Long Shovel in Poems
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I go there while sitting in the executive conference room during budget meetings.
I go there while listening to his teacher tell me he acts like the ten year old boy that he is.
I go there while stuck in traffic with the other sheep being led to slaughter.
I even go there in the middle of the preacher trying to send me down the righteous path.
I go there in the grocery store line while price checks are being called for the shopper in front of me.
I go there with uncompleted tax report forms sitting in front of me on my desk.
I go there with a snow shovel in my hand, pushing it back and forth across my driveway.
I even go there in the middle of a prostate exam.
And, every time I go there - it is just as beautiful as ever.
I smell the bountiful fragrance of the most colorful flowers.
I meld with the butterflies fluttering about; I rejoice in the songs of the birds gliding on air above.
That secret garden that exists deep inside of my being is what helps me to carry on.
by Joe Flach for Nette's "My Secret Garden" Contest
2/13/2014
When I am old and gray I wish to die quite far away.
To be reincarnated as soon as I am able to come back.
And to be a steam shovel in my next life, and hey,
I want to be powerful, with steam, not a hack.
As a steam shovel I will chomp into the grass.
Chewing it up in large gulps, leaving square holes.
People will come around and watch in mass.
Awed that I am so powerful and meet my goals.
They will call me steamy, and they will fear me too.
I will be gobbling up yards as quickly as anything they have seen.
The children will cheer when they see me in my metal blue.
I will be strong and quick, effective, but never mean.
Yes, when I am old and gray, I will not fear my death at all.
For I know I will be coming back in a glorious non-dream.
I will be lithe, and lean, smartly painted and rather tall.
Best of all, everyone will applaud when they see my steam.
grandpa use to sit in his rockin chair
I'd climb in his lap
both started to nod off
so we took a nap
he'd let me play in his bread
offend time he'll wake up
snorting, coughing, and showing
spitting hailing hands waving
jumping up out of his seat
screaming hollering what's this
He'd jump up
and he would say yell
Dadgum it boy
whaz ya dun did now
My grandpa seemingly
would have a cow
He'd said
Dadgum it boy
Later on that day I seen him out in the yard
With a shovel in his hands
Appears he was diggin a hole
I had laid my rake down
And as grandpa turned around
He took a few steps
And stepped on the head of that rake
as that pole of the rake hit him in the face... he said
he would say yell
Dadgum it boy
whaz ya dun did now
My grandpa seemingly
would have a cow
He'd said
Dadgum it boy
ya, can't do nothin right
git right over there and sit down, don't move a muscle
Dadgum it
10/11/18
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr.©2018
10th ANNUAL
INTERGENERATIONAL POETRY CONTEST
University of Nebraska Omaha
COLLEGE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND COMMUNITY SERVICE
DEPARTMENT OF GERONTOLOGY
Poetry to Bridge Generations. Poetry is the voice of the soul
How the world views or how society treats older people.
Submission by
1. This ole world is cavalcading escalading, towing down;
Falling down into the premises of unusualness;
Solid confines to the missions hell bent;
Loss in its shame, borrowing time;
Everyone everywhere is swallowing sin;
While the naysayers keep welcoming them in..
Chorus:
Spinning, and turning and whirling of things;
Tell me God what does it bring;
All these things I've mentions above;
Up, up above my head;
Up above my head;
2. Image now, how would it be, could you be free;
Left alone drinking miscalculated teas;
Raisin cane and eat manna breeze from the trees;
What does it mean is it a dream?
And all these things again, mention above;
Where is t he love?, what? where is the love?
Chorus:
Spinning, and turning and whirling of things;
Tell me God what does it bring?
All these things I've mentions above;
Up, up above my head;
Up above my head;
3. Missing mountains and trail condescending;
No one is gathering everyone meandering;
What must I do to love and embrace you;
Shovel in my hand standing in the sand;
Feeling the heartbreak of mankind demeanor;
Leaving hatred in a container of oven cleaner;
Chorus:
Spinning, and turning and whirling of things;
Tell me God what does it bring?
All these things I've mentions above;
Up, up above my head;
Up above my head;
And all these things again, mention above;
Up, up above my head, up above my head;
I'd rather be living than dying dead;
Heaven is where I want to lay my head;
All these things I've mentions above;
Up, up above my head;
4. I'd rather be living than dying dead;
Heaven is where I want to lay my head;
Mysteries and non compliances and misguided judgements;
All but a dream, every hates no love in their hearts see what I mean;
I have a motion that we won't judge them;
Chorus:
Spinning, and turning and whirling of things;
Tell me God what does it bring?
All these things I've mentions above;
Up, up above my head;
Up above my head;
And all these things again, mention above;
Up, up above my head, up above my head;
I'd rather be living than dying dead;
Heaven is where I want to lay my head;
All these things I've mentions above;
Up, up above my head;
Written word by James Edward Lee 1974
Arranged music by James Edward Lee & The Corinthian
From demo album "The World May End Tomorrow" 1970,1974,2017 (c)
Mammoth cold this morning.
There’s been an ice-storm.
Stiff-meat meets chilled ribs,
I am creaking and walking
shovel in shrinking hand.
Robins pounce on frozen worms
Siberian tigers in a flying flurry;
if they stop for a moment
death and life falls over everywhere.
I work the wide-plastic spade
its red mouth scooping
a deep glacial gravity,
pausing only to sag
under the wind's frigid whips,
An old guy shoveling snow
can have heart failure,
better to go this way though
than sitting on the toilet.
Mammoths are now snow piles,
broken branches protrude like tusks.
I lean on my shovel,
watch the robins
shake off crystals of sky
from heat-hugging wings.
See how hectic they fly?
Some may fall by evening;
in this kind of freeze
death and life falls over
everywhere.
There are rebels in my head.
First there's the anarchist;
There to break things and push steel until it bends.
And of course the logicist,
Willful to calculate things and plan around things that we can’t rend.
Then there’s the gravedigger;
There for my friends,
When we get into fights or can’t make amends,
He’s there to fight for my memory.
A shovel in one hand,
And an epitaph in his left.
There is the artist,
A brush in his whittled fingers,
He comes around after the gravedigger to paint the picture of people we loved and lost into my memory.
He stays around for the ones we still have; at least for now.
Painting pictures the second someone sticks in our head.
They always turn out younger than they are in person.
A snapshot to the simplest time I have of them.
The final one, is the leader.
The realist.
The one who sees the train at the end of the tunnels.
The one who pulls us out of miscalculated situations.
The one who rights the bent bars of our prison cells.
The one who sets up funerals for the friends we miss.
The one who paints over portraits once the pastels fade in time.
The one who fixes me.
This day didn't go as I planned
In fact it went wrong from the go
While tilling my land with shovel in hand
I chopped off the tip of my toe
And to make matters even worse
I don't want to sound like a cryer
But while I was gone, I left the stove on
And saw that my house had caught fire
Now you might think that I'm lying
But this is the god's honest truth
As I limped to the well, I tripped and I fell
And knocked out my favorite tooth
After everything that's transpired
There's not that much left I can say
It's renowned, what goes up must come down
So I think that I'll call it a day
In the saloon gambler Milton, rose from his leather chair to speak
And said we need to make changes for the good of Soup Creek
He read all the meaningful proposals to the townsfolk out loud
And those meaningful proposals were well received by the crowd.
A stranger sat in the corner looked like he'd just got outta bed
Stood up and disagreed with everything Milton had said
He'd totally misunderstood Milton's honourable intention
The situation became tense and you could feel the tension.
There was an icy deadly silence then over by the far corner
Stood saloon girl Jenna looking mean, and cradling a Winchester
There was a mad stampede, as folks tried to get out the door
The stranger carried on ranting and at gambler Milton he swore.
Someone had alerted Sheriff Koplin and he was soon on his way
Then entered the saloon approaching the stranger, and had this to say
"Soup Creek is a very peaceful town and we aim to keep it that way
And if you don't like how we run things then you'd best be on your way"
Then from the back door of the saloon, entered four other deputies
Dave the Texas ranger, saloon girl Tania and the blacksmith called Rees
Undertaker Tom needed business, he was hoping the stranger they'd kill
And then headed off with a pick and shovel, to his office at Boot Hill.
The stranger was outnumbered and knew he wouldn't win
And handed the Sheriff his gun who said "I'm taking you in"
The Sheriff at gunpoint walked the stranger over to the jail
And told him" I'm locking you up and don't think about bail"
Meanwhile Tom up at Boot Hill was sweating digging a grave
Then heard someone hollering it was the Texas ranger Dave
Tom looked up and Dave told him "you won't be needed today
But Sheriff Koplin is generous and you'll still get your days pay"
"Gambler Milton is in the saloon later and he's holding a big party"
Tom threw his shovel in the grave and said "sounds good to me "
They both mounted their horses and then headed back to town
And they arrived back in Soup Creek as the sun was going down.
Written 16th August 2022
Gloomy dismal, and forlorn...
that's how this day was borne
in a Greyling sallow place
where death doth reign
without a face.
In a boneyard of decaying flesh,
one fresh abyss was dug
to the depth of six feet
before the night was still.
With shovel in his hand,
the digger gave a shrug
and left the land of the dead.
The cathedral stood tall
but grimly foreboding
on the edge of a haunted wood.
Built on hallowed ground,
where the ancient ones
lie decaying in their graves.
Knaves and preachers,
the righteous and the sinners,
followers and teachers...
all buried side by side
covered now with hoar frost.
Lives, once lost
never see the light of another morn.
They are mourned and tossed
into a hole like rubbish and trash,
or as ashes interred in an urn
after a burn. It's all the same
to the reaper.
Harsh winds have taken aim
at maudlin tree limbs
that seem to hang their heads
after watching their leaves
flayed by Autumn's sinister breeze.
Seasonal zephyrs have no pity.
They always have their way
with the rape of deciduous trees.
Winter's chill thrives in a world so still.
It's created a haunting silence,
one nearly serene in this scene.
There's no place to rest
in between life and death
in such a stygian world.
No escape from somber despair.
There's only an ominous pall
if anything is to be found there at all...
it will surely be expounded
in the quiet space of such a dreary place.
Cario, illinois
Not a heros row
Stood a linky tall black tree.
Grandfather??
Farther my eyes, rise
My father's father
First and last time I saw him
Tall black, he had a long back
Liken an african
darker than a "sudanese"
Darker than real dark chocolate.
Did I mention he was so tall soul tall
My first and only meeting of him
The year "1974"
We crossed the river
from Missouri to Cairo, Illinois
Mercy, me he was a tall tree
Ernest Lee
My father's cousin
Introduced us guess
my father hasn't seen his father for decades
Family secrets I know not why
My father's cousin said this is your grandson speak to him
This tall tree darker, blacker than me
Tall dark and quiet quiet
It was the bright of day,
but his stature was like midnight.
He had a shovel in his hand ?
dark man
Reach this skinny arm, hand
in his pocket and pulled out a coin
It was a quarter
Twenty five cents
And though this man my grandfather
Who am I never never, ever saw again
This not a sad story, (guess though should have kept the quarter)
This is not a negative story
I have no answers, middle risk of developing questions solely
WHY???
Who is this man
Soul, so tall body so tall arms,
torso so tall
How can this be
I see
This tall tall tall black tree
This was my Grandfather Ernest Lee
you may be wondering
why my first only and last meeting
of my grandfather
Why? were we at a cemetery
You see this first and only meeting, greeting my grandfather
And why was he holding a shovel?
My grandfather was a grave digger
I saw him alive on top of the earth
Shovel , in hand as he was digging through dirt dirt
And though this be
Minute first and only meet a greet
I stood before this tall black tree
My grandfather grave digger
ERNEST LEE
8/9/26
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr.