stored
at the crematorium
and might not ever be picked up,
or buried (unless family had
a plot already bought and paid for,
then a private internment
might for seven very short
minutes remind a few folks
that someone was dead.)

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, July 8, 2013

Mumblety-peg

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Mumblety-peg playersSteve Shoemaker’s friends call him “Shoe” to this day. Shoe is 6’8″ with huge feet and shoes.

Mumblety-peg

When we played “Stretch” we used our feet,
and not some “candy” wooden stick
stuck in the ground. From my pocket
the folded Barlow knife I’d pick
up by the blade and spin into
the ground. My grade school friend would yell
if it would land anywhere too
close to his tenny-runner shoe,
“Shoe, you can go straight down to hell!”
Then I would have to stand while he
taught me strict reciprocity.

– Steve (“Shoe”) Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 19., 2013

You say you’ve never heard of Mumblety-peg? Click HERE for a “manly” definition on “The Art of Manliness” website :-).

A Beautiful Woman

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Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene

“Not a Limerick”

A beautiful woman named Honey
Told jokes with a countenance sunny.
The punch lines were bold,
and the jokes were well told,
but since not about sex were not funny.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 15, 2013

NOTE: Views from the Edge added Mary Magdalene to the post.