The April 2012 Um-Yangian Read online

The April 2012 Um-Yangian

  By Steve Lavigne

  Copyright 2012 Steve Lavigne

  Fork and other poems

  The Unpublishables

  From the author of “Fork and other poems” and “The Unpublishables”, this new collection is the “best of” from the April 2012 PAD (poem a day) challenge. Quirky, unique and intriguing, these poems are sure to make you think, move you (one way or another) and amuse.

  Table of Contents

  100%

  not an urn or homer

  parenthood equals childhood squared

  paris

  you are 10, I am 45

  I remember

  holiday season

  something scientific (this way comes)

  the page a day

  my most important memory

  everyone says it’s the end of the world

  I remember teaching you

  a way with words

  science fiction and fantasy

  the hero with a thousand faces

  korean bbq

  on talk like a pirate day

  I spent the morning with myself

  let’s extrapolate

  let’s just say

  for years

  I think hamlet

  the love governor

  storefront of the heart

  the 5 year old

  don’t you hate it when

  you were always

  the trouble is

  no problem

  tree

  the surprise preemie

  about the author

  100%

  nothing is,

  Yoda says,

  and he should know

  dying and everything

  and still doing the ewok boogie.....

  100%

  everything is,

  Yoda says,

  and he should know

  Master and everything

  of all that oneness,

  feeling the flow,

  future, past and present

  an already has,

  is and will be kind of thing…

  and he knew, too, the young one,

  the journeyman, the apprentice,

  that lost searcher

  and finder

  in the embers of dearth –

  a father, a symbol, a pictured

  ideal from nothing into

  nothing,

  the constant motion of the universe

  observed in perfect

  stillness,

  darkness

  suddenly

  bright

  and you find yourself

  making your way

  to the exit

  emptiness

  and everything

  one big

  w(hole).

  Not an urn or homer

  but still

  before my time,

  the red headed

  beehive hair

  high school

  hottie

  and the flat top

  smirking

  boy

  look happy

  in their photograph.

  We had just assumed

  it was normal,

  parents going gray,

  a bit worn,

  like the before and after

  portraits of presidents

  until after the move

  south,

  shorts and visors

  waving away our concerns

  each with an arm

  sticking out the door

  of a golf cart

  speeding away

  into the sunset –

  their favorite homemade

  christmas card

  greeting.

  Parenthood equals childhood squared

  means you get a second

  secret

  childhood in your children’s secret

  childhood

  and not “in” as in “through”

  like the lousy parents who have to

  share everything – the one kid

  always responsible

  for nixing the entire class over

  and over again –

  you know who you are….

  And not “in” as in “care”

  like the mediocre ones who always

  let on and slip

  down the royal road to riches, and scamming

  and shaming by the savvy little

  investors playing

  those fools like this little piggy

  going to the rigged market,

  wheeee!…

  Oh no! It’s the screaming

  “you don’t understand!”,

  door slamming victory cry

  of the truly righteous

  c squared p as in proud parents

  who never, ever get suspected

  of being the secretly cool ones,

  the ones who know

  you have to go on different rides

  the second time

  around

  your

  Disneyland.

  Paris

 

  and you had

  just finished

  posing,

  the franc discussion

  about to begin

  but halted

  by your silent stare, furrowed

  brow, huge pouty lips

  and those ears -

  your ears, bright, bright red,

  the charcoal sketch unveiled

  and you suddenly

  realized

  that you had

  become

  a caricature.

  You are 10, I am 45

  and oh, the solemnities I wish to bestow

  upon you -

  heaping, drowning you

  with what my father might have called

  chestnuts,

  tomes you should read,

  rebukes, remonstrations,

  all the weight of my discontent

  on your fragile bird frame -

  but I resist the vase,

  the glass frame enclosing

  and linger in the wild swaying

  of your wonder,

  smile sunflower

  bright

  and is there something

  in you knowing

  this dark silhouette always

  over your shoulder,

  this somber south of a compass

  always behind you

  singing

  keep your face to the sunshine

  singing and singing

  and you will not see the shadows

  singing and singing

  into life

  a little girl

  dancing, twirling

  under the tweezers of a pointing

  finger and thumb

  frilly flower skirt

  so much in motion

  as to seem

  perfectly

  still

  I remember

  her first picture,

  we called her jellybean,

  just a glimmer of light

  in shadow

  on a computer screen,

  and now,

  all day

  she sits

  in the dark,

  our jellybean, a

  Really

  Adept

  Diagnostician-

  Identifier

  Of

  Lingering

  Often

  Growing

  Insinuating

  Shadows,

  The rest is her story

  Holiday season

  Born of uncertainty

  in the darkness

  of the shortest and coldest

  day of the year,
<
br />   we seek family

  and stand with strangers

  needing the warmth and light of

  these little suns -

  all of our giving and receiving

  a grand gesture to the universe

  that we understand

  that all that has been given and all that has been

  taken away

  now stands in the balance

  and this small holy re creation

  is all we know and all we can know

  of spring and hope

  and pray that this

  not be one long, last

  unending

  winter.

  Something scientific (this way comes)

 

  I once thought science

  was the antithesis

  of poetry

  confusing the language

  of science

  with its process

  and intent –

  for I had once imagined the impossible

  myself two things at once in two places at once

  and this once lasting forever

  until being defined by love,

  much as the wave particle duality experiment

  proving Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle-

  but now I know that everything is so much more than

  appearances,

  that affects and effects of every other on other

  in a continual process of change

  are the music and rhythm of a universe

  that only some

  can hear

  but all can feel

  in the one wrong or right word in the one wrong or right place

  of a poem that

  changes the world

  much as

  dark matter comprises 83% of

  what’s the matter in a universe

  full of Newton’s laws, evolutionary theory

  and all those vibrating extra dimensional

  strings of possible universes

  expressing itself

  in so fragile a thing

  as the wings of a butterfly

  flapping in a poem

  all chaos and beauty

  and truth

  The page a day

  calendar quote

  which I’ve kept on my wall

  for years, keeps telling

  me there are three kinds of luck-

  one I’ve translated as breeding stock,

  genetic, who the hell are these people

  I’ve grown up with my whole life

  kind of thing,

  another,

  is the kind you make yourself

  through your “thoughts, words and deeds”,

  oh, thank god for that one,

  the third one, however, is “heaven luck”,

  the one that’s been stuck in my mind like an itchy

  scab for years, I mean who knows,

  I tear down that stupid yellow sheet

  and the whole wall collapses,

  or worse, I spill coffee, have to take an extra laundry trip

  and voila, end up prematurely mortuaryified –

  I keep thinking, stalks of wheat

  if they could,

  would they curse the scythe,

  and if our reaper were like a real guy

  would I, should we, curse him, thank him,

  pity him, is that “cool book” I never read,

  the Tibetan book of the dead,

  like some kind of etiquette guide

  and why is it that every time I pause in my work

  I look up and see that “heaven luck” again

  and what did I want myself to learn when I put

  that damn thing up –

  that if I didn’t have bad luck

  that I would really

  be dead

  or dying

  from having

  no luck

  at all …

  My most important memory

  and the words that seem like magic

  no longer whispering unexpectedly

  from behind my right ear-

  I so wanted to convey to you

  without greek myths or

  platitudes

  the hospital, my seeing you

  seeing me -

  our first long look of recognition

  and the only line of my poem

  the taut cord between us

  and someone always placing in my hands

  a smiling scissors

  Everyone says it’s the end of the world

  and it’s not the “we’re good guys so we’re outta here

  before things get really bad”

  christians,

  resistance is futile

  muslims,

  we’re special, really special, chosen people

  jews,

  or even the rinse and repeat

  hindus

  who’ve won the contest,

  (although Kali might be able to make a convincing case) –

  No, you can see it

  in the care

  reality star doomsday prepper

  grandma takes

  as she prepares her non-perishable feast

  for her self defense students

  from the Y,

  that it’s the try without trying,

  sitting under a tree, no fabricating,

  who would a thunk it, underdog,

  tortoise crossing

  the finish line first -

  hey, I see sick and dead people –

  winner of all winners -

  siddhartha

  and we’re all buddhists now

  living each moment 

  in a constant 

  meditation

  on the impermanence 

  of a flawed

  end of the world

  universe.

  I remember teaching you

 

  how to make

  pancakes from scratch,

  white flour on your blue shirt,

  pants, the counter, the stairs,

  go for it, I say

  and white dot

  the tip

  of your nose,

  scrambled eggs,

  a bit crunchy, of course,

  you had to try it

  one handed,

  just like

  your father.

  We pack as much as we can,

  you searching the house for

  whatever it is you feel

  you’re leaving behind.

  It’s only 2 hours, I say, and

  you’ll visit on weekends,

  and you have friends

  there too.

  I remember you

  walking away from the car -

  I guess you forgot the hug,

  how we used to cook breakfast together,

  you were probably just

  all excited

  about school and

  whatever else

  you expected

  to get mixed

  up in.

  A way with words

  Speaking with you I am often

  at a loss for it,

  the quick flint strike of

  cogitation never quite

  catching until after the fact

  has fled

  my spark burning down

  the trees

  holding the nests

  of your thoughts

  and oh, how I long for those just

  right conversations

  after you leave

  and I am sitting alone

  in the dark

  remembering

  the almost eskimo kiss

  of foreheads,

  the buhdda-like

  eye slit smiling

  hands clutching navels

  as if our laughter

  might spill out too much

  of whatever it is in there

  that we came from.

  Science fiction
and fantasy

  discuss relevant

  social issues and mores

  from safe distances

  choose wisely alien geek

  blue boobs or technology

  Haiku, we bless you,

  Tanka, you're welcome couplets

  make it fit just right.

  The hero with a thousand faces

   

  All of humanity, he said, shares powerful mythologies

  which express themselves throughout history

  in our endlessly repeating stories – gilgamesh and enkidu,

  the iroquois creation myth, 21st century

  sci fi and fantasy …

  Otzi, the iceman, and I couldn’t agree more

  as we sit on the couch, feet up

  watching endless reruns of Buffy the vampire slayer,

  chuckles becoming guffaws

  as we get progressively more and more drunken,

  the awkward silence as we look away from each other

  when the mechanical man appears on screen

  explaining to the little boy,

  eye gears glistening,

  that all he ever really wanted

  was to go beyond

  his programming,

  that somehow, someday 

  he thought

  he would have learned

  what it meant

  to become

  a real father

  Korean BBQ

   

  Homemade kimchee … Hot!!!

  squid, leggy octopus, piles of seasoned

  and unseasoned meats

  ready to be grilled on the burner in front of you,

  soju, crown royal,

  never pour for yourself,

  always offer to pour for someone else,

  you must do it correctly, left hand under your right sleeve,

  and never show the bottom of your glass

  to an elder or your superior,

  it is very, very rude,

  Karaoke! – everyone must sing, of course,

  pick your song,

  kumbae – means bottom ups toast,

  oh, you just got a new drink,

  that’s too bad,

  drink up,

  Korean businessmen use drinking as a tool

  to determine if a potential business partner

  is trustworthy,

  you should still be the same person sober

  as when you are really, really drunk,

  hmmm, it’s bad form to leave so early,

  you would not want to do that,

  so tell me about your small town

  in the midwest,

  and how do you like it here

  in the big city?

  On talk like a pirate day

  Said Bill, my dear friends what I fear,

  The boss will catch on and then hear

  It’s not a stutter

  It’s “wench” I mutter

  The rest of the days of the year

  I spent the morning with myself

  no blurring music or babel

  to distract

  and it was not easy

  until I found a rhythm

  and comfort in the washing

  of my feet,

  the casual enlightenment

  of inspection -

  new hairs sprouting

  yet again

  in unexpected places,

  the past and future

  with me, as always,