Five Poems by Duane Vorhees

 

FOR ALL MY FRIENDS

We’re like cordwainers

who add to our worth

though our friendships have not been strategic

and often counter to self-interest.

And we're mariners

unsure of our watch.

Memory's children occupy today,

but tomorrow may have no place to stay.

 

Like bored gardeners

grown tired of the dirt,

homes and households have changed their occupants

as relationships altered, and time went.

 

But we're carpenters

who've built our suburbs

as cities wandered all across our maps.

 

Our lovers have shuffled us through their hands,

finely calipered to assess how much,

dealt us as our circumstance warranted,

and we drifted like corks in the current.

 

Many harriers

have pursued and cursed.

Time -- the presence or absence of movement --

the magician who does evolution:

that one barrier

is perhaps our crutch.

 

THIS VESSEL IS ONLY

 

Parents of art and dust:

the clay is the cousin

of marbles and granites.

 

Now my kiln is in ash

and my pots are all thrown.

This vessel is only

moulded from memories.

The past is achieved.

 

My ocarina speaks

barbaric dialects

which few others can share--

nightingales, canaries,

zisha clay kettles, and

marching piccolo men.

 

AT THIS, OUR NUREMBERG

 

This patriot was once drafted

into your cruel army of love,

but long ago the force decamped.

Now let our tribunals judge.

 

You always loved a parade

to honour your dismembered.

My duty was to obey,

my fear was to surrender.

 

Can the gauntlets become just gloves?

Will the raven follow the dove?

 

The oaths we together swore

were vows of desperation.

I was not your uniform

and not your occupation.

 

I rose quickly through your ranks

and I wore all your medals,

but though I covered your flanks

I never shared your battles.

 

Can the gauntlets become just gloves?

Will the raven swallow the dove?

 

JEREMIAH? POLLYANNA?

 

Why do we always hook the prophet with the flame?

Why not link a promise to a spring?

Who must kindle, who shall draw?

What golden shall consume, sodden shall save?

Which mansion, which hovel, will sink in fire?

Whose penthouse, whose tenement, will rise, will gush?

Burning questions.

Answers afloat.

 

RE-SARTOR RESARTUS

 

Here you stand – bleating outside your attire,

a naked cashmere goat in early spring.

But beneath your skin, hatred hides; hunger

for sins lies under the layers of skin.

And nobility, too, adheres inside,

all your human guides to morality.

You can put those clothes back on that cover

defects and blubber. They just strike a pose.

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.