A shoemaker toiled each day to provide for himself
From dusk until dawn, leather was washed and cut, laced and stained

The living room was stacked with books, found, bought, or stolen
The kitchen supplied with only some fruit, vegetables, and a few loaves of bread

The town was healthy, and run well
The neighborhoods were peaceful, but not without trouble

A widow and son were watched over and provided for
But the loyal cobbler received not even a wave

In desperation, the shoemaker returned to his work
For that is all a man can do

I

Out of the little chapel I burst
Into the fresh night-air again.
Five minutes full, I waited first
In the doorway, to escape the rain
That drove in gusts down the common’s centre
At the edge of which the chapel stands,
Before I plucked up heart to enter.
Heaven knows how many sorts of hands
Reached past me, groping for the latch
Of the inner door that hung on catch
More obstinate the more they fumbled,
Till, giving way at last with a scold
Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled
One sheep more to the rest in fold,
And left me irresolute, standing sentry
In the sheepfold’s lath-and-plaster entry,
Six feet long by three feet wide,
Partitioned off from the vast inside—
I blocked up half of it at least.
No remedy; the rain kept driving.
They eyed me much as some wild beast,
That congregation, still arriving,
Some of them by the main road, white
A long way past me into the night,
Skirting the common, then diverging;
Not a few suddenly emerging
From the common’s self through the paling-gaps,
—They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,
Where the road stops short with its safeguard border
Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;—
But the most turned in yet more abruptly
From a certain squalid knot of alleys,
Where the town’s bad blood once slept corruptly,
Which now the little chapel rallies
And leads into day again,—its priestliness
Lending itself to hide their beastliness
So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on
Those neophytes too much in lack of it,
That, where you cross the common as I did,
And meet the party thus presided,
“Mount Zion” with Love-lane at the back of it,
They front you as little disconcerted
As, bound for the hills, her fate averted,
And her wicked people made to mind him,
Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.

II

Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,
In came the flock: the fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones; then, with a snort,
Like a startled horse, at the interloper
(Who humbly knew himself improper,
But could not shrink up small enough)
—Round to the door, and in,—the gruff
Hinge’s invariable scold
Making my very blood run cold.
Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered
On broken clogs, the many-tattered
Little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother
Of the sickly babe she tried to smother
Somehow up, with its spotted face,
From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place;
She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry
Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby
Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping
Already from my own clothes’ dropping,
Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on:
Then, stooping down to take off her pattens,
She bore them defiantly, in each hand one,
Planted together before her breast
And its babe, as good as a lance in rest.
Close on her heels, the dingy satins
Of a female something past me flitted,
With lips as much too white, as a streak
Lay far too red on each hollow cheek;
And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied
All that was left of a woman once,
Holding at least its tongue for the *****.
Then a tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief,
With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief,
And eyelids ******* together tight,
Led himself in by some inner light.
And, except from him, from each that entered,
I got the same interrogation—
“What, you the alien, you have ventured
To take with us, the elect, your station?
A carer for none of it, a Gallio!”—
Thus, plain as print, I read the glance
At a common prey, in each countenance
As of huntsman giving his hounds the tallyho.
And, when the door’s cry drowned their wonder,
The draught, it always sent in shutting,
Made the flame of the single tallow candle
In the cracked square lantern I stood under,
Shoot its blue lip at me, rebutting
As it were, the luckless cause of scandal:
I verily fancied the zealous light
(In the chapel’s secret, too!) for spite
Would shudder itself clean off the wick,
With the airs of a Saint John’s Candlestick.
There was no standing it much longer.
“Good folks,” thought I, as resolve grew stronger,
“This way you perform the Grand-Inquisitor
When the weather sends you a chance visitor?
You are the men, and wisdom shall die with you,
And none of the old Seven Churches vie with you!
But still, despite the pretty perfection
To which you carry your trick of exclusiveness,
And, taking God’s word under wise protection,
Correct its tendency to diffusiveness,
And bid one reach it over hot ploughshares,—
Still, as I say, though you’ve found salvation,
If I should choose to cry, as now, ‘Shares!’—
See if the best of you bars me my ration!
I prefer, if you please, for my expounder
Of the laws of the feast, the feast’s own Founder;
Mine’s the same right with your poorest and sickliest,
Supposing I don the marriage vestiment:
So, shut your mouth and open your Testament,
And carve me my portion at your quickliest!”
Accordingly, as a shoemaker’s lad
With wizened face in want of soap,
And wet apron wound round his waist like a rope,
(After stopping outside, for his cough was bad,
To get the fit over, poor gentle creature
And so avoid distrubing the preacher)
—Passed in, I sent my elbow spikewise
At the shutting door, and entered likewise,
Received the hinge’s accustomed greeting,
And crossed the threshold’s magic pentacle,
And found myself in full conventicle,
—To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting,
On the Christmas-Eve of ‘Forty-nine,
Which, calling its flock to their special clover,
Found all assembled and one sheep over,
Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was mine.

III

I very soon had enough of it.
The hot smell and the human noises,
And my neighbor’s coat, the greasy cuff of it,
Were a pebble-stone that a child’s hand poises,
Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pressure
Of the preaching man’s immense stupidity,
As he poured his doctrine forth, full measure,
To meet his audience’s avidity.
You needed not the wit of the Sibyl
To guess the cause of it all, in a twinkling:
No sooner our friend had got an inkling
Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible,
(Whene’er ‘t was the thought first struck him,
How death, at unawares, might duck him
Deeper than the grave, and quench
The gin-shop’s light in hell’s grim drench)
Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence,
As to hug the book of books to pieces:
And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance,
Not improved by the private dog’s-ears and creases,
Having clothed his own soul with, he’d fain see equipt yours,—
So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures.
And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt:
Nay, had but a single face of my neighbors
Appeared to suspect that the preacher’s labors
Were help which the world could be saved without,
‘T is odds but I might have borne in quiet
A qualm or two at my spiritual diet,
Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered
Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon:
But the flock sat on, divinely flustered,
Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon
With such content in every snuffle,
As the devil inside us loves to ruffle.
My old fat woman purred with pleasure,
And thumb round thumb went twirling faster,
While she, to his periods keeping measure,
Maternally devoured the pastor.
The man with the handkerchief untied it,
Showed us a horrible wen inside it,
Gave his eyelids yet another *******,
And rocked himself as the woman was doing.
The shoemaker’s lad, discreetly choking,
Kept down his cough. ‘T was too provoking!
My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it;
So, saying like Eve when she plucked the apple,
“I wanted a taste, and now there’s enough of it,”
I flung out of the little chapel.

IV

There was a lull in the rain, a lull
In the wind too; the moon was risen,
And would have shone out pure and full,
But for the ramparted cloud-prison,
Block on block built up in the West,
For what purpose the wind knows best,
Who changes his mind continually.
And the empty other half of the sky
Seemed in its silence as if it knew
What, any moment, might look through
A chance gap in that fortress massy:—
Through its fissures you got hints
Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints,
Now, a dull lion-color, now, brassy
Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow,
Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow,
All a-simmer with intense strain
To let her through,—then blank again,
At the hope of her appearance failing.
Just by the chapel a break in the railing
Shows a narrow path directly across;
‘T is ever dry walking there, on the moss—
Besides, you go gently all the way up-hill.
I stooped under and soon felt better;
My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple,
As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter.
My mind was full of the scene I had left,
That placid flock, that pastor vociferant,
—How this outside was pure and different!
The sermon, now—what a mingled weft
Of good and ill! Were either less,
Its fellow had colored the whole distinctly;
But alas for the excellent earnestness,
And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly,
But as surely false, in their quaint presentment,
However to pastor and flock’s contentment!
Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes,
With his provings and parallels twisted and twined,
Till how could you know them, grown double their size
In the natural fog of the good man’s mind,
Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps,
Haloed about with the common’s damps?
Truth remains true, the fault’s in the prover;
The zeal was good, and the aspiration;
And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over,
Pharaoh received no demonstration,
By his Baker’s dream of Baskets Three,
Of the doctrine of the Trinity,—
Although, as our preacher thus embellished it,
Apparently his hearers relished it
With so unfeigned a gust—who knows if
They did not prefer our friend to Joseph?
But so it is everywhere, one way with all of them!
These people have really felt, no doubt,
A something, the motion they style the Call of them;
And this is their method of bringing about,
By a mechanism of words and tones,
(So many texts in so many groans)
A sort of reviving and reproducing,
More or less perfectly, (who can tell?)
The mood itself, which strengthens by using;
And how that happens, I understand well.
A tune was born in my head last week,
Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek
Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester;
And when, next week, I take it back again,
My head will sing to the engine’s clack again,
While it only makes my neighbor’s haunches stir,
—Finding no dormant musical sprout
In him, as in me, to be jolted out.
‘T is the taught already that profits by teaching;
He gets no more from the railway’s preaching
Than, from this preacher who does the rail’s officer, I:
Whom therefore the flock cast a jealous eye on.
Still, why paint over their door “Mount Zion,”
To which all flesh shall come, saith the pro phecy?

V

But wherefore be harsh on a single case?
After how many modes, this Christmas-Eve,
Does the self-same weary thing take place?
The same endeavor to make you believe,
And with much the same effect, no more:
Each method abundantly convincing,
As I say, to those convinced before,
But scarce to be swallowed without wincing
By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me,
I have my own church equally:
And in this church my faith sprang first!
(I said, as I reached the rising ground,
And the wind began again, with a burst
Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound
From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,
I entered his church-door, nature leading me)
—In youth I looked to these very skies,
And probing their immensities,
I found God there, his visible power;
Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense
Of the power, an equal evidence
That his love, there too, was the nobler dower.
For the loving worm within its clod
Were diviner than a loveless god
Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.
You know what I mean: God’s all man’s naught:
But also, God, whose pleasure brought
Man into being, stands away
As it were a handbreadth off, to give
Room for the newly-made to live,
And look at him from a place apart,
And use his gifts of brain and heart,
Given, indeed, but to keep forever.
Who speaks of man, then, must not sever
Man’s very elements from man,
Saying, “But all is God’s”—whose plan
Was to create man and then leave him
Able, his own word saith, to grieve him,
But able to glorify him too,
As a mere machine could never do,
That prayed or praised, all unaware
Of its fitness for aught but praise and prayer,
Made perfect as a thing of course.
Man, therefore, stands on his own stock
Of love and power as a pin-point rock:
And, looking to God who ordained divorce
Of the rock from his boundless continent,
Sees, in his power made evident,
Only excess by a million-fold
O’er the power God gave man in the mould.
For, note: man’s hand, first formed to carry
A few pounds’ weight, when taught to marry
Its strength with an engine’s, lifts a mountain,
—Advancing in power by one degree;
And why count steps through eternity?
But love is the ever-springing fountain:
Man may enlarge or narrow his bed
For the water’s play, but the water-head—
How can he multiply or reduce it?
As easy create it, as cause it to cease;
He may profit by it, or abuse it,
But ‘t is not a thing to bear increase
As power does: be love less or more
In the heart of man, he keeps it shut
Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but
Love’s sum remains what it was before.
So, gazing up, in my youth, at love
As seen through power, ever above
All modes which make it manifest,
My soul brought all to a single test—
That he, the Eternal First and Last,
Who, in his power, had so surpassed
All man conceives of what is might,—
Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite,
—Would prove as infinitely good;
Would never, (my soul understood,)
With power to work all love desires,
Bestow e’en less than man requires;
That he who endlessly was teaching,
Above my spirit’s utmost reaching,
What love can do in the leaf or stone,
(So that to master this alone,
This done in the stone or leaf for me,
I must go on learning endlessly)
Would never need that I, in turn,
Should point him out defect unheeded,
And show that God had yet to learn
What the meanest human creature needed,
—Not life, to wit, for a few short years,
Tracking his way through doubts and fears,
While the stupid earth on which I stay
Suffers no change, but passive adds
Its myriad years to myriads,
Though I, he gave it to, decay,
Seeing death come and choose about me,
And my dearest ones depart without me.
No: love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,
Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it,
The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it,
Shall arise, made perfect, from death’s repose of it.
And I shall behold thee, face to face,
O God, and in thy light retrace
How in all I loved here, still wast thou!
Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,
I shall find as able to satiate
The love, thy gift, as my spirit’s wonder
Thou art able to quicken and sublimate,
With this sky of thine, that I now walk under
And glory in thee for, as I gaze
Thus, thus! Oh, let men keep their ways
Of seeking thee in a narrow shrine—
Be this my way! And this is mine!

VI

For lo, what think you? suddenly
The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky
Received at once the full fruition
Of the moon’s consummate apparition.
The black cloud-barricade was riven,
Ruined beneath her feet, and driven
Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless,
North and South and East lay ready
For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,
Sprang across them and stood steady.
‘T was a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect,
From heaven to heaven extending, perfect
As the mother-moon’s self, full in face.
It rose, distinctly at the base
With its seven proper colors chorded,
Which still, in the rising, were compressed,
Until at last they coalesced,
And supreme the spectral creature lorded
In a triumph of whitest white,—
Above which intervened the night.
But above night too, like only the next,
The second of a wondrous sequence,
Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,
Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed
Another rainbow rose, a mightier,
Fainter, flushier and flightier,—
Rapture dying along its verge.
Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge,
Whose, from the straining topmost dark,
On to the keystone of that are?

VII

This sight was shown me, there and then,—
Me, one out of a world of men,
Singled forth, as the chance might hap
To another if, in a thu

I don't really know if this is cut out for me. I rather go to Colorado in my singing voice* how I wish I was your lover please_ let's respect one another....

Here are the
stage lights
If you cannot
stand the heat
Bud light
Other seasons
The Four Seasons
Sherry Baby

Delicacies
Diva and Don Perion
Dressed
Navy and bloodshot
Eyes maroon
The fire desire
Only made them
Moon up higher
legacy
The voices
appetizer

Pina Colada
Fireworks Bella Diva
Gondola
Sunrise Prima Donna
Between the Diva
Fireworks outside
Of Lady Madonna

(Moonstruck)
Havana
Fireworks at
her breast
hot singer
editorial
Designer Hermes
scarfed $
Diva she raises
money
Fill in her gaps
Gap Navy
So savvy Honey
Oh! Jesus
Another
genius
Fireman
Rifleman
Joplin
Baby baby
Baby

She stepped
away
from reality
What about
me Robin
I am a singer
World became
my Godly
duty
Miss Mom Judy

The music
All trends
addicted to
shopping
Men %% $
Those  Poppins
Pop stars
Robin bob bobbin
along
She's chicken
Avocado
Comando
Chief Fido

Fireworks top
crooks
The safe box
She cooks
crock ***
Aluminum Clad
Potheads
Australian lads
All spread out in
Chickenpox

Egg Foo young
Cream say cheese
Lox Hip Hop
Sugar Daddy
Pops
Collegiate
Quickie talk
((Chatterbox))
The made hit
singers paradox
Calm me, Colorado
Endless voice

Eldorado
Diva had too many
Stars at the sing sing
of Rosy®
At the check coat Sassy
Tommy can you hear me
Her mouth
mento mints

Extreme bossy
Deep-throat
(Juicy Pineapple
Dole) her

The singer sways
all over him
Dancing Glove pole
If this is the
last thing
we ever do

Designed for a
Diva with
Jimmy Choo, it's
not a
better life
for me and you

******* coo
Lana Turner,
Turntable 4 the record_
Tina Turner
What does
loving a Diva
got to do
with this!!

So tramped on
Diva devourer
He's the observer

Maxwell millionaires

Tantalizing tongues
The Canaries
Yellow Solo
Not the goddess the
Diva Luv-a sun
{Ralph Polo]
Little darlings
Vampire
Diaries
The mad
librarian
BLT Diva VIP
The hell of
tinnitus

D=F ****-Fun
in" D"
Devilology
Diva Fireworks
sanitarium
Disney
aquarium

My sign the
Aquarius
So Forestal Crystal
Forest Hills US
open tennis

We are the
champions
The  sexter pistol
wedding ring
Go, Crystal
He compelled her
Divas revolver
Wild thing makes
my heart sing
And his boxers
make me  
so closer

Diva solver
Frenzy firecracker
pleaser
Who is ready to vote
Songs wanted
love pusher

Diva's eyes
  Maybelline
Maybe all lined
Stadium of voices
titanium
The Diva to
be resold

Too many songs
were sold
Wife trophy
Platinum had
a voice tone

Diva Grand
Marnier
He's the
connoisseur
of mouth's
experimental

Mentally
He tricks you
Singing horse
you just know
won't trick you
A singer is like
a horse

Wizard of Odd
Moms many colors
performances
This land is your
land from
California but
the Diva Islands
flipping
Las Vegas

Nothing is
guaranteed
((Lady GaGa))
Your out
Haha
Stay upright
lights down
out of sight

*Brooklyn Blackout
Cake Ebinger
We were eating
Singing and Guessing

Diva sucker
lollipops
Panic at the disco
To run him over
What R the odds
Getting even road
Steven the Cosmos

The singing
highway
project
Robin was
from Bayview
Project
All Adultery
Bills
Clintons Mastery
No Susie
homemaker
Hilariously singing
Shining like the
shoemaker

Sitting at
the pub
She ordered a
hot steaming
Spa voice
The Egyptian
grains
of love sand
Medler
Fergie Google
Ben Stiller
Singer just
pill her
burlesque

So Cher-like
if I could
change back
the time I would
do it anyway
Jumping Diva
Kangaroo  pouch

Too much Diva
Ouch----
Joe DiMaggio
fireworks of *****
Big wiggle
Opera
Marilyn Monroe
The Phantom
Of *** appeal
Propaganda
Blowing off
competition
nails

But__ dying inside
like a deadlight
Sparkle me
*** lights
That voice
signals
"Neon Nights"
ooh la the
Eifel tower
bowed her
Moonstruck
striking
wallet high Kicking
wages
Got her voice back
to be shot in stages

Her revolver
eight days a week
The real voice
never take
for granted

Genie
The Diva Luv
in her SUV
She was still
singing
And he wasted
his
whole
dinner

But I got
my voice back
Singing
She let her heart out
He turned his head
He said  what a stunner

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing
on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing
as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning,
or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—
or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her,
and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows,
robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

How could the mountains
forget
the ground beneath them

or the clouds deny
the sky

we bear this mark
this Galactic conception
and yet
we become fictional

a small etch
of understanding

nonexistent sketch
in the dredge pituitary

a one
dimensional edge
we watch like
a picture
show

existentialist
and it's fiery
seed

shooting it's
burning flames into
the black womb
soon to die
or birth a moon,

the candle is the soul
it is intent
that keeps it lit,

it is our lack of
immaculate
perception
that pulls it apart

Roche's limit
yearning
to string pearls
around heavenly
bodies
as
charisma reaches
to embrace
a burning,
and I see fire.

1-- Legacy

This city was my ancestors' town.
We have laid tar on your horse-paths-
a university grew from Riverview roots-
you chopped firewood from the
great-great grandfathers
of these trees.

#2-- saint cloud sounds like

midnight, shoemaker: haunted cries.
munsinger's melody: scurries & chirps.
when TNT shatters granite at the quarry.
pucks' percussion at the brooks center.
buzz of summers on lake george's shore.
somalia & scandinavia, singing.

I still dream of you late at night.

I dream of your silky black hair and your big brown eyes and for the night all seems right.

I wake up only to not find you there. It's not fair.
I miss you and we both know I still love you.

I often wonder where we went wrong
I Still listen to all of our songs. I listen to every second.
Every second, every tear that falls is just happy filler to that fills my day that's all.

If I had a time machine I'd travel back and try my hardest to make it all right,
but for now I will settle for you in my dreams even if it's just for the night.

~D.P. Shoemaker

The bright city lights remind me of the nights we spent so young

The fall air reminds me of the days we spent cheek to tongue

The memories take the life out of me and the man I wanna be

If I could I would let it all go, I would

But my heart just brings me back to the day when I begged you to stay but there you stood...

~ D.P. Shoemaker

I SAW a telegram handed a two hundred pound man at a desk. And the little scrap of paper charged the air like a set of crystals in a chemist's tube to a whispering pinch of salt.
Cross my heart, the two hundred pound man had just cracked a joke about a new hat he got his wife, when the messenger boy slipped in and asked him to sign. He gave the boy a nickel, tore the envelope and read.
Then he yelled "Good God," jumped for his hat and raincoat, ran for the elevator and took a taxi to a railroad depot.
  
As I say, it was like a set of crystals in a chemist's tube and a whispering pinch of salt.
I wonder what Diogenes who lived in a tub in the sun would have commented on the affair.
I know a shoemaker who works in a cellar slamming half-soles onto shoes, and when I told him, he said: "I pay my bills, I love my wife, and I am not afraid of anybody."

At times, not always
I wish to have been a shoemaker, my design would be a size fits all. I know my style may not suit you but at least you would know how it feels to love and love then lost

This morning I received
air mail letter three
from my connection overseas.
I pulled the paper back,
you begin your attack and it reads:

Of all the places I laid down my head,
I think of two I regret
Love isn’t easy my baby
Is sayin' today

But tell Mr. shoemaker I’ll be away
On a rocket or a comet
or the dock of the bay
On a continental steam ship
sailin' away
On a one way ticket
on a 1st class airplane
I wanna know
what you’re thinkin' about
Don’t just let me go

Four hundred days have passed since I’ve heard from you last
I’m getting worried, I admit
Maybe it’s nothing much
There’s nicer shores in sight
Oh I just don’t know

Of all the places I laid down my head
I think of two I regret
Love isn’t easy my baby
will tell you today
But tell Mr. shoemaker I’ll be away
On a rocket or a comet
or the dock of the bay
On a continental steam ship
sailin' away
On a one way ticket
on a 1st class airplane
I wanna know
what you’re thinkin' about
Don’t just let me go

I’m sayin' so long
I want my baby back
I know it’s hard to see
Why she’s in love with me
I’m sayin' so long
I want my baby back
I know it’s hard to see
Why she’s in love with me
So long to the headstrong
I wasn’t qualified
to lead that city life
That’s all I have to say

Daisy ***, patchwork dress, lalala
I baked you cherry pie while you chatted a wizard
hope it kept warm in the oven.
Dear, the contents partner our cheeks
a good-natured face, freckled of breadcrumbs at
each of six circadian meals to come by day.

Everything is rosy in this hobbit hole –
flowers, and mouths, and food laugh all in sync.

I reckon when you digest
we shall scamper off to our twin bed.
Lalala I sing, and lalala you sing, raccoons are so
close above the wooden beams
that I know their supper is dandelion stalks.

Tucked in, this is what is christened a perfect fit
your foot the extent of my head
and kissing at my toes, their lady stubble.

(You, the skilled shoemaker
who will not tolerate me hiding in pelt moccasins)

If the moon arises, we do not see:
lalala, mockingbirds sing the garden to sleep
but the vegetation dances
like a dwarf’s beard, though blonde somehow
saturating ginger for a reading nightlight
bellies full of sweet cakes and dinner number four.

You kiss me our Eskimo way, then as halflings
I whisper about the ariel orchard today
(Rosemary, red-cheeks, lalala) afore first breakfast.

The rain falls the same and that black cloud that follows me around never seems to white. The sun beyond the sky never seems to shine just like these words line after line.


I Pretend like everything is the same so the ones we love don't see the pain.


I'm surrounded by these four white washed walls  


tears filled up to the rim


The bright light that used to reside inside my soul has grown dim.


I'd break this world in half just to see you again


I would then take the broken pieces douse them in gasoline and strike the match if it meant I would get to see your smile again, but I know that won't happen


I just can't win.


The fog still lingers the same and the cold that follows me around never seems to warm. The sun never seems to rise just like my words written here hidden behind the lies line after line.


I don't feel alive something inside me has died


I said I was fine but I lied. I'm just an empty shell of a man that I used to be.


Why did the universe take you away from me?


I don't feel alive. It feels like everything inside me has died.


I'm just a broken record skipping between verses and choruses


The rain still falls the same even more so when I hear your name.


I can't come alive everything inside me has died.


I'd smile but it would just be a lie.


~ D.P. Shoemaker

It was a four horse race at
Santa Anita.
I was with my old man and
little brother.
I put everything I had on
the number 3 horse to show.
His name was Dusty's Diaper.
Shoemaker was aboard;
the shoe for God's sake.
It was a sure thing.
All he had to do, was not
come in fourth place.

I learned that day,
in a horse race,
anything can happen.
I was 12 years old.
And like horse racing,
In life, anything can
happen.

Amidst the California evening,
On our way to the car,
I thought my Dad
Would live forever.

WORMS

Hello! Chester here… Missing you so,
A bookworm am I,
Oh, yesss, today just sliding by…
With spectacles on my nose,
I do both poetry and prose.
Want to hear more about me …
And my family…?
So awfully lovely to see you again,
Perhaps a few secrets for you, my friend?

Plump cousins I have in the strangest places,
On blue Stilton cheese are not only their faces…
There’s even a cousin with a thousand little feet…
The shoemaker thinks he’s a treat.
Mostly here somewhere, we always share…
And war seen so many times before,
Just like greedy maggots, ended battles we do adore,
And there is even more…

Not a treat, some worms you never want to meet,
A part of the family is really mean,
Trust me, they're the worst worms you’ve ever seen,
For those eat dead people really clean!
Others just eat wood and all they ever could.
And don’t let me start,
With Mr. Snooks… worming into Miss Prissy’s heart!

Once there was even a tapeworm from a whale,
100 feet long, both sexes… He and She were for sale!
Just like people… large, short, skinny or hairy,
Some worms fancy meat or plants… others dairy.
Seeing ample aggravation… there was an invitation…
And all I have to say today… Now on my way…
To the cemetery without delay,
But I’ll be back, Sweetheart… Someday...


Copyright©2013 Kari M. Knutsen


.

Being 16 and free,
living on the sailboat
with my Dad and brother.
I was rocked to sleep
by the gentle
waves in the marina.
Just being...the wonderful
verb of youth,
Bills came in,
Dad would say, "They can **** us,
but they can't eat us."
We'd laugh and peel
up the Pacific coast Highway
to the track,
Hollywood Park or Santa Anita,
to bet on the horses.
We'd dope the racing form;
Get chili dogs.
Dad would give us
money to bet with.

I saw some of the
best horses ever:
Secretariat
Affirmed
John Henry
Bates Motel
We saw the greatest jockeys too.
William Shoemaker
Liffit Pincay
Eddie D.

Our tiny heroes.
The thunder of the
hooves coming down the
homestretch still echoes

inside of me.
Dad always said, "winners buy dinner, "
but he always paid.
We stopped at this
steak place on the
edge of L.A.
It was dark; they had the best
Fillet Mignon, you cut it
with a spoon.
The sun sank into the blazing
ocean, and with the windows rolled
down, we could taste the salt
in the air.

I watch
As each man comes to play a roll
In shoes he cannot fit
And after he gives it his all
I come to stitch seems where
He left you ripped torn and alone
But I am only the tailor
And you are the damsel.
This fairytale wasn't made
For the shoemaker
But the shoe was.

My people,
Deprive not your eyes of it's sight
That we see the flames, dancing on our huts
Like a stripper in a club night
For here we are, bleeding without a cut
.
Listen people!
That we may ear the roaring laugter
Of the big boys at our own handed damnation
For the shame is sweet and our tongue compromised
We are pathetic, yet, we call ourselves a nation
.
My people,
The seed we planted, has grown branches
The calamity we dreamt of has stopped by, to say "hello"
Corruption and his brothers seem to have come to stay
The big ones laugter grows more as we fight this flame with fire
.
Sons of a shoemaker,
Walking barefooted in the woods
May Heavens come to our rescue,
For our shadows has come to hunt us
And our herbalist has no clue how to make the  concoction to heal our insanity.
.
Balogun David Tolulope
{drunk poet}
©️2017

give me
the gift
of sorrow
the strongman’s
pencil

-

in the purgatory
of spaced out
animals, ****
on the short
straw

-

tell me I’m not surrounded

-

show to my brother
youtube videos
of our mother
sleeping
on her father’s
back

-

say something in my sister’s mouth

-

scrub me
from the shoemaker’s dream
with a rock
the rock
I deserve

A large Alsatian barks at a passerby stranger
as the pond geese honk sensing grave danger
Trudges back home a rangy lone ranger.

Big and little aubergines cast a purple shade
In the twilight birdsong begins to fade
Night makes navy-blue of the greenery's jade.

Wolves howl in the distance
Panthers prowl near pig pens
Ocelots growl around the dens.

Dolphins perform in the aquatic circus
Kids count on the time-old abacus
All in all the miracle of creation's fabulous

Elsewhere the morn dawns upon wee ladybirds
And shepherds go about grazing their hungry herds.

A rare sight of starfishes settle upon beach pebbles
Pink salmon in a see-through lake breath out bubbles
Bombed by tech; corpses found in debris and rubbles!

Wild species lurk in the murky forest
Stands tall and hovering high mount Everest
A chance to enjoy nature at its very best!

Admit it O' mankind no one can ever be
at par with your and my versatile Creator
The billions of species is far too extraordinary
He single-handedly created all that variety in nature.

For even the clever human who invented the radio
did not as well model the computer.
The one who designed my dresser couldn't design my patio
It'd be rare for a shoemaker to also be a tutor  

But God He made both ant and elephant
and there's absolutely nothing that He can't.

I cried,
At the shoe shop all the shoes I tried,
Would not fit me
Mom said"Let it be."

Mom took me to the shoemaker,
She said,"Please make a pair of shoes for this dapper."
Yes ma'am, in a day or two,
By then we will have the leather too.

To school I reported sick,
My new shoes came within a week,
They were durable and dependable,
Cushioned  and fashionable.

I felt proud and fine,
Everyone  in school loved the design
I  could jog,run and walk miles,
Without a hitch,all smiles,

In your life,comfortable  shoes,
Removes all the blues,
Dad too,wants a custom made pair,
More wear,less tear.

(insert burp):

   i know this is a little
bit late, to match up
my narration
to the zeitgeist...

      but...
     (insert a whiskey
infused burp):

i forgot about gaming
when i didn't
            move on from
owning a PS1...

  so...
        (insert burp)
        em...
                 i'm not a gamer...
i don't play games...

i do play vinyl though...

in that sado-masochistic
kind of way in
a society where:
everyone looks
wolf at everyone else
and just itches
for some schadenfreude
   cool-collective banter...

phew...
the whole gamergate sandal,
or scandal or whatever you
want to don
on the streets of sandy
Cairo...
  
   the (insert burp):
the EU authorities caved in...
watching channel 4 news,
seeing the treatment
of migrants in Libya...

   (burp)

      you know that...
these are not the hands
of Pilate that were washed
in a elizabeth báthory
fetish... or that of cleopatra...
those Africans
have become tortured
and imprisoned
by north africans,
who "think" they're arabs...
  because of the umah
of Islam...

just saying... i watched
channel 4 news...
    and...
                              well...

i forgot to play video games
in a manner,
akin to a saturday / sunday
morning, sitting on a bed,
plugged in,
watching a t.v. and some
moving pawns of a game
of tenchu or final fantasy VII...

oh, i still play,
like some people read
books,
on the throne of thrones,
otherwise known as:
     the *******...

but, once upon a time,
you'd spend 20 quid
and 'ave a game...
now, games, are "free"...
unless you pay extortion
style attachments...
so... the once free game...
a game which would
have a readied narrative...
worth... 20 quid...
ends up... if you're stupid
enough...
costing you...
   oh... say... 100quid+++++

yeah, big problem,
this gamergate,
or whatever the hell it was...
but extortion from games...
no biggie...
that's not the notorious
rhyming excerpt to add
to the whole fiasco of...
games...

          whoever this is,
this: i am...
no, sorry...
i'm not a gamer,
sometimes of the *******,
but mostly i tend to
play... vinyl...

        it's like...
            you can never become
bored of staring at that
**** thing..
         well...
unless you're
    don johnson...
pretending to be stroking
a cat, when in fact,
gently caressing jane fonda
falling asleep in
              your lap...    
then the whole vinyl
experience is all but prop...
  c.d. spins too fast...
and you never actually see
it spin...
       vinyl...
                 oompf!
the genesis ******* mantra...

  oh, you noticed?
yeah... there's a saying
back in slavic-country...

curses like a shoemaker...
don't ask me, why or how...
         przeklina jak szewc...
        curses like a shoemaker...
what's next...
compliments like a tailor?

              it's not even a pair
of Pilate like hands
bashing a keyboard into a blank...
folded hands,
standing akimbo...
      what? what?!
            if the Libyans
are doing what they're doing...
it's Africans doing
these terrible acts to Africans...

while a little birdie told me...
  idi amin...
    lived the remaining years
of his life,
peacefully...
   undisturbed, in saudi arabia.

white-
              and whatever slurs...
   you just reach a point
of lethargy...
                 and... there's no going
back.

Café in Loule
I'm sitting in a café in Loule, drink coffee and eat a sandwich with nothing on but butter, it is my attempt to slim. Into the café enter two old friends one has small grocers the other is a cobbler,
yes they still exist. They have a coffee and a wee dram, the grocer will keep open to ten, the cobbler keeps his shop open he care not to go home before his nagging wife has gone to bed.
Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, is in house arrest, there has
been a military coup, although the army denies it is a takeover;
anyway, it doesn’t matter. Mugabe ninety-two years old has presided
over a total fiasco, the breadbasket of Africa has to import food for
the people oppressed people by his criminal misrule.
An autocrat’s regime has come to an end.

For reason not clear to me I think of Sweden who is run by a liberalistic- feminist philosophy that it has become a country can be understood when immigrants’ trespasses and we have the making of a divided a country that is no longer Sweden. When we hereafter talk of Scandinavia Sweden is not included, nor is the Norwegians who have given in to extreme capitalism.
well there is Suomi, but they are half Russians and Denmark who consist of nice Germans; so you see there is no Scandinavia.

Portugal survives she bends with the wind doesn’t break, from the café window I see the shoemaker by his lest smoking a cigarette.

COME ANOTHER DAY

"****...****..shishishi!"
whispers the rain
in Albanian



It sounds like "She...she...sheeee."

In Maltese it is....
xita which sounds an awful lot like "****...ahhh!"

In Korean it is bi which is pronounced "***."

I was trying to catch to the sound of rain falling on tatch and the Albanian came nearest.

Knowledge comes courtesy of a Maltese taxi driver.

Idioms for raining from other countries are something else!

In Irish we say "Tá sé ag caitheamh sceana gréasaí."
Or it is raining cobbler's knives!"

In Greece it is raining chair legs...

In Czech it is raining tractors...

In South Africa it is raining old women with clubs.

In Portugal, Brazil, and other Portuguese-speaking countries..."It's raining frogs' beards."

In Denmark it rains "shoemaker boys/shoemaker apprentices. In 1758 a shoemaker - Carl Jepsen - hurled three boys out the window from the 2nd floor for not doing their work properly. they all died)

Or nearer to the Irish:..."It's raining pocketknives,"

Now ya know



I know I know "cats and dogs' but I was going after ones I didn't know...that were common in those countries but surprising to us.

The poem I wrote about not having my grandfather's legs had the sheep talking in their own language of the countries they were found in so that started me off.

In Korea for example bees don't buzzbuzz buzz but rather go...get this...****. Ahhh isn't language a glorious thing so it is so it is.

These old black shoes I wore it everywhere
They are old and out of style
To me these black shoes are the most comfortable shoes I have to Wear
It have gone many times to the shoemaker to put a new heal
I could never part with these old black shoes
To me they are as good as new
Just a little cleaning and the black shoes will shine

These old black shoes I wore it everywhere
They are old and out of style
To me these black shoes are the most comfortable shoes I have to wear
It have gone many times to the shoemaker to put a new heal
I could never part with these old black shoes
To me they are as good as new
Just a little cleaning and the black shoes will shine

hese old black shoes I wore it everywhere
They are old and out of style
To me these black shoes are the most comfortable shoes I have to Wear
It have gone many times to the shoemaker to put a new heal
I could never part with these old black shoes
To me they are as good as new
Just a little cleaning and the black shoes will shine

How much time have we left
To go south with abandon
There is no sun on the horizon
Only oceans that flow

What does a shoemaker make
Is it enough to walk with the rich
Or is he poor enough to work
For an eternity devoted to servitude

When does the rain become a storm
Is it when the purple sky hurts
As well as the
Soul

I smoke a joint.
Lean
on a horse.

See
a ghost
see
my brother.

Death regrets
thinking
on death. Some

lose babies
to weather
to avoid
violence. Our baby talk

mutes

field recordings
of creatures
taming god.

In a bored
country
ambulance, a shoemaker

guesses
your OnlyFans

password.
Cracks an egg
on the knee
of an angel.