Five Poems by Duane Vorhees

 

THERE ARE TWO SORTS OF ZEBRAS IN THIS WORLD

 

(And two kinds of love,

cacti and violets.

 

The love that burns

and

the love that cools

to then burn anew.

 

The dreamy love that won't let us sleep,

the active love that leaves us in peace.

 

The crazy love that drives us sane.

 

That spendthrift miser.)

 

Black zebras with white stripes

and white ones with black.

 

CAKE'S CONSUMED, CANDLE'S EXTINGUISHED, BALLOONS POPPED OR DEFLATED

 

This is the first day

of the last year

of the sixth decade.

The best weather, has it passed?

 

The days of the new moon aren't done.

There are kisses to come yet

and tequila worms to swallow.

 

And thus, I turn off the pensive lights.

 

DOUBT AND REASSURANCE

 

"With all the wonder you have won

--O you, who took my summers' sum --

will now you win my winters too

or spend my age on agile youth?"

 

"The seas flow. Seasons flower.

But I delight in my idol."

 

BETWEEN TWO SUNS

 

One more melanoma day

ends itself in ash and cinder.

Our crisp souls, clichéd

to yet another auto-da-fé

of competitive conformity.

But (just now starting)

we mount our nocturnal bucket brigade,

begin passing forth and back

these cool liquids of our life,

refill and back again

refill and back again

between two suns.

 

NO CROSSWISE STRIPES

 

Oh, Orh, that first spontaneous smile in the night:

was lost but didn't know it, and

then

your beacon

found me

and now

I walk with no bear tracks beneath my feet

and no coyote in my path.

No eclipse darkens my meal.

No snake sheds in my sight.

And I can spend hours filling your well with a stone.

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.