William Doreski- Two Poems

On the Way to Jericho

On the way to Jericho we pause

in a fuzzy little village wrought

of driftwood and yellow brick.

Citizens shaped like teapots prowl

shops peddling yard goods, T-shirts,

and cookware.  The houses smile

through a grit of coal dust. Railroads

mate in the center of town. A church

glooms over a rusty little pond

edged with ice. Christmas is creeping

through the shrubbery. Ribbons flop

on red enameled doors. Blue lights

edge the town hall, a confection

of belated Queen Anne brickwork.

You want a cup of cocoa. I need

a dose of rum to ease the growling

of organs for which I’ve no respect.

A tavern beckons with a jukebox

coughing up Bob Dylan carols.

Jericho’s only another two

or three hundred miles. We’ll sleep

in the car. We won’t risk the inn

here, a ghostly purple sheen

flashing in the dusky windows.

You say the cocoa tastes earthy,

but you drink it down anyway.

The rum aches like transfusion

and solves my immediate needs.

When we step outside, the village

looks riper, homier, and people

greet us by name. No need to drive

all the way to Jericho when stars

pepper the dying sky and a cottage

yawns to digest us, body and soul,

the dark rooms brimming with the cries

of our famous unborn children.

House-Sized Ice Floes

East of Brunswick, railroad tracks

crumble in rust. The next train

will derail in a huff of exhaust

and clatter of aimless wheels.

From the overpass I observe

rats bustling in a drainage ditch.

Food is always their purpose,

food to fatten themselves for winter,

food for litters of little pink rats

cuddled in nests beside the ditch.

I’m hitchhiking to the seashore

where I expect house-sized ice floes

to crumble up and shatter. Despite

the lack of snow-cover the cold

speaks with authority. Trees creak

in the wind. No Christmas shopping

this year, no one expecting

even the ghost of a greeting

from me. I could stand here for years

and no train would come along

to derail in a gust of drama.

That era has passed. The cackle

of birds in the colorless distance

suggests where the sea is thrashing

in Technicolor green, blue, gray.

I might be a month or so early

for ice floes, but learning the language

of creation requires me

to dip a hand in the icy brine

and consider where I came from.

Maybe like the Titanic I’ll crash

on the ice and sink inside myself,

and the rusty old railroad tracks

like a sprig of broken syntax

will elongate into elegy.