Peggy Shimkus has been writing poetry since the age of 17. Her poems have been published nationally and she has an anthology View From The Verandah, soon to be followed by another in 1997. She has worked extensively with students as an extension of her duties as a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and moderator of the Root River Poets of Racine.
The Albino Stag
It was one of a series
Of ugly, rainy days. A day
When it was easy to raise up
Frankenstein’s castle brooding
Over an Albanian abyss;
Or to bury oneself in a poet’s
New book. It wasn’t a day for rare
And wonderful things to happen.
My husband was in the garage
Stomping cans to smithers and rattling
The pieces of his backbone
Like dice in a box.
I was picking apart Kevin Koch’s
Latest book of poems and asking questions
Like how did he dare to take sentences
From his college journal and line them into poems?
Wondering what made him so successful.
Drifting into the kitchen, I put
On the pot for Taheebo tea.
While waiting for the water to boil,
I wandered to the window
And peered through the deluge.
Suddenly, there it was-the unexpected!
A fine and beautiful thing-
An Albino stag
My husband didn’t hear my shouts
Until too late. First he
Did not believe my uncommon adventure.
Then there was an inquisition,
Like how did I know
It was an albino? Was it white
Like a Unicorn?
(I asked real polite if he had
Ever seen one of those.)
Why did I call it a stag?
More fitting for a beautiful
Creature, I said.
Then he took charge of my rare adventure,
Called the newspapers, the Conservation Society,
And all of his friends;
I returned to Kevin Koch and his book,
Having discovered at last,
The secret of his poetry.
Published in View from the Verandah.Copyright © 1997 by Peggy Shimkus
Facial Isometrics
exciting new exercises
to make
your face and neck
look younger
eliminate the expense
of a facelift
in just
a few weeks
smooth out those
wrinkles
lift a chin
look here nurse patterson
et al
at what is left
white trace lines
like stretch marks on
a woman’s belly
the purchase price
of which
cannot be effaced
no matter how little
the cost
how great the effort
Published in View from the Verandah.Copyright © 1997 by Peggy Shimkus
Denominator
Once I caught a phrase in passing
a questioning phrase which
intrigued me.
It haunted me on sleepless nights
while mingling with
the hurdy-gurdy scene;
it came again while leafing through the current magazines
and played against the background noise
on the TV screen.
What is the Common Denominator of Man?
I held no disputations with Huxley types
in fact refused to hear distortions
of meaning or the answer
for through it all
a woven thread
the answer could clearly seen-
A Baby’s Cry.
In laced and silken cribs
crumbling ghettos
nations starved-
arms stretch out for
love and food and
silent babies cry.
Voices interchangeable
for in distress our children cry;
everywhere man must pause
to note it for without
children
the whole world dies.
Unpublished. Copyright © by Peggy Shimkus
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