Seasons of Feeling - Julie Steimle (read aloud TXT) 📗

Winters

A Michigan winter, they said to me
Was something I would learn to fear more
Than any other winter I had ever experienced
Though I wondered if they knew where I had been before.

You see, I’d lived in deserts: Vegas and Phoenix,
And I loved swimming along the California shore
But I'd also experienced HarBin, and deep Russia
So heavy snowfalls on winter nights I’ve seen nearly a score.

Where while flake fell down like dry glitter
On the layers of layers of packed ice hard floor
Walking with mincing steps as children slid gleefully
With plastic skis on their feet, and down coats, as everyone wore.

And mounds upon mounds of heaped up snow
Piling higher than the bare shrubs, low fences, or
Even the fronts of stairwells, scooped out with shovels.
Layered in wool, two gloves, three socks, a scarf and four
Different matching tops and bottoms….

So, bring on the winter, show me that ice.
Let me compare with what I have seen before.
I may regret it, or I may love it,
But what can I ask for, but to live a little more.


Cold

Something is wrong with my thermostat.
I’ve set the temperature,
I know where it’s at.
Yet here I am shivering and quivering
Shaking and chattering
Wondering what with that do-hickey is mattering….


I Like Summer

I like summer.
I love the heat.
I love the sun
Especially when it bakes through a window on a Saturday morning as I watch a PBS special about cheetahs or Carl Sagan talking about black holes, my mother baking bread in another room.

I like summer.
I love the heat
I love the sun
Especially when running outside on the grass chasing butterflies, catching them with my fingers on the hedge next to the fence, or collecting four leaf clovers in the clusters growing the lawn, the sound of mowers on the air.

I like summer
I love the heat
I love the sun
Especially when I don’t have to wear strangling turtlenecks, scarves, socks, shoes, coats, layers and layers of itchy wool and puffy coats that don’t allow me to put my arms down at my sides, with the air in the house stale and dusty.

I like summer.
I love the heat
I love the sun
Especially when the Santa Ana’s blow through the windows, bringing in all hot wind as I stand in a loose sundress, feeling my sweat cool me off gently without chill, or the hot rain that pours off the roof in a waterfall with the echoing sound of thunder.

I like summer.


Traveling

I slept all night in an airport terminal with my feet upon my bags.
A lunch, dinner, and breakfast at the local airport store.
I glance at the night watchman trying to decipher his foreign name tags
And I think to myself as I close my eyes. “What in the world am I in for?”

Another trip—home again.
Another flight—out there.
Another plane to sit upon
That would take me to a new somewhere

My time in the foreign place where I lived what people dream
With an exotic locale to my list and a language in my head
But I imagine a home in a place less exotic than I’ve seen
With a warm stable comforter to wrap around me while in bed.

Yet on a trip—gone again.
Another flight—back there
Another train to ride inside
That would take me to a new somewhere.

I step out of the terminal where my sisters grab my bags
We smile and laugh and tell of our year and all that happened before.
I glanced at my watch and look about as my energy flags.
We go outside to the car on the curb, and the rain begins to pour.


Ecstasy

My life travels from moment to moment
And I only know where I’ve been
I don’t know where I’m going
Distance grows between me and my kin
Again…

Going out, over, and beyond what I see
Ecstasy—
I’m on an adventure.
The way to be
Never to be shy…
Goodbye—
Goodbye.

I’m never sure of the future
Though that is where my dreams lie
I think it often is better
If I simply took to the sky.
To fly…

Going out, over, and beyond what I see
Ecstasy—
I’m on an adventure.
The way to be
Never to be shy…
Goodbye—
Goodbye.

Leave conventional wisdom
Forget the growing-up facts
Go on to another horizon
Without fear, and never look back
Track…

Going out, over, and beyond what I see
Ecstasy—
I’m on an adventure.
The way to be
Never to be shy…
Goodbye—
Goodbye.


Rationalism

My view
Your view
Nothing wrong
I’m right
You’re right
Goes the song

Existentialism
Everyone in their mind prison
Existentialism
Rationalism

I say
You say
Ignore the problem
Let it be
Ultra pacifism
Take no action in a schism
All this rationalism
Another -ism


Words Hurt
Words
Like sticks and stones
Hurt.
Break more than bones
The heart
Starts instead to die
And cry…
The tears start to deny
And pain
Like rain as it falls
Soaks in
The skin as flesh crawls
And I
Can no longer cry tears like rain
A desertscape
My face in pain.


Most of my poetry is about characters in novels I have written. I am a more of a silly poet than serious.

The following 3 poems are from collections my Martian Prophecies novel series. The first is from a ‘famous’ quote of a national hero for the people in my book. The second one is a joke. The third is about one of the main characters in the novels who also ends up like a folk hero among his people. They are actually songs I wrote out for the Martian ‘rock band’ Air Borne Dust, ballads mostly. I always imagined them sung in a Celtic tune, only played on electric guitar and/or 80’s synthesizer. I have often wondered what a dulcimer would sound like if plugged in.


A Speck of Sand

A speck of sand
In an infinite desert
May look insignificant
But it isn’t.

A speck of sand
In an infinite desert
May look insubstantial
But it’s not.

A speck of sand
In a tyrant’s eyeball
Is a superhero to the extreme.
Scratching out his eyes,
He’s watering and cries,
Is every great rebel’s dream.

A speck of sand
Joined my so many others
Can make a glass so fine.
Burning hot.

A speck of sand
Working and grinding
Can wear down a mountain
In time.

Us specks of sand
Gathered together
Work better than one speck can do.
But one speck of sand
In a tyrant’s eyeball
Is a hero through and through.


Give It Up!

“You can lead a horse to water,” a man once said to me.
But then he added something that just couldn’t be.
He said, “You can lead a horse my friend.
That is really true. But teach him how to fish is not something you can do.”

“Give it up! Boy!
Quit it!
It can’t be done!

Give it up! Kid!
You’ve lost before you’ve begun.

Can’t you see? Fool!
It is impossible to the extreme.
Give it up! Boy!
Give up that dream!”

Well I smiled at him, and said winking slyly with one eye
“Thank you ever so much sir, but I think that I’ll still try.”
I said, “Some things are worth going for.
Some I gotta do. And teaching horses to fish, really ain’t up to you.”

He said:
“Give it up! Boy!
Quit it!
How can you tease?
Give it up! Kid!
You’ve fallen on your knees.

Can’t you see? Fool!
It is impossible to the extreme.
Give it up! Boy!
Give up that dream!”

I went with my horse to water and taught him how to fish
I taught him how to drink too and grant my every wish.
I taught him how to sing and dance and
Fiddle when he’s blue. But to show it to that codgy old man….
was something I couldn’t do,

He said:
“Give it up! Boy!
Quit it!
It can’t be done!

Give it up! Kid!
You’ve lost before you’ve begun.

Can’t you see? Fool!
It is impossible to the extreme.
Give it up! Boy!
Give up that dream!”

But to explain it to that codgy doubting old man…
I couldn’t do it if I wish…
So I left it up to my horse and I ran off with the fish.


Leader-of-Many

Sitting with his dreams wrapped in his hands,
He must let go and hold others up,
Watching them slip like hourglass sands
Leaving behind his own dreams for our hope.

Losing himself, he digs out a way
For others to live free from fear
Leaving behind hopes of yesterday
Seeking the visions of for the next year.

They are not his.
They cannot be
He is a servant
He is not free
He is a guide
He a martyr
He is our hope
He is fighter

While we sleep soundly, resting in bed
His nights are full of nightmarish visions
Battling the demonic beasts in his head
He draws up dramatic decisions.

Decisions of wisdom, too old for his age
We follow a mere boy as he leads
He has built the theater, he has set the stage
And with faith some how, he succeeds.

The success is not his
Or so he would say
He is a servant
But he leads the way
He is alone
He is a martyr
He is with us
He is a fighter

As the world spins on and faster,
He goes about silently doing his work.
He is the slave and we are the master;
We boss him around like a stuck on himself jerk.

With peace he delivered with help of his friends
We forget all his struggles and leave him to dry.
Used up for our purpose, a means to the ends,
We forget he is human and set him to die.

For life was not his,
And love he can’t have,
He is a rat
And therefore a knave
He is alone.
He is a martyr.
We forgot him.
But he was our fighter.


This poem is actually a joke I put in Book 4 of the Martian Prophecies series: The Millennial Box. Jeff is a seventeen-year-old ‘Martian’ boy hiding on earth who after living in the U.S. for a while has become extremely relaxed and a bit of a tease. This was for an English assignment he wrote.

Jeff’s Pizza Sonnet

Shall I compare thee to a piece of pizza?
Thou art more yummy and much more spicy.
And though it has been just great to meet ya
Let me see if your kisses taste nice-y.
You are not too hot like pizza-cheese burns
Made just right with the best kinds of topping
Smelling your aroma, how my head turns,
Stomach gurgles and my heart’s