Poetry from Duane Vorhees

REVERSE METAMORPHOSIS

And when you say you first had reason

to thank your body for willful treason?

Or did you mourn that other, that butterfly,

when — without so much as notice or even sigh —

it abandoned its old miraculous flight,

its perfect poise, its gtrat spot above prospect or plight,

and in cocoon reverted again, in sudden fear

of losing all touch with all that should be dear?

FOUR-BODY SOLUTIONS

[C’est avec logique que nous prouvons et avec l’intuition que nous trouvons. – Henri Poincaré

Indeed, it’s by logic that we prove,

by intuition we discover.

To know how to criticize is good,

to know how to create is better,]

Logic. Intuition. And the third

magus offers imagination.

A poetry evolves from a word

by multiplying its dimensions.

Inspiration is the lightning flash

that unshadows sudden eternals

that had been hidden among the trash.

So the fourth horseman is external.

The interaction may be lonely.

Results may be humble as the wedge

or intricate as a symphony.

They may be ignored or widely judged.

The foursome is not always fertile

and indeed may compose a monster,

but their intimacy unriddles

the real and helps edge us onward.

PRE CURSOR POST

Blossom is the baptist

to a fruit called a christ.

Though definitely not moot,

the leaf is not the tree,

nor the branch, nor the root.

The It, not-yet datum,

exists beyond atom

and happens before eve.

The tree has origins

at the Where/When it ends.

MENOLOGION

(13 Oct, 16 Jul)

My band played polkas and jazzes

and I soloed on the cymbals,

but then I discovered Jesus

and confined myself to hymnals.

Because Edward the Confessor

presides over painful marriage,

I keep my saint on my dresser

to invigorate my courage.

Supported by my wife’s symbol,

I beg from my purgatory.

O, Our Lady of Mount Carmel,

extricate me from my fury.

My old musics live in my feet

and they animate my fingers.

Lord, amputate the Devil’s beats,

forever silence the dingers.

HERE, AFTER

Unless there is a somethingness

I won’t even see the black black black

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