Reproaching Ourselves
Reproaching ourselves in mirrors
doubles the pain and regret
but also flatters parts of us
we hadn’t noticed or considered.
The day splits along fault lines
that like our bodies follow templates
patterned millions of years ago
before we ever thought we’d evolve.
Sun leaks into cracks and crevices
to expel the dark that pooled
overnight. Our hearts work hard,
suctioning up dead sentiments
to bag in plastic and deliver
to the big dumpster at the landfill.
We reproach ourselves for believing
that our generation was riper
and more literate than those before.
The gray figures of the past look
over our shoulders and see themselves
mirrored as we imagine them,
not as they understood themselves.
The pain of being ourselves alone
and the regret for lost affection
thicken as we gaze through our age.
Yet our dimmed sight still blazes
with memories of falling stars
and dawns pink enough to rouse us
from nightmares we gladly indulged.
When We Talk Politics Aloud
The gilded streets we evoke
when we talk politics aloud
resist mapping, resist public
transit, refuse dirty, ragged,
and frankly elemental people.
We would rather not walk these streets
but to get beyond the river,
beyond the abandoned factories,
past the haunted cathedral,
we must accept the phony glare,
tint our eyesight to adapt,
taint our minds to ignore
the falsity of cheap gold paint
spilled by careless acts of the mind.
We rarely argue but mainly declaim
in earth tones that shouldn’t offend.
Yet when we attain a certain pitch
the streets gild over and wink
in the dense, reconstituted light.
Our few friends blame us deeply
for inciting such blunt awareness.
but we never mean anyone harm.
Just talk between the two of us,
a commodity free of tariffs,
possibly so cheap it offends.
The Village Aesthetic
Our local artists look from
windows and paint what they see.
But their canvases sprout demons
and monsters and sassy gnomes.
Does paint stick more firmly
to these faunae than to gardens
with rabbits and deer browsing?
Does a portrait of Frankenstein’s
latest nightmare cohere while
one of a feathery young woman
peels from the fabric and puddles
at the feet of the desperate painter?
I ought to ask if being an artist
unleashes the godless fantasies
I barely contain as I wander
through the village and peer
through art supply shop windows.
A wooden mannequin intended
for amateurs to learn anatomy
dances and waves its arms at me.
A package of tubed watercolors
bleeds a mush of brownish sludge.
I’ll never understand why oil
on fabric or watercolor smeared
on paper taunts us so cruelly,
but the makings of the greatest art
are those of the rankest beginner
and make aesthetic room for creatures
and distorted landscapes no one
as timid as me should inhabit.
The Antitheses
My windows frame the landscape
in average colors and timid forms.
But one window overlooks
Paris, Rome, Moscow, Berlin.
I lean on the sill and listen
to French, Italian, German, Russian,
and learn how expressive people
become when framed in landscapes
as detailed as Brueghel and Bosch.
I’m glad I had this window installed.
The others open onto brown places
barely touched by April blossoms.
I can’t afford to install views west
to Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore,
but maybe some foundation
would honor me with a stipend
to visit those living cities and slump
in cafés where local intellects bloom.
Better to stay home and count tulips
with their shocking braggadocio.
Cheaper to brew my own coffee
while the beans still ripen in Kenya
and Sumatra, tariffs be damned.
Maybe I’ll play with antitheses
like hot /cold, rain/ shine, glad / sad
and pretend this is the poetry
for which the naked world has pined.
Iridescence of Spring
The faint iridescence of spring
manifests in sangria, crocus,
and pink hellebore perking
and spilling petals in the rain.
Goodbye to the past, thunder says,
the texture of landscape perfected.
Goodbye to useless intellect,
the dramaturge of wind insists.
I’m unpersuaded. The storms
get carried away, shedding wind
too strong for scrawny hardwoods,
a bombast of hail following.
This is the daily commonplace,
the crackle and snap of power
exercised merely to shock us.
Sooner or later the crimes expose
our weak spots, bruising deeply
as trees fall in the ashen gusts.
Then we’ll emerge from ourselves
with the look of startled groundhogs.
Then we’ll regret the iridescence
in which we’ve invested our credit.
The juvenile moments of spring
flatter those who flatter themselves,
but people as shapeless as us
bow to the wind and accept
the cut and thrust of lightning
as our last plausible alibi.
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.
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