TWO POEMS / WILLIAM DORESKI

November Identity Poem

The first snow is hardly a crust
on the sloping old graveyard.
Dogwalkers tromp along
with their friendly pets grinning.

You were describing your dream
of Holland, where tulip fields
give way to vast cities of sex.
Pale bodies rumpled with abuse

gyrate in windmill dances
choreographed to flatter tourists
from nations less palpably nubile.
Why should you dream such stuff

on a night of early snowfall?
Did the chill outdoors whisper
of the tulip fields that prospered
in our grammar school geographies?

We haven’t visited Amsterdam
for decades, its famous museums
ripening in our absence, cheese shops 
and cafes hungry for our custom.

The graveyard features tombstones
slabbed against a sky so low and dim
we duck by instinct as we walk.
We can’t scrawl our names in the snow

because it’s thin as summer cotton.
We can’t visit the Netherlands
until the pandemic fades
and air travel sheds its angst.

Let’s just walk around the graveyard
until the sun comes out to cast
shadows thick enough to prop us
through another winter of want.

Roughed Up

Autumn snow clings to the trees,
afraid to fall any further.
Late last night, two dead maples 
toppled to block the road because
men are coming to beat me up.
What men? you ask. Dreamy fellows
with heavy, old-fashioned minds
and the cheapest polyester clothes.

I’d hide in the woods, but a child
could follow my tracks and laugh
at the pathos of my failed escape.
Maybe I’ll load the shotgun and pose
on the stoop and challenge them.
You don’t believe these men exist.
I don’t gamble or consort with thugs.
I don’t borrow from loan sharks.

But I people my dreams with strangers,
and some are stranger than others.
Also, the early snow confused
itself with flesh, birthing monsters
that sometimes take human form.
You’re too efficient for a dream life.
You’ve already swept the driveway
and brushed off the cars. I’d stifle

my fear and step outside and breathe
the refreshed atmosphere, but
something moves at the edge
of the woods where the cloudy dawn 
tatters in faint grayish purple. 
Imagined figures brace themselves
against a black and white background
that neither flatters nor deplores. 

WILLIAM DORESKI / PETERBOROUGH, NH

Failure loomed in William Doreski’s childhood when he developed myopia and disappointed his parents with his defect. That failure troubled his sleep. A pair of ghostly white spectacles, floating thirty feet overhead, first dreamt when he was six, still frightens him after all these years. The spectacles signaled future health problems. His body is failing him by developing arthritis and glaucoma. Worse, his emotional health is nil. Thanks to a slick young woman, his heart broke at the age of fourteen and never recovered. His creative process is an attempt to heal the hole she left, but he admits that poetry hasn’t helped.  Death is the great absence looming ahead. He dreads the process, but total erasure is just that—total. That might be an achievement. Nothingness may be better than worrying about all that worries him.

 Twitter: @wdoreski; Facebook: William Doreski; Instagram: wdoreski