And Wacky Am I

And now wacky am I, I thank you, mother, for

the days I take no pill;

the oak table that folds upon itself,
a hinge, a turn, a hidden box
containing nothing, a silence left to me alone;

the vaporous song echoing here from the
dusty floor of a small house
in a village like so many.

I thank you that I somehow sing

though rhythms and their verses
keep note and meaning but to me,

through the doubt that song to my self
in silence be song at all.

March, 2009

All the birds are gone

Robins' nest is empty, all dreamin' done today.
All the birds are gone, and the sky is gray;

Fledgling Wilbur flew the nest, then Oliver flapped away.
The yard below the nest was fenced, so mom could train & play,
no dogs to chase the fledges and make them playin' prey.
But giving worms to encourage the two who remained to stay,
accidentally drove them to claw out, dive and go on their way.
One ran toward the road, so with imitation wings & ludicrous human display,
I herded her back toward shelter in the dog & human fray.
At first panicked, robin mom & partners dove & threatened with their warning bray.
But seeing my intentions, mom's wondrous posse "joined",
and pressed the young'n' to shelter beneath a leafy spray.

All the birds are gone now, and the sky is gray.
The family she mothered, her selfless display, her partners gone,
but the love and joy she rendered, are alive and all regrets allay.

The Seed

I watch in 3D, yes, even without TV,

a flutter so ordinary, so extr'ordinary

because I have to watch, then dream, imagine,

travel new paths, beyond my sedentation, beyond my education;

Every minute, every day, I remain in wonder.

Around me lies miracle, yet all is ordinaire;

even this seed, even this tree, even the memory the seed hath wrought to reality.

Every vein, every root in memory, planted by the seed to seek

the ordinary mystery in the never- and unknown,

to wet its being, to feed the self as it grows to be, whose shared community brings forth

the corpulent beginning of a vein turned to thousands, toward neighbors and simple place,

to feed itself, its leaves, its bark, its invitation to share and seek its neighbors --

all from the beings who compose its legacy with ours all in magical verse within its seed.

Though we cannot read its, as it cannot read ours, we share the wonder of life in community, all wrought seed by seed,

reading together, growing stronger as one ...

and yet, only having grown through the gifts of each other

and millions of species together from a single seed

and the mystery that has lain before and lies beyond.

Circumstance and Syncronicity

Each moment of one's life is preparation;
both this moment and infinite moments to come,
gathered become momentous, moments' preparation,
behind the glass are lost; before, become aspiration,
perspiration realized, sweat.

Co-Incidence

Incident by incident flashes by, each bound in expectation as those imagined.
Bound in orbits, gamed each one of purposed lives, of loves, of incidence and profit,
Bound close by incident memories day by day.
Bound in daily wonder decades long.
Bound, compelled by physics present in our supple times,
binding somehow stronger than the potent gravity of our yearning,
distant, sterile orbits of co-incident desire,
memories, dreams and wondrous shared reality unrealized.

Someone Else's Path

Here I walk on someone else's path;
I follow the curves, I follow the rules, I stay in the lines.
I may try to improve the path a bit; I may try to take its most efficient way.
And yet, still I walk someone else's path.

My country, 'tis of thee

My country, 'tis of thee,
If thou hadst the quiet pride of integrity,
of strength and of courageous intensity,
Thy leaders all, all me and we
the people and our varied religiosity --
beliefs, intentions, focus and perversity --
could make peace worldwide without war;
could invite our friends and "enemies", near and far
with respect to sit with us without fear, on par,
asking all to share beliefs, intent, humanity, needs and more.

What do we want? Why must desire be met or "Kill!"?
Why cannot humanity forgo want when our abounding riches will?
Why do we hide behind our richly funded towers, walls and corporate war machine
Selling death, while we imagine we imagine peace, love, a wonderful world and nothing so obscene.

Static Comes with the radio ...From 2004

Static comes with the radio.

Ahhhh, riding down the road at night in an open car.

Turn on the brights to see the deer and a big moth car-

ving long sinusoidals in the headlight road toward Mars.

Oh, the beautiful cicada music wack-wacking amongst the whirring tires,
the poles thup thrupping climb-spike jagged rips and tears
beside the blacktop you know will break again the dangling wires

Cars, mars, tires, wires, comes my roady nightly woo

bump tha-dump into the yellow double splutty stew
while on the windshield splatter tsst tsst of myriad, deadly spew.

Static comes with the radio.

I Took a Walk Today [v2]

I took a walk today down by the canal, in sunshine along the rails
I tight-roped the tracks and timed the ties to step along the day.
I took a walk today, by my magnificent river, up and down the city hills,
I reason an excuse for rolling fields, for locusts, cattle, sycamores and parks.
I took a walk today to open up my spirit, to give me time.
Time to fly, time to recognize my ignorance,
Time to open myself up to all my possibilities,
Time to stop thinking of them and every detail in between.
I love where I am because it is where I am.
I love to watch, to look, to have this Earth around me.
I love to walk in sunshine, rain, fog and storm.
I love to be with those I love.
I love to challenge myself.
I love to be happy when I'm finished even though I fail.
I went for a walk today and the sun shone down, the Earth shone up and
I shone in between, all one.

From Art We Cannot Wander

From art we cannot wander.

Away from art we cannot dwell.
I dance, I draw, I write,
I carve, I sculpt, I knit, I sew --
       all in wonders' spell.

I share, I hide, I put myself asunder,
For though there is no art without me,
nor  no art without us all.
We are art. We create the wonder
       each within our narrow selves.

But with our selves together
the infinite is spoken, drawn, and shared as art, as experience,
as elusive, loving, mysterious
       as  amongst ourselves.

Vane Lashua, 2017

In a Cemetery Comes

In a cemetery comes
the revelation that when I die
I am to be buried in the soil
in a shroud of my own making
to rot back to the inevitable wonder
that I am who I am.

Vane Lashua

May 7, 2006

Lock It Up!

Lock it up!

There is no one more powerful than thee,

For regardless how you exit or explain

Unless you put lights out and lock up with a key,

Art work, yours or others’ shared, may not remain.

Wicked Phantoms, Cats, or Lion Kings

May leave you Something Rotten in your dreams;

J. Whitcomb Riley will rhyme other horrid things

Unless you lock, front and back, “along the seams.”

It’s our shared treasure after all,

This wonder, our galleried WVArtsA Hall.

 A 45-minute challenge
Composed for the doors of 
Whitewater Valley Arts Association

Poor Me (always working)

Ideas, yes, but working poems built on thoughts like these
often lead to revelations, meant to enlighten, not to please

(c'mon, dude, of course your sucking loneliness wants acknowledgement.
"not to please", ha! but still to churn, not to enter the establishment,
to help to realize the source of missing clatter
sifting through our poor brain, reflecting sleepless chatter
reflecting innocence but just the same
depth perceived from what I acknowledge is a shallow shame.
Poor me. They, they, the others always over-gifted by we, have got it all
and, now, poor me, I haven't -- or have I? -- yet collected attention -- here I am, after all --
that I, poor me, have to bear and bear and get nothing back
but words, attacks, seeming endless empty hangers on a rack.)

Downtown

I sit in the shade at a dark counter behind the glass,
eating my biscotti, sipping the dark, French roast
while drinking in the morning's entertainment out on the street.

Passersby are downtowners or touring or both;
some smoking on break or waiting for the play to begin
or beginning to play sidewalk music for sympathy or fee;
or sitting cross-legged with homeless sign and jar or not.
Walkers on a phone or and/or purple hair, tight braids,
cornrows, shaved mohawk or just brushed straight up,
low-hanging jeans falling off or threatening,
maybe a tie and skinny suit, pant or skirted,
crawling about with the crew at noon.

Baseball hats cocked on sideways, always more interesting
than backwards, cover inquisitive minds, bent on friends or girls
or hatless, just bent to laugh and explore, like me.

Here come the tie-less, open collared
point-shiny brown-shod or too-spike heeled,
conference-necklaced laughs and wondering
I suppose, like me, where desire will lead tonight.

RORRIM

He looks back at me,
reflects my order
to stop smiling and
not to stop because of him.
He asks to try a frown, to look into his eyes,
to wonder whether he is just the man he wants to be.
A movement here, ... and there, his eyes become
unresistable and wonder spreads from there.
Is this a simple morning or is it unbecome --
to see this wonder being whose attraction resists no one?

Cars, Trucks and Rebel Flags

I think that I shall never see
more ignorance, rediculosity,
combined in Nazi-like complicity
than Rebel colors, flags, license-plated Rams 'n' F3fifticee.
.

Feeding Instructions

1. Find the key under the pot on the wicker table and enter through French doors in the atrium in the back of the house. …
2. Greet Bessie with a treat. Your choice. You'll learn. Put a couple in your pocket ... or if you don't want your change to smell like bacon ...
7. Although we walk her without the leash, Bessie demands attention and “range awareness.” If she senses she is out of your domain, she runs around trying to find a new pile of deer pellets, a fresh road kill, or will sometimes chase the phantom beast into the woods. You know the phantom beast is around when she perks up, poses, and jerks her head from one pose to another. (She is beautiful when the phantom beast shows up, but she also uses it as an excuse to go her own way, indefinitely, and you are being paid by the trip rather than by the hour.) …
16. … Let Bessie escort you to the rabbit hutch.
17. At this point, depending on her appetite, Bessie will try to gulp down some rabbit goodies under the rabbit cage. She wouldn’t be a dog otherwise. (Just a word of warning in case she tries to lick you later.) Make sure she uses her napkin. …
18. Change the rabbit water bottle and refill the food dish in the hutch. Access is through the small roof panel. …
20. Buster is the older of the two rabbits, white and now dominated by the other one, for whom, admittedly, we do not have the same feelings as those for Buster. Say “Hey, Buster,” putting the right intonation on it and letting her know you know she is the victim of circumstance, a prisoner of her pink skin and eyes, her white fur, and the needs of the once weak and pitiful foundling rabbit who has matured to become a dominatrix at poor Buster’s expense. The echoes of that greeting should indicate that Sadya, Vane and Randy will take her out more often, hold her, and let her walk on the fresh grass at every opportunity. And that she is a vivacious looking hunk of rabbit for a 10 year old. “Hey, Buster.”
21. Walk Bessie till she has peed and pooped. We use the time-worn, “Make your BM, Bessie,” because it does seem to have a salutatory effect. She will decide on a spot by a certain, almost telepathic movement, and will circle an extraordinary (seems to me, anyway) number of times. If the number is particularly high or if she changes directions more than once, she does not take offense if you laugh. She is more than a dog.
22. … walk Bessie into the woods. (Because the threat of the phantom beast sometimes looms, and though some, among them I, prefer the gentle light of stars regardless, the light switch for the outdoor lights is above the telephone, next to the French doors in the kitchen. They illuminate the rabbit hutch and the woods trail enough, in most cases, to foil the beast.) …
25. Release Bessie and spend as much time as you like smoking cigars, shooting darts, and otherwise socializing with her. …
27. Ah. Now Barney. Upstairs (through the living room from the kitchen bearing right, u-turn up, at the top, right.) in Sadya’s playroom is the we-call-it terrarium with a chamelion in it. He hides in the lip of the cover sometimes, so be careful when removing it or he will be CRUSHED or ESCAPE! You probably won’t have to remove the lid, though, because he has just been given 24 large crickets who have been left a large leaf of lettuce. Crickets are living in Eden. Barney is on safari there. …
28. Spray the back side of the tank liberally with water [rain forest!] from the sprayer next to the we-call-it aquarium, but try not to hit Barney. He springs alarmingly fast and might hurt his delicate being.
29. … Say your goodbyes. Check the door to the basement once more and leave through the French doors. Rattle them to be sure they are locked.

Talking to myself

When you read her note ...
at the second mention of depression alerted by the first,
leaving in a vacuum, your heart deserted,
somehow fluttered in the emptiness,
and echoed hollow chill inside this place you think.

Your face is cool, your breath is gone.
Along the path your longing (yes, it's longing) exposes some bare truth --
like a single tuft of moss and lichen,
joyous color in a frozen winter wood --
so you see you see. You see you see?
Oh, you are so alone, heartless, breathing here amongst your fellows.

The Shadow of the Object Falling on the Ego

Master, is this why
I am mirrored in your eyes
Or wanting it so?

That seen, do I go,
with diagnosis, surprise,
excuse or goodbyes?

The Bus (working)

Through your kitchen window, you see your neighbor,
the asphalt seal-coater, driving his truck and trailer
up the gray winter street. Why is the roof-vent on the trailer open?
Full of asphalt, fumes and heat, the vent begins to deliver dreams.

The big, yellow bus emerges beneath you as you saw an opening in its roof.

You experience clear, eucalyptus air and laughter as your father helps below
in the California clarity where you and wife have parked the bus of dreams.

The bus wouldn't fit on the neat steep curvy street
where your father lives in the beautiful hillside house
with the deck, the flowers, tiny green front yard, his crumbling marriage
suburbanized across the Golden Gate.

You twice cut openings through the yellow roof and the inside ceiling rainbow,
two metal sheets sandwiching wires in '50s insulation to the back lights.
You cut the wires accidentally only once when you discover they are there.
You repair them, learning school bus electricity from the simple teacher, Accident.

Lying back in the beanbag chair on astroturf in your bussing living room,
stopped en route anywhere -- in the desert, on the shore, among the Tetons --
vent lids, screens and cranks float in ceiling-painted rainbow above.

You look down again while sawing, see your dad's white hair and moustache in front of his smile, then debussed-decades later
turn to awake in today's gray morning, longing all.
2:17 PM 1/16/2010
Source:
Now through your kitchen window, you see your neighbor, the asphalt seal-coater driving his truck with the heavy black trailer, go up the gray winter street. The roof-vent on the trailer is open. You wonder why it's open on this subfreezing day: is the trailer full of questions? of heat?

As he passes, you find yourself through another window, sitting atop the big, yellow bus while you saw an opening to fit one of its roof vents. You sense your father helping below, inside, though you cannot see him; you experience clear, leafy air and laughter in the suburban clarity of the California street where you have parked the bus en route across America to see everyone and -place you know and never did.

The bus you learned to drive on and off the ferry from Alaska, through Seattle, across the Columbia, the Oregon coast, down the Pacific Coast Highway. Here you are in Marin, a lifestyle mecca where there is temporary rest, family and obligation.

You could not park to fit the bus on the steep side over the hill along a curvey, neat street where your father lives in a house carved into the rock with his crumbling marriage, deck, flowers, tiny watered green front yard, so you parked it here.

One morning you twice cut square openings in the yellow, rounded roof. You cut on through the ceiling and a band of color in the rainbow painted in Alaska. You accidentally cut a knot of wires between those two metal sheets sandwiching '50s insulation and Detroit engineering, and thus learn about vehicular electicity from the simple teacher, Accident. You see the roof vents' close-up workings -- screens and cranks and moving air as you sprawl in the beanbag chair on astroturf beneath the rainbow-painted ceiling, stopped somewhere en route to nap. You miss the kitty and your wife sitting in the stuffed chair next to you as you drive.

You look down again through a finished vent opening, see your dad's white hair and moustache in front of his smile, then turn to writing in the gray morning as the neighbor's trailer with its mysterious vent emerges from the sparkling mist of the yellow bus,leaking questions.