Shoshauna
Shy
Shelbee
and Lou Matis
To read more about Shoshauna:
https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2023/05/storyteller-of-week_19.html
A Tribute to My Parents
By Shoshauna Shy
I have been writing since my parents put an Olivetti typewriter in my bedroom when I was eight years old.
I feel fortunate that my parents, both artists, gave me the inclination to create art and the tools to do it! My mother sculpted imaginary trees out of wood and painted them bright colors. When I was in high school, my house was the one friends wanted to be in when they were tripping on mescaline or psilocybin. This was because their parents worked in hardware stores, insurance companies and hospitals. They were married 70 years. Both are now deceased.
WHY I CHOSE MY PARENTS
Although I liked the way he chided her,
I wasn’t convinced.
So I loitered in their little Illinois kitchen
with its terrycloth toaster cover and silk-
screened curtain, watched them eat
Kelloggs Corn Flakes, bananas
under dollops of sour cream,
Push-Ups on hot days. She did pliés while
listening to the radio; he sat in the breezeway
sketching with charcoal.
I had started following them at a camp banquet
where he first saw her jitterbugging with
another guy, tried to be clever but put a snag
in her stocking, way before they ran into each other
on a streetcar, way before she decided he wasn’t such
a jerk, after all, and packed tuna fish sandwiches
for their bike ride to Euclid Creek.
Had my eye on a couple in Cincinnati too
although next thing I knew, my mom & dad
were posing for a photo, their firstborn son
barely old enough to walk dressed in saddle shoes
and seated plumb between them with a smile
W I D E R than Nebraska.
That clinched it for me.
From The Splash of Easy Laughter
LUCK OF THE DRAW
When I was a handful
Zipped into pajamas
Riding in the back seat
To meet my father’s commute
A photo haunted me
From Life magazine
Of a road at night
Where a kid my size
Leaned on the door
And got sucked out
Surely his mother
Was no ballast like mine
Smacking Bazooka
Knuckles stern on the wheel
I inhaled her moxie
Scanned the gullies for him
Published by Long Story Short
CHILDREN OF ARTISTS
A buxom mademoiselle
wearing white gloves and bonnet
with an escort in spats
traveled by carriage on the aged
wallpaper of our family bathroom.
My brother picked up a pencil,
put a moustache on the lady;
I added feather earrings.
When our mother did not scold
–but added sideburns instead–
we were off like racehorses:
her bonnet sprouted horns;
the carriage angel wings;
next there were Martians
crouched in her gazebo.
Each of us, when seated
on the crapper
found we were never bored,
not when freshly sharpened pencils
were lined up at the ready
with my mother’s Mascara
in her makeup tray.
Not when there was more space
simply for the reaching,
more couples to corrupt
in their oh-so-prim lives.
We were hippies of the 60s–
fie on the decorum drilled
in 9th grade Home Ec,
the beige and gray landscape
of most living rooms;
our friends happy to arrive
and visit in a home
where they could draw on a wall
and do personal business
all at the same time.
By Shoshauna Shy
I have been writing since my parents put an Olivetti typewriter in my bedroom when I was eight years old.
I feel fortunate that my parents, both artists, gave me the inclination to create art and the tools to do it! My mother sculpted imaginary trees out of wood and painted them bright colors. When I was in high school, my house was the one friends wanted to be in when they were tripping on mescaline or psilocybin. This was because their parents worked in hardware stores, insurance companies and hospitals. They were married 70 years. Both are now deceased.
WHY I CHOSE MY PARENTS
Although I liked the way he chided her,
I wasn’t convinced.
So I loitered in their little Illinois kitchen
with its terrycloth toaster cover and silk-
screened curtain, watched them eat
Kelloggs Corn Flakes, bananas
under dollops of sour cream,
Push-Ups on hot days. She did pliés while
listening to the radio; he sat in the breezeway
sketching with charcoal.
I had started following them at a camp banquet
where he first saw her jitterbugging with
another guy, tried to be clever but put a snag
in her stocking, way before they ran into each other
on a streetcar, way before she decided he wasn’t such
a jerk, after all, and packed tuna fish sandwiches
for their bike ride to Euclid Creek.
Had my eye on a couple in Cincinnati too
although next thing I knew, my mom & dad
were posing for a photo, their firstborn son
barely old enough to walk dressed in saddle shoes
and seated plumb between them with a smile
W I D E R than Nebraska.
That clinched it for me.
From The Splash of Easy Laughter
LUCK OF THE DRAW
When I was a handful
Zipped into pajamas
Riding in the back seat
To meet my father’s commute
A photo haunted me
From Life magazine
Of a road at night
Where a kid my size
Leaned on the door
And got sucked out
Surely his mother
Was no ballast like mine
Smacking Bazooka
Knuckles stern on the wheel
I inhaled her moxie
Scanned the gullies for him
Published by Long Story Short
CHILDREN OF ARTISTS
A buxom mademoiselle
wearing white gloves and bonnet
with an escort in spats
traveled by carriage on the aged
wallpaper of our family bathroom.
My brother picked up a pencil,
put a moustache on the lady;
I added feather earrings.
When our mother did not scold
–but added sideburns instead–
we were off like racehorses:
her bonnet sprouted horns;
the carriage angel wings;
next there were Martians
crouched in her gazebo.
Each of us, when seated
on the crapper
found we were never bored,
not when freshly sharpened pencils
were lined up at the ready
with my mother’s Mascara
in her makeup tray.
Not when there was more space
simply for the reaching,
more couples to corrupt
in their oh-so-prim lives.
We were hippies of the 60s–
fie on the decorum drilled
in 9th grade Home Ec,
the beige and gray landscape
of most living rooms;
our friends happy to arrive
and visit in a home
where they could draw on a wall
and do personal business
all at the same time.
BREAKFAST WITH MY FATHER
I enter the pancake house
for breakfast with my father
and recognize how rare to find
those words nestled together
for fathers board commuter trains
after a shave at pre-dawn mirrors,
coffee thermos balanced
on a briefcase beside them,
headlines on smartphones
cocked open in their palms.
Or they’re off to the back forty
before the school bus arrives,
muddy boots absent
from the jumble on the porch.
And some of us hear those four words,
recall the strained resentment
for the paperboy whose delivery
meant a slice between two bowls,
or we can’t picture a man
in an always-empty chair.
So, I’m aware what I have here
is a luxury, a privilege:
Mine is still alive and I
am old enough to appreciate that;
grown enough to realize
not everyone has
(nor may they want)
breakfast with their father.
Published by Quill & Parchment
FREEZE-FRAME
My seventy-year-old father
is coming to my office
He wants to see
my Legos telephone
which serves as
the company switchboard
The toasters with wings
on my screen saver
The collage of staff
picnicking at a farm
I will introduce him
to the program officer
and the associate director
and the college intern
They will see
a white-haired gent
whose gait is uneven
and whose thyroid
medications make
his face puffy
I will see
an artist tan as desert sand
his hands eloquent
and graceful
beard a dapper black
eyes a cobalt blue
I enter the pancake house
for breakfast with my father
and recognize how rare to find
those words nestled together
for fathers board commuter trains
after a shave at pre-dawn mirrors,
coffee thermos balanced
on a briefcase beside them,
headlines on smartphones
cocked open in their palms.
Or they’re off to the back forty
before the school bus arrives,
muddy boots absent
from the jumble on the porch.
And some of us hear those four words,
recall the strained resentment
for the paperboy whose delivery
meant a slice between two bowls,
or we can’t picture a man
in an always-empty chair.
So, I’m aware what I have here
is a luxury, a privilege:
Mine is still alive and I
am old enough to appreciate that;
grown enough to realize
not everyone has
(nor may they want)
breakfast with their father.
Published by Quill & Parchment
FREEZE-FRAME
My seventy-year-old father
is coming to my office
He wants to see
my Legos telephone
which serves as
the company switchboard
The toasters with wings
on my screen saver
The collage of staff
picnicking at a farm
I will introduce him
to the program officer
and the associate director
and the college intern
They will see
a white-haired gent
whose gait is uneven
and whose thyroid
medications make
his face puffy
I will see
an artist tan as desert sand
his hands eloquent
and graceful
beard a dapper black
eyes a cobalt blue
To read more about Shoshauna:
https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2023/05/storyteller-of-week_19.html
