Poem by Colorado T. Sky
Photo by Bill Perrault
Shoe Shine Shorty
Hiya. Hello. Hallelujah
Step up, getcha’a shine, suh!
Shoe Shine Shorty
smiled the sun and sang the rain
And watched the world dance by
From a lowslung boxcart frontrow seat
On the cracked and tilted concrete of
The sunnyside-up corner
Of Walk and Don't Walk, USA
Shoe Shine Shorty, he’d shown up
Along about the time
that Richard Nixon took his bow
(Dickie, with much less aplomb)
It was one bright day and there he was
“six foot minus thirty two,”
Marine Corps emblem in a goldcapped tooth
smiling cheeks so shiny black
they were purple, almost blue
It was basically a shoeshine stand
on babycoach and shoppingcart wheels
beneath a deep and warbling soul,
nine Kiwis, three brushes,
five rolled stained and knobby flannels
And a plastic squirtpint always filled
With what he called his “goose juice”
From under his red and gold umbrella
he’d used to smile and say
“The secret of a super shine is the way
the polish gets snapped and popped.
The goose juice is just to oil the way.”
Hiya. Hello. Hallelujah
Step up, getcha’a shine, suh!
“Doo doo, doo wah” he’d call aloud,
and they’d all turn around
“With a shine on your shoes….” He’d sing
“…and a melody in your heart” they’d think,
they’d feel they thought, and then
they’d think they knew.
Hiya. Hello. Hallelujah
Step up, getcha’a shine, suh!
first snow, he’d be gone
and by cruel April he’d be back
and the parade would once again begin
with no-one asking where he’d been
just glad that he was back
and the sidewalks shone a flashing black patina
compliments of Shorty, Shoe Shine Shorty,
and his goldtoothed purple smile
So it came quite suddenly
To all, that sunny bloodstained morning
And when finally the tale came out
There was barely a tear for Shorty
They were way too stunned for mourning
It must’ve been way past midnight
Maybe almost morning
With dawn yawning in the corner
where the universe sleeps
And the world crept quietly along
While Shorty, Shoe Shine Shorty
Went wheeling on drunkenly, singingly home
Popular supposition
And speculative conjecturation
Seems to figure that the skinheads
Caught him somewhere in the alley
Hiya. Hello. Hallelujah
Step up, getcha’a shine, suh!
and it wasn’t until the town was thronged
by stars and bars and bagpipe bands
that people found out all about
who Shoe Shine Shorty’d really been
they all stopped short when they all heard
Reverend Brother Preacherman
solemnly intone a Baptist blessing
for Lieutenant Quincy Roosevelt Washington Jones,
“a man and a half in half a man”
a servile soul both wild and free
sixty two dollars still in his shirt
his Marine Corps gold tooth missing
legs left lost in a Mekong swamp
brains bashed out in the Home of the Free
somewhere, out there, his medals jangle
like the bells of Notre Dame
and there he walks in painless light
and there his boots his boots are always shined
and after brief, though brutal, passage
a grand awakening in a shiny new land
a soul and a half
in a new-made man
Hiya. Hello. Hallelujah
Step up, getcha’a shine, suh!
Shoe Shine Shorty
Cried the sun and sang the rain
And left a shadow's echo on the corner where
He’d once watched the world dance by
From a lowslung boxcart frontrow seat
On the cracked concrete
On the sunnyside-up corner
of Walk and Don't Walk, USA
Hiya. Hello. Hallelujah
Step up, getcha’a shine, suh!
Shoe Shine Shorty
smiled the sun and sang the rain
And watched the world dance by
From a lowslung boxcart frontrow seat
On the cracked and tilted concrete of
The sunnyside-up corner
Of Walk and Don't Walk, USA
Shoe Shine Shorty, he’d shown up
Along about the time
that Richard Nixon took his bow
(Dickie, with much less aplomb)
It was one bright day and there he was
“six foot minus thirty two,”
Marine Corps emblem in a goldcapped tooth
smiling cheeks so shiny black
they were purple, almost blue
It was basically a shoeshine stand
on babycoach and shoppingcart wheels
beneath a deep and warbling soul,
nine Kiwis, three brushes,
five rolled stained and knobby flannels
And a plastic squirtpint always filled
With what he called his “goose juice”
From under his red and gold umbrella
he’d used to smile and say
“The secret of a super shine is the way
the polish gets snapped and popped.
The goose juice is just to oil the way.”
Hiya. Hello. Hallelujah
Step up, getcha’a shine, suh!
“Doo doo, doo wah” he’d call aloud,
and they’d all turn around
“With a shine on your shoes….” He’d sing
“…and a melody in your heart” they’d think,
they’d feel they thought, and then
they’d think they knew.
Hiya. Hello. Hallelujah
Step up, getcha’a shine, suh!
first snow, he’d be gone
and by cruel April he’d be back
and the parade would once again begin
with no-one asking where he’d been
just glad that he was back
and the sidewalks shone a flashing black patina
compliments of Shorty, Shoe Shine Shorty,
and his goldtoothed purple smile
So it came quite suddenly
To all, that sunny bloodstained morning
And when finally the tale came out
There was barely a tear for Shorty
They were way too stunned for mourning
It must’ve been way past midnight
Maybe almost morning
With dawn yawning in the corner
where the universe sleeps
And the world crept quietly along
While Shorty, Shoe Shine Shorty
Went wheeling on drunkenly, singingly home
Popular supposition
And speculative conjecturation
Seems to figure that the skinheads
Caught him somewhere in the alley
Hiya. Hello. Hallelujah
Step up, getcha’a shine, suh!
and it wasn’t until the town was thronged
by stars and bars and bagpipe bands
that people found out all about
who Shoe Shine Shorty’d really been
they all stopped short when they all heard
Reverend Brother Preacherman
solemnly intone a Baptist blessing
for Lieutenant Quincy Roosevelt Washington Jones,
“a man and a half in half a man”
a servile soul both wild and free
sixty two dollars still in his shirt
his Marine Corps gold tooth missing
legs left lost in a Mekong swamp
brains bashed out in the Home of the Free
somewhere, out there, his medals jangle
like the bells of Notre Dame
and there he walks in painless light
and there his boots his boots are always shined
and after brief, though brutal, passage
a grand awakening in a shiny new land
a soul and a half
in a new-made man
Hiya. Hello. Hallelujah
Step up, getcha’a shine, suh!
Shoe Shine Shorty
Cried the sun and sang the rain
And left a shadow's echo on the corner where
He’d once watched the world dance by
From a lowslung boxcart frontrow seat
On the cracked concrete
On the sunnyside-up corner
of Walk and Don't Walk, USA
<< Home