Chris Forhan poems

Chris Forhan(1959 - / Seattle, Washington)

Gouge, Adze, Rasp, Hammer

- by Chris Forhan 36

So this is what it's like when love
leaves, and one is disappointed
that the body and mind continue to exist,

exacting payment from each other,
engaging in stale rituals of desire,
and it would seem the best use of one's time

is not to stand for hours outside
her darkened house, drenched and chilled,
blinking into the slanting rain.

So this is what it's like to have to
practice amiability and learn
to say the orchard looks grand this evening

as the sun slips behind scumbled clouds
and the pears, mellowed to a golden-green,
glow like flames among the boughs.

It is now one claims there is comfort
in the constancy of nature, in the wind's way
of snatching dogwood blossoms from their branches,

scattering them in the dirt, in the slug's
sure, slow arrival to nowhere.
It is now one makes a show of praise

for the lilac that strains so hard to win
attention to its sweet inscrutability,
when one admires instead the lowly

gouge, adze, rasp, hammer--
fire-forged, blunt-syllabled things,
unthought-of until a need exists:

a groove chiseled to a fixed width,
a roof sloped just so. It is now
one knows what it is to envy

the rivet, wrench, vise -- whatever
works unburdened by memory and sight,
while high above the damp fields

flocks of swallows roil and dip,
and streams churn, thick with leaping salmon,
and the bee advances on the rose.

A Child's Guide to Etiquette

- by Chris Forhan 11

Never put your personal spoon in the common jelly bowl.
Spread your napkin upon your lap. Do not grasp.
Eat what meat your fork can get to; the rest of the lobster must be given
up for lost.
A girl must lay her silver down while still a trifle hungry.
She must not eat unchaperoned.

A boy does not take a girl's arm on the street. The street is no place for
devotion.
He must not allow his mother to lug the coal up or sift the ashes.
If he does, he is a cad. A boy is shiftless, a vulgar bounder. He is not
excused.
He wears a dark suit, but not in a theater box. In a box a tuxedo is worn.
In a box a boy keeps his thoughts to himself.
A girl keeps her hat on until she is seated. The theater itself wears no hat.

Snow is a hat worn by mountains, the tallest of which do not remove the
hat in summer.
Sunlight settles like a shawl upon the hills and dewy berry fields.
The sun is not a wag or hail-fellow-well-met. It does not loaf or shirk.
It keeps its face funeral-ready, as you should.
Away you go in the car. Father and Mother. Puff and Baby Sally.
Away you go into the country. Spot and Jane.

Jane is a proper girl. She avoids provincial phrases and slang, as yep and
boy friend.
She says not yes but yes, Mother, and arranges rosettes in the icing.
She wears a high-collared simple dress and tarries amid the lilac, on her
head a crown of stars.
She may stop dancing when she wishes. A boy must dance until the music
ends.
He must scold his bold friend.

A boy is clothed in a purple cloak, is brought up on charges, agrees to
them with the air of one much pleased. He raises his hat to his
father.
A girl, in the presence of her father, removes her breasts.
She removes the washbowl's plug so the waste water drains completely.
A boy need not detach his hands, but he must not thrust them into his
pockets.
A clothes brush must be packed for the train, and a plain dressing gown.

Away you go. You are on a train. You are speaking with courtesy and
reserve in the dining car.
You are slipping off your shoes. You are leaving them for the porter.
The porter will pocket his tip discreetly.
The porter will polish your shoes in the night.