Duane Vorhees writes

THE POET

Come. Find me in some brick and vinyl inn
when your soul is frozen in hard winter,
lost in vast fastnesses of dark hinterland.
I’m the one with dirk and violin.

Look for me when you need swans or lions
to lead you through strange varied habitats of being –
saved relieved smitten bereft –
with pygmy verse uttered by a giant.

Duane Vorhees writes

Letter
  (after Yun Dongju)

Sister!
This winter again
we've had much snow.

Should I put a handful
into this white invelope
instead of this letter
and stampless
just like that so nicely done
mail it to you?

Because I hear where you went
it never snows.

Duane Vorhees writes

ROULETTE

I finger your empty chamber,
put you to my lips



BANG

Duane Vorhees writes

SNOW
--after Yun Dongju

Last night
snow covered the world

Furrowed roofs
complained of the cold
This must be the quilt
to cover them

That must be why
snow comes only on cold winter days

Duane Vorhees writes

ASHAMED TO NAME HIM, SO I WON’T

a stump speech

The big-thumb ump bumpbumps like his golf dump’s empty sump pump. That extra-plump lump of lamb chump hums and thumps his grumpy drum and crumps the trumpet of our democracy.

He grumps us chumps again and again, jumps us full of mumps, and humps his frumpy strumpet’s rump on live TV.

Duane Vorhees writes

A Pattern for Socks
      --after Yun Dongju

Mother
what will you do
with that used stationery Sis threw away?
I never would have guessed
that you could use it for a pattern
by putting my old sock on it
and cutting around it.
Mother
what will you do
with that stubby pencil I threw away?
I never would have guessed
that you could wet it with your tongue
to draw the pattern on the cloth
to make me a new pair of socks.

Duane Vorhees writes

CHIMNEY
     --after Yun Dongju

From the stout chimney in the thatched hut in the mountain valley
at high noon why does the smoke rise bit by bit,

Maybe some boys are baking potatoes
sitting together
ebony eyes twinkling
lips stained with charcoal dust
swallowing a spud with each old tale.

From the stout chimney in the thatched hut in the mountain valley
the aroma of potatoes baking softly skyward puffs

Duane Vorhees writes

THE LAWS ARE THE CUCKOLDS, ALAS

1.
Laws
are to
lobbyists
as cuckolds
to coquettes:

Effort
and
ingredients
define all effects.

Law
resembles
Justice,
as cuckold
seems husband,

but
greatest counterfeit
can’t equal
or intend.

2. 
Seduction 
begins as a quest
abetted by a con
leads to conquest

3.

justice 

stiffens into lawform
melts in passion's heat 
dissipates
         back
into myst ery

just/ice