Four Poems from William Doreski

The Old River God

Sometimes the old river god
emerges, stinking of fish.
We buy him a mocha latte
and ask how brown the mud
on the river bottom is today.
Small treasures lurk in depths
where the current whirlpools
and trees lean toward the mist
rising with a musty flavor.

He remembers the easy years
before the textile industry
dammed the river here and there,
encouraging filth and stagnation.
Industrial waste, dyes and acids,
enflamed and killed most fish.

The river god crept onto land
and pressed his face to windows
and frightened women working
spindles and looms. Men set out
to punish the god but he rose
before them in a gust of flame
and they hid in the tavern
and failed to renew their courage.

The beard of spun alga quakes
with laughter as he recounts
those encounters. No one
fears him now, but he roams
the village with impunity,
greeting children and dogs
with a smile that exposes nothing
beyond immortal obsolescence.

Ghost Mess

The phosphorescence of ghosts
lingers after we no longer
believe in them. You attempt
to mop up the ectoplasm left
in the basement, but the slime
adheres to every surface.

We could hire an expert to clean
the house with a special cleanser
formulated for psychic residue.
I often see the Spirit Control
Unit cruising our neighborhood.
I could ask them what they charge.

As you wring out your mop a vapor
rises and tries to assume
a roughly humanoid figure.
Beat it down before it succeeds
in restoring the credulity
we’ve worked so desperately to snuff.

Wastepaper

Fiction we mistake for snowfall
renders us more senseless
than watching TV comedies.
Someone in the ether is tearing
paper to tiny shards and spilling
them over our cringing acres.
Ripping pages from famous books
and casually scattering the waste,
this someone could be the ghost
of an ancient god, or the beast
my small-print bible predicts.

We must clean up the boggy mess
by raking it into piles to burn
with a healthy dose of kerosene.
The laws against outdoor fires
don’t apply to paper waste.
But maybe we should bundle it
to the recycling center where
paper of all kinds is welcome.

Why did this faux snow occur?
Did some being observe our deep
reading habits and decide to play?
Or did some natural phenomenon
like a Midwest tornado scoop
a library and dump it hundreds
of miles from the source? Maybe
another strong wind will lift
the mess and blow it to sea
so the sharks and whales can learn
to read as well as we can.

Fugue or Fugue State

Now and then a fugue unfolds
at the edge of my hearing where
the voices feel hollow and dry,
sung by long-dead amateurs.

You can’t explain my mood but
claim it’s tinnitus, not
real music but idiopathy
working out of a wormhole

with the arrogance of classical
but no longer relevant art.
You’re deliberately confounding
music with mental disorder,

but I’m not an amnesiac
or travelling off the map.
I’m hearing phrases from works
by Bach, Mozart, and Shostakovich.
You say that’s what a fugue state is:
infection by an earworm fresh
from the wormhole I just mentioned.
An otologist wouldn’t help,

or an audiologist: only
a first-rate musicologist
would understand this undertow
of melody dragging me down.



William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is No Vacancy (2025) His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.