Tag Archives: william doreski

Public and Private Moments

Posted on by under Poetry

A poem by William Doreski

Am I allowed to taste the rain?
On Commonwealth the English elms
heave up last year’s birds’ nests
and drop twigs on snooping dogs.
My first architectural walk
in years leads past the statue
of Sam Morison, who greets me
with his placid sailor’s hello,
enunciated in clear blue tones
that evoke the sea horizon
complete with a distant squall.

As I trundle past he waves one
heavy bronze arm and gestures
at the Public Garden where squirrels
frisk among tourists for snacks.
Despite the light rain a mob
surrounds the equestrian
George Washington riding
toward the edge of eternity
where his dental work will flourish
in the finest shades of ivory.

Am I allowed to taste the rain
that you planned on keeping
for yourself? I got out early,
drove seventy miles before dawn,
leaving you to tend the garden
by yourself. Mr. Morison
knew I was coming. Tea with him
years ago on Brimmer Street lingers
with a smell of old brown leather.

Traffic snores down Arlington.
I walk to the corner and cross,
and passing through the iron gate
and circling Washington’s pedestal
and rambling along the duck pond
I sneak a couple of tastes of rain
and let it nourish and inspire me
with evolutionary notions
of which only you would approve.

William Doreski’s work has appeared in various online and print journals and in several collections, most recently The Suburbs of Atlantis. (AA Press, 2013.)

Advertisement

Fishing in the Charles

Posted on by under Poetry

A poem by William Doreski

Claw-footing stone to stone
in shallows, indifferent
to runners, dog-walkers, us,
a great blue heron rummages
for fish for a midday snack.

As we watch, it spears and scissors
a perch, hoists and swallows it
in a long undulant gesture
of unfolded neck. Hardly
a ripple marks the site. The staid

geometry of MIT
across the river looks aghast,
but it always does. Behind us,
the Prudential Center towers
prop themselves against the clouds.

Such an urban frame to feature
such a primal event. We nod
to acknowledge the heron’s skill,
its adaptive style, the S-bend
of neck, prehensile stick-legs

that hardly seem to part water,
the wings folded like tissue.
This heron grace punctuates
with diacritical urgency,
but almost no one has noticed

the uncommon sighting,
and only we have paused to note
how easily that fish went down,
and consider how bottomless
the place it now inhabits.

William Doreski’s work has appeared in various online and print journals and in several collections, most recently The Suburbs of Atlantis. (AA Press, 2013.)

Land Line

Posted on by under Poetry

A poem by William Doreski

All day you tie up the phone,
the land line that anchors us
to the English-speaking world.

Meanwhile the latest hurricane
twirls and spits and fizzles
in the shallows off Nantucket.

We could have used its rain
to cheer the ghost of our garden,
could have basked in downpours

the summer has wholly withheld.
The wind would have toppled us,
but also leaved us with the ghosts

of colonialism, dredged from
the mud of the Caribbean,
where treasure ships lie sulking

in a litter of wormy timbers.
You tie up the phone because
your imaginary lovers deploy

actual voices in the ether
that sometimes come to earth
to roost and crow in colors

perceptible to innocent eyes.
I don’t mind the lovers but object
to the wear and tear on the thread

of wire that leashes us to worlds
larger than this one. In these hills,
cell phones often fail to connect,

and non-European languages
sometimes intrude with phonemes
thick peasant tongues can’t replicate.

At least the land line’s secure
from that overlap of history
shy people like me avoid.

But you’re on the phone all day,
talking so briskly a stranger
would mistake this for a two-way

conversation, unaware
that no one ever answers your calls.
Instead, old-fashioned slow-dial phones

ring in demolished houses
where only the wind and rain
of failed hurricanes might answer.

William Doreski’s work has appeared in various online and print journals and in several collections, most recently The Suburbs of Atlantis. (AA Press, 2013.)