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.
.