Five Poems by Duane Vorhees

YOU FADE AWAY 

 

Memories -- my dear comrades of old 

(The fire we braved! 

And the rations and the women  

we shared!) -- You've renounced 

your rank and distinction. 

Still attached to my boots 

but you shirk in the rear. 

You have become shadows 

who behind my back conspire 

to disappear in the shade 

to camouflage your remnant connection 

to all our wars and occupations, 

our exercises and commendations 

that shaped my life's deployment.

THERE IS NO DEWEY SYSTEM OF GOVERNANCE 

 

Do not confuse the falcons with the doves. 

All rulers govern by fraud, by force.  

Yes, librarians do organize -- but books, not power. 

It is the bibliophobes -- barbarians --  

who are in charge, and their conning allies 

(the ones we call parliamentarians) 

who write the lawbook in their favour (they call it justice) 

while dressing raptors in silver quills.

DROUGHT 

 

It's dusty and it's dry, 

my old grassy field -- 

I can't lay there any more. 

But the river 

has bared her thighs, 

her long brown banks 

burn. 

Her parched navel beckons. 

 

 

"LIKE A RED, RED ROSE" 

 

Pandora gave mankind meaning 

though camouflaged as woe. 

When Homer invented simile 

he was like a living poem 

seeding the generations. 

Unlike that first woman, however,  

their perennials exposed the hope.

COMMITTED 

 

We're committed by prayer, 

we're committed by crime, 

committed to pursuit 

of the blood and the wine. 

 

Some cells are filled with monks, 

and some are filled with cons. 

Some of us are lifers 

and some just hangers-on. 

Duane Vorhees lives in Thailand after teaching in Japan and Korea for many years. He was raised in Ohio and received his PhD in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University. Hog Press of Ames, iowa, recently published tree collections of his poetry, THE MANY LOVES OF DUANE VORHEES, GIFT: GOD RUNS THROUGH ALL THESE ROOMS, and HEAVEN.