Five Poems by Duane Vorhees

 

WE ARE THE PROGENY OF THE BIG BANG

 

I'm no comet, no constellation,

just a telescope on our sky,

observatory of meteors

and moonly progress.

 

I see we are not ourselves only

but also parallels and echoes

of the ones who came before.

 

Not only our own singularities,

but also we are in part products

of our planet's climes, times,

crimes. Properties of

the universal particles.

 

The passed is my present,

given for your predictions,

as light is the shadow

of infinity's origin.

 

SOME FOUR OR FIVE DESCENTS SINCE

 

Natural selection's neutral

in terms of progress and morals.

Random goes unpredictable--

noble or reprehensible.

Once, in effect, we had five hands--

two top, two down, and one behind.

We lost our old prehensile tails--

the cost of opposable thumbs.

We got better, sensible brains

by trading touch for cranium.

 

THAT ANCIENT GENTRIFICATION

 

Your good neighbourhood is rezoned.

The lawns have given way to bones,

mausoleums of expired hours,

and dank granite-dungeoned towers.

After your last mortgage was paid

the real estate mortician made

that inevitable deal: Trade

your habit-practiced house of flesh

for a dormitory of death.

 

 

AMPHIBIANS

 

Part of us is feather,

another is anvil.

As reptiles of reason

and fishes of passion

we are amphibians

that define the betweens,

a muddle of middles

among brakes and throttles.

And the trajectories

of our biographies

trace patterns of lurches

and runs and reverses

and rises and lunges

and ripraps and wrenches

and pauses and passes

and misses and catches.

Ah! Those rubs and doublings.

 

CORRECT ATTRIBUTION

 

The thrust, parry, and riposte

are claimed by the sabre,

yet, the point, the edge, the hilt

imply a duellist.

 

As though there were no poet,

the pen boasts the epic;

and the hammer, the palace

as though no architect.

 

So do not infer agents

are the inspiration.

 

Duane Vorhees is an American poet living in Thailand. Before that, he taught University of Maryland classes in Korea and Japan. Hog Press, of Ames, Iowa, has published three of his poetry collections and is preparing a fourth.