Baby Shoes Blues: Poems

By Doyle D Newsom

This book, Baby Shoes Blues, is not only a collection of individual and disparate poems; it is a wildly imaginative narrative of a seasoned mans life. It begins in dreams of innocence and yet portends the experiences of war and the terrible trauma ahead. The stories that follow are unusual and true and present a picture of war not ordinarily seen that will speak quietly but clearly to veterans and non-veterans alike. The narrative continues in the melancholy time of recovery and healing, and if you need or if you have ever needed healing, it will touch your soul. Nowhere is healing more evident than in the ability to laugh at yourself and to see ridiculous claptrap for what it really is. Then when your spiritual eyes are open and you can see how hilarious we all are, you can see your way home. It may be a way filled with great struggle, but there are great blessings for those who will look to find them. The Blues are the blues, but sometimes they feel good.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781503524675

Doyle D Newsom

You could call Baby Shoes Blues a work of poetry seven decades in the making. Its author, Doyle Newsom, during that time has sampled an amazing variety of life experiences. He has worked as a teacher, a preacher, a bartender, a car salesman, a stockbroker, a long haul truck driver, a retail clothing store manager and buyer, and a successful small business owner. This book, Baby Shoes Blues, deals with a wide range of subjects, but as you read it, a central theme of Doyle’s experience as a combat Marine Corps officer in Vietnam will emerge. If you are a veteran, this first collection with its unusual war stories will resonate with your experience at a deep and very visceral level. If you are not a veteran, read this collection with the expectation of gaining a new and unusual perspective of our confusing and unsettling world. If you are a person of faith, you will identify with many of the works in this book. If you are not, you will be challenged to think about your purpose and your place as a spiritual being on this temporal plane. While you are reading Baby Shoes Blues, you may find yourself feeling a bit overwhelmed by the pathos of the experiences described. Read on, however, because Doyle will encourage you to hope and to love. This book of poems does not providing answers, but it does attempt to offer and introduce you to a place where you might make a stand and shout back at and overcome despair. You may even find yourself laughing out loud.

Book preview

School Boy

I was once a tow-headed, green-eyed boy in a country school.

My lessons were strong and direct, a solid basis for a poet’s education.

My friends and I were unconcerned about our clothes.

The boys wore overalls or jeans and cotton shirts.

The girls wore dresses and shoes and socks, and their hair was long.

I don’t remember what colors we wore.

The class room was dingy white, the desks warm brown wood.

Our teacher, Mrs. Nusser liked blue, but I noticed that her eyes were green.

The playground was big, mostly dirt and sand

with very little grass, so it was easy to mark.

We drew lines on the ground to play marbles for keeps,

or when we played a game of blind man’s bluff.

Our teacher liked math, but she encouraged us to read.

If I finished my figures early, she let me go to the library.

I felt safe among the books. I roamed the narrow aisles.

I learned how to search for and find the books.

The child sized chairs and tables put my mind at ease.

I travelled light and easy in the stories I read.

We didn’t have a lunch room. We brought our lunches in brown sacks.

The bathrooms were outside behind the school. Both were six seaters.

I think I was happy but suspicious of too much joy.

Pretending brought me comfort and control in my young life’s story book.

I thumbed through life’s pages with a child’s curious mind.

A careful optimism made me pensive like a country pastor.

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Invocation

When balderdash and bunkum scream,

they tell me to allow

what I possess of the poet’s dream

to speak to you just now.

I’ll abandon old mythologies

that feed the secular throng.

We’ll disregard theologies.

We’ll sing a fantastic song.

It will take us where we have to go

to celebrate the day.

It will show us what we need to know

and mold our simple clay.

Then if we still see our mother earth

with a jaundiced eye,

perpetuating mortal mirth

that springs from a timeless lie,

we’ll spin the feral wheel of life.

Let’s find our proper place.

We’ll sow the angry seeds of strife.

Let’s expose the human race.

Shuffle all the cards of fate.

Join dame fortune’s plot.

Feed from the shaman’s present plate.

Untie the Gordian knot.

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Meditation

Dynamic meditation, she said,

is the bane of all our limits.

So I began to count down

to where I needed to be.

I arrived, and thirty seconds later

I had spent an hour in eternity

gazing, not on what is here,

but into the mind of God.

I am awake now and charged

with responsibility for my life.

I am free to dance and sing

the fierce old songs of the prophets.

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Presence

I am present, but my body disintegrates,

two contradictory thoughts.

I think, therefore I am;

Rene’s misconception of mind.

I have taken this form,

but I am living in between.

Christ is calling me

to awaken and dissolve.

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Destiny

What is my role as a poet?

What can be said for adopting a style?

Are there subtleties designed to show it,

and a way into art without guile?

I’ve suffered for seventy years,

oblivious to the blessings I’ve had.

I’ve shed unnecessary tears.

I’m fond of blaming my Dad.

His lot as a child was severe.

I’ve come to realize that.

He dealt with rejection and fear,

but he kept it under his hat.

I’m told it’s all grist for the mill.

The result is homogeneous flour.

The grain goes in as you will.

It’s ground to a fine subtle power.

There are vicious cycles to break,

and outlandish faith to attain.

The metaphysical bread that