The Streets of Tehran

Reading the Chicago Tribune
in the tea shop, I consider
addressing the woman focused
on her computer at the table
beside mine; but her fangs show,
and I’ve had enough blood drawn
this week, leaving me dizzy.
Darjeeling festers in my cup.
I’ve tried to numb it with milk
but it prefers sugar although
I never use the nasty stuff.
 
The news reads like a Dickens novel
but I stall on the follow-up
feature story on a woman
murdered in the streets of Tehran
by “Revolutionary Guards”
unable to properly guard
a revolution.  For two days now
I’ve stifled tears for this woman,
shot through the heart as her father
escorted her through a crowd.
 
The computer-user sighs
and jots a note on a yellow
legal pad. She looks so efficient.
I never take notes anymore
because I can’t read my writing,
but if I did I’d note that today,
the twenty-fourth of June, a tear
escaped my disdain of sentiment
and sweetened a cup of Darjeeling.
 
The computer woman looks up,
locking a febrile green gaze
on my lack of focus. We sway
together a moment in space,
the streets of Tehran raving
about us, then in mutual shame
return to separate places.

- William Doreski

(featured in the poetry forum 07.28.09)

A Roomful of Tiny People
 
Deep in the creepy mansion
a roomful of tiny people
swarms like an ant farm. Don’t touch—
they’re fragile as corn puffs. You see
how easily they break? Let’s offer
something for those dainty lives
you inadvertently sacrificed--
a ring or watch or handful
of silver coins. Yes, the gold chain
you’ve worn around your neck
for many years intrigues them.
Look at them swarm around it.
 
We can remove the three dead
and examine them elsewhere.
Now under a powerful glass
you see they aren’t really people
but cellulose figures shaped
like people with clothes painted on.
They’re plant-like but animate.
A clever botanist grew them
in a terrarium, then colored
the clothes with tiny brushes
and modelers’ acrylic paint.
He set them loose in that room
to learn if they’d reproduce
 
When he died he left his mansion
to the college to investigate,
but you and I are the first
to brave the long hollow corridors,
the rooms sighing with unsolved thoughts.
What did he expect us to do?
Dissecting those tiny creatures
would teach us nothing, Observing
would drive us mad. I’d suggest             
we burn this ugly experiment
but fear the consequent ruin
would stink of failed ambition
and the sightless brick window-holes
would look intolerably sad.

- William Doreski

(added 07.28.09)

Your Sea Bass
 
At the end of India Wharf
before they built the aquarium
you dropped a line, bait and sinker,
for the first time in your life.
 
The harbor light ignited
your blonde expression. The old men
who fished there every afternoon
applauded when you hooked a bass.
 
As I netted the slippery muscle
you cried for fear the hook hurt.
Behind us the custom house clock
aligned its hands for six PM.
 
Traffic on the Central Artery,
a green steel monstrosity,
sizzled in the heavy June heat.
You stared your fish in the eye,
 
made mouth motions like its own.
It felt like ten pounds in the net,
more meat than the old men had caught
that day. Hot wind ruffed the water,
 
striking an enormous shade of blue.
Unhooking the fish as gingerly
as I’d unhook you or myself
I tipped the net and poured the sea bass
 
back into its environment.
The old men cheered as the creature
splashed a V for victory
with the fork of its powerful tail.
 
Profiled against the drifting
of the sculpted harbor islands
you smiled so absolutely
I mistook the horizon for you.

- William Doreski

(added 07.28.09)

Rocky Neck

On Rocky Neck the artists sway
beside their paintings, their faces
ruddy with sun and salesmanship.

From a pier between studios
on pilings we watch the harbor
shudder as a hundred small boats
plow to sea past Ten Pound Island,
scouring hieroglyphic wakes.

Why does so much bad art congeal
by the water? A dead gull floats
below us, wings spread to mock
the years of flight expended.

Maybe it died of old age.
Maybe it crashed into a mast.
Maybe some fisherman shot it
instead of shooting himself.

Framed by weed and plastic trash
the gull suggests a Wyeth
tempera, although we can't recall
which one. An average gull
but a superior work of art.

Underlying Gloucester's crowded
and perky ambiance the bird,
preserved by the salt wash, drifts
through the collective tourist mind,

the spread wings flapping as if still
in flight, the fish-eaten eyes
still fixed on horizons drawn
too faintly for art to depict.

- William Doreski

A Bloody Mary

By the seawall, rugosas snarl
in tangles hurricane can't muss.
Walking past shingled mansions
I feel their owners watching me,

wondering why surf doesn't boil up
and swallow people like me and scour
the view so it shines. The sparkle
of the blue shames me for doubting

whether the Atlantic deviates
from Werhmacht gray or green. I walk
as firmly as if I lived here
on Eastern Point where famous yachts

and yachtsmen used to prosper
and sometimes founder and drown.
Their ghosts linger in touches of mist
dabbled on the stiff horizon.

But the roses, not the sea,
express whatever I wanted
this afternoon walk to express.
A man in yachting cap gestures

from his putting-green lawn. I wave
in reply and he points to the air
where a huge bird sprawls hundreds
of feet above the gulls. Maybe

an albatross. I watch it sail
out of sight. A whiff of rugosa
embalms me on the spot. The man
and I smile and he salutes me

with what looks like a Bloody Mary,
a drink as red as the roses
and if properly dashed with pepper
almost as poignant and tart.

- William Doreski

On Hailstones

The hailstone's big as a cherry
but "sometimes large as a hen's-egg,"
reaching the size of an apple
but not in the temperate zones.
It's elastic, and the bounce
of hail from walk or lawn often
catches one's attention. Sometimes
sun flashes through the tumbling stones,
making them dazzle like opals.
Sometimes a hailstorm becomes
a rain of fiery red or yellow
pebbles, tinted by a sunset.
I've never seen this but imagine
myself skewered by the long
powerful fall of the hailstone,
which forms high in the anvil-top
of the thunderhead. I wonder
that no one is injured or killed
by the common summer hailstorm
that ruins tomatoes and lettuce
and smashes west-facing windows.
If I ever saw the sunset-red
variety I'd be tempted
to attribute the hue to bloodlust,
but since hailstones melt on contact
I suspect they intend no harm.

- William Doreski