James T. Stemmle

James T. Stemmle is an old man, currently living retirement in Riderwood, a hundred acre senior village near Washington DC, with his wife of 58 years. He writes poetry during morning meditations on a bench by a pond with time off to greet passers-by with a cheerful good morning. He had a Federal Government career mostly with EPA, earned a doctorate from Catholic U in Chemistry, and was born in Louisville, KY. He is eager to share his poetry. Already he has published 60 poems in such literary magazines as: The Octillo Review, Evening Street Review, The Raven’s Perch, Deep South Magazine, Hektoen International: A Journal of Medical Humanities, Literary Veganism: An Online Journal, Cheofpleirn Press, Seattle Star, Poetry Superhighway, Open Arts Forum, Pliades-Literature in Context, Grey Sparrow Review, Journal of Expressive Writing, The Light Ekphrastic, Midway Journal, Literary Heist, Open Door Poetry Magazine, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Poetry Pacific, The Indian Review, The Oakwood Literary Journal, Boshemia, ArLiJo, Réapparition Journal, The Front Range Review, Spank the Carp, Heart, Wordgathering, Verse Virtual, Brief Wilderness, and, Narrative Northeast.

Easy read of the poems in the images above:

Demons

a neurodiverse male of the species

deemed by experts a danger to him

self or others lay constrained

innoculated face down on a gurney

in an isolation room of a mental

institution and a woman like Jesus

undegreed uncredentialed un

authorized gained entrance sat on

the floor looked up into his eyes

and beyond into his soul and said

hello saw him a fully enfranchised

human made in god’s image and

likeness who is more complex than

previously imagined who nobody

understands and sat there for a

while in true conversation casting

out his demons

Pain

I have taken to passing judgement

on my pain and giving it a rating for

at least the first steps out of bed and

even before as to what sort of day it

will be a prediction because I live with

pain and take pain pills a common

judgement is it’s not so bad could be

worse hey I’m still walking imagining

the day when pain precludes walking

seeing myself sitting all the time getting

some mobility from a wheel chair

spending my days in a wheel chair

joining the ranks of the disabled

pondering what life holds for them

but for now it’s how much pain do

I have to push through to get to the

garage to accomplish tasks and I am

grateful for steps without pain which

do occur and which inspire hope it’s

only an episode and not a new normal