Tag Archives: verse

The Two Halves of Life

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North Shore driftwood

North Shore driftwood

 

The first half is much bigger
than the second shorter half

green, naive, sprouting,
climbing, reaching, chasing

after stars we cannot yet see
but believe are there

in timeless skies that shine
and tease the imagination

of twinkling immortality that
halts when illness strikes

or death intrudes to put the
lights out in the sky

and remind us to look down
as well as up, at our mortality

this flesh and blood we are,
this dust and ash we cannot

shed no matter how we try
or imagine otherwise and

if we’re lucky or blessed,
we understand in the second

shorter wiser, browner, wilting
falling, losing, finding second

shorter half of life the calm
that comes in golden years.

– Gordon C. Stewart, Oct. 25, 2014

Verse – Polyphony in Poetry

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For a poem to sing
must it be in a song?:
Is a melody needed
beyond a mere drone?
Can the words on a page
create true harmony?
Are duets possible
realistically?

I cannot write
a round, a round.
A canon cannot
make one sound.

Each syllable makes just one note:
no melisma in poet’s throat…

to find one’s voice
amid the cacophony
of post-industrial, technological
society (with advertisements
POPPING UP everywhere)
is difficult enough without
hoping to be the J.S. Bach
of modern literature

One line at a time,
No need for a rhyme:
One chirp from a bird
is worth being heard.

Go to a concert for
polyphony.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Oct. 19, 2014

In Memory of Jean Redpath

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Verse In Memory of Jean Redpath
An Acrostic

Joyful on the stage or off,
Even after doctors gave
A cancer diagnosis. Have
No doubt that the Scot did laugh,

Reassured her friends and fans,
Endured treatment with a song,
Drank some scotch, then sang again!
Played the guitar, sent emails,
Always asked about her friends,
Thankful that she could still sing,
Hearing her sweet Robbie Burns…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, August 26, 2014

Verse – psalm for the green prairies

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august brings blooms to the midwest
prairies, some restored to the time
prior to when the settlers came:
blazing star and the false boneset,

compass plant and black-eyed susan,
white and purple prairie clover,
flowering spurge and pale coneflower,
prairie dock and hoary vervain.

present prairies are productive:
in the i-states: indiana,
illinois, and then iowa,
field corn, soybeans, are pervasive.

checkerboards are green and golden,
maize from native american.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, August 16, 2014

Our Family Bush

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We go back to the Mayflower,
but to a murderer found there.
No property or position,
no wealth, no fame, or profession.

No beauties seen now or then,
but we managed to have children.

– Verse by Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, July 26, 2014

 

Solitude

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Steve Shoemaker wrote this lovely verse after reading Alexander Pope’s Ode on Solitude.

On Reading “Solitude,” written at age 12 by Alexander Pope.

In our time of celebrity
adulation, we all want fame.
To die unknown, not on TV,
will bring us shame.

Pope seems to love obscurity,
yet he is known 300 years
later for his great poetry.
I write with tears

my words will not ever be read
except on FaceBook by 10 friends.
No one will know me when I’m dead:
pride even ends.

 

– Steve Shoemaker, July 15, 2014

Editor’s Note: Steve’s verse arrives two weeks after his first cataract surgery and the morning after my latest hearing test. His eyesight is better than it’s been since he was eight, but he has no illusions of a return to the tender years when life lay all ahead waiting to unfold. Unlike Steve’s corrected eyesight, my hearing will not get better; it moves me ever deeper into silence and solitude, a gentle sort of preparation for the acceptance of death (obscurity) when there is no pride.

That Alexander Pope could write this at the age of 12 is astonishing. I’m going back to the Poetry Foundation for more of him, but today I’ll feast on Steve’s reading of him and the first stanza of Pope’s Ode to Solitude:

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.

Click the link above (Ode on Solitude) for Pope’s poem on the site of The Poetry Foundation.

Thanks for coming by!

Gordon and Steve

 

 

Verse – The Mama Rabbit

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The Mama rabbit in the city
dug a nest in our back yard.
She pulled fur from her own body,
hiding babies in the grass.

She came to nurse them every hour,
but she watched them from afar.
Hawks and foxes might have found them
if she stayed there all the time.

I saw one baby rabbit crawling
when I mowed the grass above.
Then I saw the Mama watching
as I placed him in the nest.

The internet said she would feed him
even after touched by me.
My kids and spouse watched from the window
at the growing family.

– Steve Shoemaker, July 1, 2014

Verse – Culverts

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Used at least since ancient Rome
to let water safely flow
under roads, a culvert acts
like a bridge and also makes
travel safe for folks above.

Fish and frogs can glide and dive,
chased by coons and also kids.
Parents warn of danger there,
but a hiding place will share
mystery, enchantment…love.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, June 12, 2014

The three-year-old Pastor’s son

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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 – A la recherche des amours perdus

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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.