two poems

by William Doreski

That Old Time Religion

The latest dilapidations occur

as we pose in church mouthing

hymns no longer harmonious.

A stained-glass window flexes

but miraculously doesn’t break.

A couple of organ pipes bend

with the pressure and suggest

the overcooked pasta served

at a typical church supper.

The hymns peter out. The sermon

throbs like a toothache. Men

slump so badly their spines crack.

Women stare straight ahead, hoping

the oxygen doesn’t deplete.

We almost never attend, but

today began with a stutter

of crows and a threat of red rain.

Easier to blame cosmic forces

than internalize every symptom.

Simpler to speak the forbidden

name of the deity than rupture

the sky-dome with our screams.

Although the organ hasn’t played

for the past half hour all its pipes

have noodled to the floor. We fix

our gaze on the preacher. His crimes

are public knowledge. The sermon ends

with a door slamming somewhere else,

sealing off a dark room forever.

Night Resounds

Wingbeat shivers the marsh dark.

You hear angels, I hear crows.

Facts lies elsewhere, not with flight

but with ambitions of bedrock.

We’re hearing the earth think aloud,

the air straining to comply.

This could go on all night but

the police have issued an alert.

A neighbor on a drug regime

has left his mind on the shelf

and picked up a loaded pistol

to point at the pitiless sky.

The police would like to shoot him

but the wife and children stand by,

so they try to evacuate us

before the gunfire erupts.

But the man drops his weapon

and places all four paws on the ground.

Taken gently away, he growls

at the half-moon, a blister about

to pop. Driven past the marsh

with an officer beside him, he howls

that one universal howl

beyond which no one evolves.

Photo of William Doreski

BIO: William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Cloud Mountain (2024).  He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors.  His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.