Best Shoemaker Poems
A huge 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 slid the slider to my art studio with cautious optimism,
Hoping to find my brushes and glitter and paint and glue
Somewhere close to where I had left them last night.
The bright pink paint I had specifically placed front and center was missing.
Let us not jump to conclusions, my socialized mind said. Maybe it was not last night.
Maybe you put it there the night before last night.
We were not out here the night before, my dendrites argued after they had connected last night’s thinking.
My paint water was in its usual place. My brushes were where I had left them.
I usually use thirty to forty brushes a day, so there is no way to tell if they had been moved or were missing.
Everything else appeared to be exactly as it was yesterday.
I immediately began convincing myself that I must have moved that neon leather paint at the last second before turning and shutting the slider.
Faeries and elves do not paint in here I argued.
That is absurd and realistically unsound. Right?
But what if they do move the paint, dancing and twirling through it? Creating new magic with their little ballerina shoes?
What if they come in here and slide across the canvases, dropping glitter and enhancing my stuff?
What if they are like the shoemaker elves, fixing my mistakes in the middle of the night?
Thinking I had heard a tiny little patter of a faerie foot, I turned and looked at my art table.
Whereby sat the hot pink neon paint that was not there a moment before.
What if?
Written 10-3-2018 Poetry Contest: The Paint Movers
Sponsor: Anthony Slausen
Living simply
rejoicing
in their callings
He, a shoemaker
finest quality
long-lasting leather
She, a seamstress
understated grace
in bridal gowns and accessories
home - Lower East Side
1930's NYC tenement-style
hearts - in Jerusalem
Their bags packed
ready to go
Hark, Elijah heralds the dawn
Limerick : Once Schuhmacher/Shoemaker from Brazilia
Once Schuhmacher/Shoemaker from Brazilia
Made a shoe shaped like the Ark of Noah
Birds and beasts of forests
Fought acarien* pests
Till toes itched: that’s how Man danced the Salsa!
* mite
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
SHOEMAKER DADDY - A DUO-RHYME (12 lines)
His workshop’s open now I see
He will not notice - it’s just me.
His tools, his nails, his leatherware,
His hammers large and small are there,
All ready for his hands to bear
When he returns to take his chair.
The shoes he makes are neat each pair,
And some are leather dark or fair,
They’re crafted all with love and care.
So here’s my secret silent prayer :
I hope he takes me on his knee
And makes me some in small size three.
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Entered in Andrea Dietrich's Contest Duo-Rhyme,
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Note
Based on personal chldhood experience of watching my father make
and mend shoes. He also taught me how to do it when I was a teenager.
Came from a very good loving family in a small Kansas town just as World War Two
was about to break out, it was nineteen thirty nine
As a very small child I remember hearing Walter Winchell, Gabriel Heater bring the
news every night just a few years later, just about the time for us to all dine
Dad was a shoemaker as they called it back then
During the war he had German prisoners work for him on a base, and always said
they seemed to be good men
One whittled me an airplane out of balsum wood, dad said it was a B-29, and he
had even painted it grey
I never did see the prisoners on the base where we lived back then, but I recall the
times vividly to this very day
I had four older sisters, I was the youngest child by ten years and the only boy
And I recall always being very loved and everything was to me as an older baby
was nothing but joy
Fore I do remember times spent in my wooden play pen and a red hall curtain would
blow now and then
Later when I was around five or six I remember mom and dad counting ration
stamps while sitting on their beds, some for sugar, gasoline, different things
One sister worked in an amunition plant and brought me home a miniature bomb
painted silver and one made me a billfold one gave me a large penny...My what
these reflections all brings
Of course I remember the speach by President Roosevelt when he said we declared
war and so many clips in movie theatres about how it was going
Mom listening to Stella Dallas and Ma Perkins while she would be sewing
These are some things that were just worth writing about and sharing with all of
you here
I've come to really enjoy meeting a whole lot of you and I will always be ready to
lend you my ear
Oh, Princess fairest of them all,
What troubles you, and what made you fall?
Why Shoemaker so handsome and tall,
I need new shoes, that's why I had a fall.
It's not for a dance or a ball you see,
It's just so I can walk around so beautifully.
Oh, lovely lady whose beauty I can't forsake,
I will make the shoes which you can take.
Thy beauty I can't deny, whose lovey and fair,
I will create thy shoes, so don't worry, don't despair.
Why Shoemaker thank you so much,
I will treasure thy shoes you make, with your loving touch.
How may I repay you, what can I do?
To show my devotion to you?
Oh, fairest princess, lovely and full of grace,
I require no payment just to look upon your face.
Oh, handsome shoemaker that I can do,
I will spend an eternity sharing my days with you.
And so, the beautiful princess had shoes so lovely and fair,
made by the handsome shoemaker who dared to care.
Village full of boys and girls playing
strong arms around waist romancing
old friends on porch with guitars singing
merry farmers on green hills harvesting
not a bird on trembling wire singing
grabbed by hair like doll earth is shaking
rumbling lava torrents on city descending
burying under darkness encrusting
spitting ashes at planes faster than panicking
anger of revolution once dormant exploding
family tradition of unity unearthing
easy of gadgets virtual love ending.
Boys and girls again in village playing
tailor shops and sound of shoemaker tapping
from complexity to simplicity remnant circling
fields of flowers dancing and robins singing
knees in gratitude bent marveling
at mystery of Love life continuing.
Stay over, forever
my unusual love,
stay over, forever
There’s nothing left here
without your rear love,
but high pitched emptiness
I’ll drill and till harder,
non stop,
till I cultivate you into my immersed care
I will never quit
nor faint against the current of our love
Stay over, forever
my unusual love,
stay over, forever
and bloom up the fullness of our love
which will overflow the bowl of our gloominess
this will make our sorrows stomach its envy
and rest in peace
Then we shall solemnly concede,
and become a fountain of love
And finally,
we shall retire heartbreak,
and make it become a retrench shoemaker
with a logo of shame, titled ‘an ex-heartbreaker’
While I will forever remain yours heart-maker
When Will We Learn
Another day lingers,
trying hard not to die.
Another day lingers,
trying hard not to cry.
This man of talent, God given talent,
A shoemaker by heart, toils
unselfishly both by day and
night, trying hard not to die,
trying hard not to cry.
Assembly lines with very much speed,
Cast aside this man’s talent – no longer a need.
Oh sweet little shoemaker, oh gifted one,
a life once happy, full of fun.
His memories we will cherished, you see he’s gone.
May he rest in peace, his talent has flown.
One less blessing we learn to live with out,
When will we learn? When? Why don’t somebody shout!
The young must know that they are loved
For there is goodness in every young person
Give me souls--the souls of young people
These boys are not bad, these boys, they need me
In their midst I feel completely at home
I learned the hardships of an orphans life
In this new town where I had to support myself
Laboring in everything from being a blacksmith
And as a tailor, waiting as a waiter and shoemaker
All that to ease my mother's burden
Every Sunday I'd meet the boys in a different place
It didn't matter that it was a city church,
a cemetery chapel, or an empty lot
And during the week i'd tour the city shops,
Making sure my boys hadn't forgotten my instructions
I bought an empty lot and a dilapidated shed
Next door was a saloon, across ,a hotel of shady reputation
but what did it matter to me the oratory ground was sacred,
for it later came to me in a dream
That it was the burial ground of the Martyrs of Turin.
It is enough that you are young
And for you I give my life
bound by one rule, dedicated
to the double task of self-sanctification & care of youth
But first tell the devil to rest, and then I'll rest too
Do all the good you can
Thats why while I have time, I must work
My dear sir I tell you you are a good friend of mine,
but God comes first, first of all Don Bosco is a priest
So give me the souls, take away the rest
My mother would say when I become a priest
If ever became rich, she shall never enter my house!"
Thats why I am poor, penniless Don Bosco, a shepherd boy of the hills.
I have lived poor and shall die poor
I have only one wish, to see you happy and in the next
"I have been an instrument in the hands of Mary. She has done everything. Had I been a worthier instrument, I would have accomplished a great deal more."
The PO£T
In a three -storey building, with great walls,
Lived a girl who spent her day with dolls.
One day, her family happened to leave in a car crash,
Leaving her alone with their Ash.
In their three- storey building.
Near lived a shoemaker of great skill,
Accompanied by self- satisfaction and a great will.
And a family of three to feed,
But not a three-storey building to reside.
The girl has everything, but happiness is on leave,
The shoemaker still has more memories to weave.
All was the plan of destiny,
To make the girl struggle at a tender age,
Or to keep the man happy without any penny.
Spring is back with its unmistakeable intoxicants.
I stand, once again, by a road that leads to another day.
My mind hums ceaselessly, one day at a time....
A cobbler displays his craft on my shoes' ruins,
With funny looking tools.
Although I hear a cuckoo's call from a faraway corner
Of the masquerading morning,
I am yet to decide: how to embark on one more day.
Like the bird's cooing my uncertain voice reverberates.
And like the shoemaker, I resolve
To exhibit my talent by writing poetry of
Forgotten buds, a memoir.
Was it on a spring day
Man landed on the moon?
I cannot even remember the year of my
First malancholy kiss.
Everytime I try to recall the past,
A smokescreen obscures my retracing senses.
I grope blindly and stumble on punctuations
On faded pages of my gypsied verses.
This day too demands, like every other day, for
Another day out of my life, knowing very well
I am not equipped with authority of calling it
A day.
So, I begin this day with repairs and losses,
Taking grey steps on a blank recto folio of my biography,
Gazing at an undefined skyline.
With my illiterate fingertips imitating a pilgrimage,
On dislocated keys of a piano called - Autumn in Spring,
Which coughs out hoarse tunes, I fumble
With rememberances of evaporated seasons.
I see, some
Rain-soaked yards away,
A home for the aged with a skyblue gate, on which
It is written - you are never too old to have fun.
What one would at last gather
From listening to father:
Certain things go together;
The valiant and go-getter,
A genius and pace setter,
The heart and a pace maker,
Leather,gums and shoemaker,
An entrance and gatekeeper,
Attacker and goalkeeper...
You just have to be super
To join French Paratrooper,
From head to toe vigorous
To contain The Rigorous...
You don't meet night marauders
Obeying patrol orders:
Never assign mysterious
To the ever boisterous.
Golden
Little Golden books,
from our childhood,
line the shelf which sits now lonely.
Their readers, all grown up,
and gone.
Tales of the tails of
puppy dogs,
and Ugly Ducklings.
The elves and the shoemaker,
and Frosty with his friends.
Peter Pan, and Alice
along with the palace of
The Princess and the Pea.
Our own children
have been neglected,
by us, who have been blessed.
We did not pass to them,
what was given freely to us.
We should have done better.
Put away the technology,
and reconnect to the heart,
of every person
both young,
and old.
Gather in the chair,
at the end of the stair...
where father sits.
Listen as he speaks the words,
to your favorite and mine.
Gather in the park,
where mama talks loud
with fascinating tones,
and even sings...
the songs,
of the Wildlings
from the book,
in her
hand.
Give imagination,
a chance,
to be reborn,
in the world.
Live in the reality of the now.
Choose to gain and not to give,
take back everything
and learn to live.