Crow Song; Derelict and Glad of It by William Doreski

Crow Song

Black notes on a staff of sky,

crows revive fragments of hymns

believers have long forgotten.

You learned that music in childhood,

but the nuns beat it out of you.

Such terrors deterred your savior

from returning in bodily form.

Now you sneer at the vapors of faith,

even the Tibetan monks who pour

their annual sand mandala

to please our local nobs and snobs

fresh in their new autumn outfits.

You dress up for no one You’re baggy

as a sack of beets. I’m no smarter—

my life in coat and tie long over,

my skill in tying Windsor knots

lost in the river that floods past

the little park where we argue

in complementary earth tones.

No matter how tuneful the crows,

we’re too late for revelation.

We share a paper cup of coffee

made expensive by reckless tariffs

and squat on a bench by the river

and let the idea of the current

flow right through us, canceling

the privilege of choosing our passions.

Derelict and Glad of It

In the basement, old lead pipes

remember water with a sigh.

This derelict structure housed

many children over the years,

the toxic plumbing warping

their brains so they failed in school,

failed in life. I’d avenge those kids,

but the haunted basement numbs me,

and the lead no longer leaches.

The children matured into hate

and voted for the dictator looming

over the sulfur yellow sky

at the end of the street where two

burned-out buildings renounce

any joy their shelter provided.

I’d avenge this whole aesthetic,

which honors certain French poets

dead for a hundred and fifty years.

But vengeance isn’t mine. It belongs

to the sickly overhead where souls

dissolve in a chemical haze.

With gloved hands and heavy tools

I rip out the old lead piping

to recycle in some evil smelter

where all our past lives collect.