William F Dougherty Poems

Hit Title Date Added
11.
Winterlude

[Moodpomes: Calendar of Correlatives]

Chalks of birch
lambent, lean
...

12.
The Glass In The Glass

Mocked by a carnival mirror,
a contortion cruel as doubt,
I wrecked the woozy image:
a snicker clinked out.
...

13.
The Stranger

I traced his tracks in crunching snow,
printed crisply under the solemn pines:
they left a trail like doubt in doubt—
shuffling in murk, as if for signs.
...

14.
Conch

Churning in a spiral shell,
a monotone of waves
rolls from a mouth of opal
into memory’s caves
...

15.
Black Knots

[Moodpomes: Calendar of Correlatives]

At twilight scrawny starlings screech
like harpies hunting empty streets,
...

16.
The Cancer Sonnets Series

Candle Power in Intensive Care

The unction cools my brow, the candle shines
and forms a line of sacramental brede;
the priest half-chants the text, and makes the signs,
...

17.
Epochal Bells

Epochal Bells
I
In synagogues of cedar hills
weathered shepherds prayed
...

18.
Anniversary [requiem]

I had to break my
promise—marigolds,
yellow pompons fat
...

19.
On A Bench In Pigeon Park

(For Cornelius Patrick Dougherty)

Piebald pigeons waddle about the bench
The old man takes beneath an elm to hunch
...

20.
Fish Pond At 60

Year by year the pond
puckered into marsh,
stifling the orange carp
...

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