Shoveled Poems | Examples

Poetry

Poetry can be deep,
lord knows I have
shoveled some! Or shallow,
everyone loves icing --

instructive~ insight into
truth, passing go, a 1000
erudite words equal one, honest
poetic portrait -- 

size may somewhat count
with sex...but poetry, is
lasting intimacy –  

as mysterious as love

and insolvable as God --

Snow

It was like someone tried to bury me in the snow.
I woke up.
I shoveled for half an hour.
Snow is dangerous.
I hope I don’t die.
Panicking.
I could have a heart attack, heart attack.
But I made it inside to make hot chocolate.
Heart attacks don’t let you go back inside.
I grab gloves.
Yes, that helps my frozen fingers.
If snow was all there was, I would make a million snowmen.
And they would be friends.
Like she was.
The wind starts blowing snow around.
Look outside, look outside.
The snow hides the grass.
Then the dirty snow hides under new snow.
Her car is collecting snow in the junk yard.
It was the third time it had snowed this winter.
Then the fourth.
Then the fifth.
It never melts, just turns into ice.
I wish I liked a lot of ice in my water, so I could drink it all up.
But that could never be.
It will continue to snow.
Until everyone else is buried too.

Iridescent Icicles

It’s cold
It snowed
I shivered
I shoveled
A Solstice sun
Silently smirked
Iridescent icicles
Licked their lips
A crunch of crusted snow
Battled the scritch of shovels
Headless snowmen
Wandered in wonder
I shoveled
I shivered
It snowed
It’s cold

Mamma Mia

The Abba clones were about to perform
Suddenly Bob felt his feet wet and warm
Anna screamed "diarrhea!"
Mum yelled "mamma mia"
While their pug pup hid inside its fly swarm

Pip had gifted the gig wet smelly poop
Made Anna gag as she shoveled each scoop
At an abnormal level
A proud deed for this devil
For its contents were like newt eye witch soup

March Again

Back in February.
We shoveled away our snow.
In March?
Our kites would freeze in mid air.
In April…
We would have burning days for no reason, while others are just like winter all over.
May is not perfect either.
Bugs arise.
Grass is out of control.
The air is hot, but the ocean is too cold to dive in.
I could go on about Michigan weather.
Before we know it, fall arrives.
And winter is around the corner. 
As we wait for March again.

Buried

So many earths to unearth....
worlds that define my history
like a geological time capsule;
you see,
I hid them from seas
of terror
in a world of fear.
I shoveled them down
for years,
until I forgot how they look like.
Sometimes I exhume them
for remembrance,
only to crowd my mind 
with unnecessary mess
all over again......

Stand-N-Soak

Docked your own can it tote-n-land home
Locked unknown antidote to amp the mode 
Clamped-n-sewn your stamp will show 
Plan it slow in a long tramp you know
Boat the load and camp your stow
Go for broke to brand a glow
Sold your joke now stand-n-soak
Hold folk accountable and count your table
Don't poke a mountable route make a staple
Flow on ropes tight like cable
Low-n-behold a dangle blame angle
Won't hold me-n-strangle in a shame shamble
That’ll level the bevel playing field left disheveled
Hips shoveled as his groveled  
It’s bliss behold miss molted 
Changes skin manages kin 
Estranges them bandages again 
Rearranges agendas to gain
Free ranges attendance scars remain
Eerie chances dependence hard refrain 
Flee dances of steep step stances 
Weep wept lands won’t weaken plans 
We keep kept cans to seep sunken strands

November Letter

A snow-filled world
   is a bowl just so wide
   with an intimate, friendly
   feeling inside.
Earth's lonesome toil
   was the dark yesterday;
   soon it will stain
   crystal carpet to grey.
But in world lately born,
   they lock arms and shout
   where the boot tracks meet
   when the path's shoveled out.
Quick-frozen blossoms
   sprout from hellos
   and flower from fellow
   explorers of snows.
A bouquet of echoes
   to exile has come
   in a sealed packet pocked
   by a wet woolen thumb.
Unlovely dear blot,
   it remembers the thrill
   of a streak down the slide
   of a snow-covered hill,
The trailing fine thread 
   of skates spinning by,
   a braided ski path
   binding valley to sky. 
Reach out a greeting
   with frost-reddened hand;
   sun-burned fingers
   trace in dry white sand.

Does March Ever Quit

Does March ever quit
to be the wildest month?
Isn't its fury a serious threat
to the crows who munch
on anything, they can find?

We bundle up not to catch a cold,
saving a trip to the doctor's office is so smart;
Grandma always said, " To keep warm:
wear your woolen scarf, gloves, and hat!"
I listened to her warning as a good kid should;
can granny's advice misinform?

It's time for the shovels to come out
of the storage room, I'm the first
to grab one; every morning I shoveled snow 
that was two feet while the frightened neighbors
watched me from inside their frosted windows;
I screamed at them saying," Come out
and join me, more snow is to come! "
But no, they stayed inside enjoying my show!

Do winds blow harder on freezing days in January...
scattering the flocculent snow anywhere they can?
Which one is the fiercest month: February?
They all are winter's bad omen to spread doom,
making us dream about the flowers in bloom;
isn't this harsh punishment more than a ban? 

Does March ever quit
it's a dramatic play of self-rage and insanity;
who would challenge it
and halt at once the spiteful winds of frenzy?


  

l

Where I Am

WHERE I AM! 

“Where am I?” I ask,
an aging citizen in a small cold place
in Upstate New York

…..but my fellow citizens
in the suburban towns have
given up on my City and its
proud but struggling peoples,
they want to slink in and work
then flee as fast as the Interstates
will allow….but I want to live 
in a work of art in progress,
participate in the unfolding of
faith, opportunity, good work
rewarded not only with money,
property and the pursuit of
happiness, but with the spiritual 
fulfillment of taking care of 
one another……..

Yesterday, the afternoon high was nine degrees, 
it was bright and sunny, I shoveled the snow, said
a prayer of thanksgiving for the place where I 
live, knowing my wife was waiting 
inside, knowing I was blessed and 
always have been!

Devotion Poem Our Dance

Devotion  Poem - Our Dance       (For Jim)

           
You are the first and last poems
    God wrote for me.
You are the sparkler
    I found flaming sun yellow between
The sprigs of early green grass,
     Before the shoveled piles of February 
Snow had melted away 
    Their last signs of winter.

You came unexpectedly,
   Beyond probability, carting too
Much physics homework for your
   Left-brained studies, and
Declaring, “I don’t dance for anyone.”
   Emphatic.  Like an evergreen.
But I had seen trees dance, just as I thought
   I might go on dancing if I knew you.
    

Then you fell silent, telling your life to me
   With your smile, while your eyes glanced
Through space dismissing  time, sparkling 
    A reach to my heart for a continuous dance…I
Have never stopped my wonder, or my own
    Silent joy surpassing the physics of falling
        Through dimensions into your heart.


————————————————————————
(c) sally young eslinger 6/2/22
Thanks be to God

Dime a Dozen

(A guy told me today with total confidence that for women, men are a dime a dozen. That has never been my experience which inspired me to pen this piece.)

I could have collected empty soda cans 
from the side of the road and cashed them in
They were worth five cents apiece back then
I only needed two for that dime to buy
a dozen men’s time and attention
sparing myself those Saturday nights
wasting away in my room reading
as I listened to old records or the radio
or sitting at a table alone as other girls 
danced held in the arms of a guy 
I didn’t know they had purchased 
for less than a single penny
I could have had a whole harem 
if in the winter I had shoveled snow
I had nothing else to do and nowhere to go

Rest In Peace

I think all poets
know the refrain: 
“May he rest in peace...”

The blessed phrase,
Known to every card
writer; to every jingle
reciter – even Clay, the
Fighter, quite The Poet,
feared no man's blow when
impulsed to show it.

And more serious poets,
the bulk of our many, ponder
through night after restless
night, the heartfelt subjects of
world peace and world blight;
tossing and turning, minds
flexing and burning...
                        upon one dear
poet's funeral – the last dirt-pile
shoveled – ground neatly patted,
nearly leveled; following the priest's 
eloquent benediction of Word, 
a poet's wife's mutter was clearly heard:

her eyes quite red, darkened as if applied
circles of black lithium grease “Now, perhaps, 
finally!~I can Rest In Peace....”

Snow Prints

Pure and pristine
 layers upon layers accumulate on the scene,
 cold winds blowing, sifting, drifting, serene;
the sun rising high with little warm
 blinding brilliance after the storm
 the land asleep safe and unharmed;
shovels scraping, snow quaking
 plows earth-shaking
 snow ready for the taking;
but in the yard, nature's warden
 the soft blanketed snow garden
 a pure untouched slate well pardoned;
where sandy fawns sleep
 the imprints of large and tiny feet,
 feathered friends and creatures come out of retreat,
squirrel tracks here and there
 comparable to a snowshoe hare
 suddenly the world exists without a care
and peace returns for the moments marked
 focus for the times harsh and stark
 and futures upon which we shall embark,
leaving imprints upon the snow
 soon enough, it's time will go,
 shoveled to the side and swept away
waiting on the end of January days.
.

Dream Macabre - a Repost

My imagination ran shamelessly amok last night
While I slumbered in beaded sweat, askance that I would
Be peddling ornate coffins to the absurdly rich, then
Second handing them to poorer souls for paltry profit.
After black-draped mourners departed for sumptuous feasts
I heaved their unboxed tuxedoed beloved into the pit
And shoveled them over head to foot with yellow clay.
No shame ensuing, I wiped down the shiny satin interior
Erasing telltale vestiges of the recently deceased occupant
Loaded the ornamental bronze, a considerably less-weighty box,
Into the back of my somber black Cadillac hearse
And laughing lustily sped away…, then I awakened.

reposted December 16, 2021
written December 8, 2020

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