My Lovers, a Puzzle
I believed love would transcend all fashion
and outlast all time and surpass all distance.
Memory would always recall the “once”
even though that moment’s lovers would change.
Memory, I thought, forged eternal chains.
Now, none of the jigsaw pieces will match.
They repose, inert, scattered, unattached,
though I recall some names, some body parts.
I can’t make out their shadows in the dark
though I know they once lit up my passion.
Opiates of the Masses
Crucifiction, Failosophy, Hisstory:
Tomorrow is a myth. And so is yesterday. Now is all.
Physicks, Asstrology, Isometricks:
Yourself, as you are at present, is your only guide.
Medisin, Accupunkture, Sighchiatry:
There is no cure for reality.
Litterature, Statuwary, Musick:
Art is a grand mirage — and it takes great pride in being so.
Soshellism, Dicktatorship, Demockracy:
All government systems are synonyms for slavery.
Kingdumbs, Milittearism, Onerousship:
Allegiance to others is suicide.
Noosepapers, Liebraries. Educashuns:
“Knowledge” so-called is mere pretense.
Relashunships, Guarantease, Freedumb:
Promises are illusions. But illusions may also be promises.
Ambishun, Suckcess, Sellebrity:
Self-promotion is the greatest deception of all.
Syphillisation:
Truth is what you trust.
Electioneering
The pigeons
coo and nod on
the raven’s
coy oration.
The Mythic Archaic Cub, His Mandalas, and Me
I wait here still for the wise old man
and his chatter of universal traits,
how they shape my acts like hands
on a potter’s wheel (but hereditary, innate).
“Archetypes are to psychology
as instincts to biology.”
I sit in his psyche, peeling my mandarins,
and wonder, is this a proper asana?
Some tables down someone plays a green mandolin
and my self stifles respondent hosannas.
My me was always confused by the we,
and I was never the one I used to be.
I used to take my tea with cream
but now I prefer lemon.
Why do I have all these dreams
about so many different women?
Decades have passed like clouds over seas
as I searched for any available lee.
The minutes pass like birds in flight
and my shadow cowers in shadows
I interpret as monstrous daytime nights.
Mandolinist fingers dissolve into adders.
Duane Vorhees writes after teaching University of Maryland classes in Korea and Japan. Hog Press in Ames, IA, has published 3 of his poetry collections, HEAVEN, THE MANY LOVES OF DUANE VORHEES, and GIFT: GOD RUNS THROUGH ALL THESE ROOMS.