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Poetry
Doug Tanoury



Hesiod and the Muse



In Moreau's painting "Hesiod and the Muse"
There is a preponderance of blue
That softens the sky and subdues everything
Into a twilight background

Except the poet who stands naked with his lyre
Embraced by a winged Muse
A long sword hanging from her girdle
She seems to hover somehow above him

Hesiod wears a garland of laurel like a nimbus
His face androgynous his features feminine and fair
More light in frame and delicate in form
Than the Muse that supports him

Not a farmer not a sailor not a craftsman
But one who sits on soft pillows
And sips sweet nectar at the table of the gods
Hesiod is painted a poet

Suspended in the blueness of sky
There is a temple a single bright star
And winged creatures fly far above
The ground where blossoms touch bare feet



Music



In Albinoni
And all baroque masters
Who flourish and shake my desk
With trumpet, organ and harpsichord
With cello, flute and violin
I am taken for a moment
To a child's world
Of playfulness that escalates
Slowly toward full riot and
Honest innocents that moves
In stages to pure simplicity

In music weightless and light
That floats graceful
Through my ears
In Overtures
Of unending variation
In preludes
Of unexpected brilliance
I hear gleeful sweetness
My children's laughter
The giggles that grow
To shouts and yells

And I go on to ponder
The substance of sound
That touches me like a spirit
And moves through me
With ghostly freedom
That passes through my walls
Without hindrance and enters
Through unopened doors
In the softness of bassoon and flute
My daughters whisper
And in the shrill voice of violin
My son whistling



A Season



In am stuck
In the middle of this is a reluctant season
Within its heart of slowness
Its self-centered sloth
In a holding back in bashful reserve
Where the sun never shines
And the clouds hide a shy blue sky
Over trees sleeping so soundly
In self-conscious reserve
They do not dream of buds
Indeed this season
I am caught in
Is the triumph of timidity

And I too celebrate it
In my holding back for my touch now
Is uncertain reserve and I am paused
In tentative indecision for a moment
An hour
A day
A collection of days
Until there is nothing left to touch
But the starkness and realization
Of all that is missing



A Study In Form



I have mastered the art of approach
The dance of improvisational movement
Around a subject
Like the low brick facades on Main Street
Articulated by second storey windows

The movement of muscle
Sinew and bone
An expression of torso and limbs
My body bent into a word
Moving in a phrase
My breath upon a line of verse
Of what is and why
Toward what could be and is

This is the art of pose and stance
Rhythm and tempo
For I have mastered the approach
And am a channel for burning forces
That bubble up in blood vessels and brain
In nerve endings and spine
Twisted in all the expressions of form
All the permutations of shape



Nativity Church



There is a Romanesque basilica
With a tall bell tower that rises
Above a neighborhood on
The near east side
It stands stately high above
The squalor and poverty below
Topped with bronze dome
And ornamental urns

Solid and stately and strong
I remember looking up at it often
As a child like some talisman
It protected me from all
Uncertainty and want and weakness
As I played in the shadows of
Wood frame houses in need of
Paint and repair

It reminded me always
Of a larger world
Outside the borders
Of Iroquois and Cadillac
Beyond the yellow sunrises
Above Pennsylvania Street and
Behind the swirling purple sunsets
Hanging over Gratiot Avenue



Expressionist
(A Hollywood Park Poem)



Shall I paint the night sky
Neon indigo
And her sequin dress
That catches light
Cobalt blue and glows
With what seems
Some inner luminescence
That sets her ass to shimmer
And makes her breasts gleam
As if she were wearing nothing
But fish scales on her skin

Shall I paint her movement
Accentuated by a trembling
Like aspen leaves
On an August evening
That dance choreographed
In sunset colors and
Grow toward darkness
If I should see her dress
Strewn carelessly across the floor
It would look only like a blue gill
Washed up on the beach



Last Will & Testament



I have often said that
Old poets
Never die
They simply lose their voices
They get quiet
Fall into silence
Forget and are forgotten
And I know that I am on my way
Toward the great wordless

I see death and it is
The stark white page
The eternal pause
A period
And a blankness
An eternal
Search that stretches from
The back of your mind
To the tip of your tongue
For a word
That is never found
I am moving
In ever so certain steps
To my quiet time
Like the hush
On summer evenings
As I lay in the backyard hammock
Still and unmoving
As a figure carved in the cover
Of a sarcophagus
I see the signs
And read the foreshadowing

Yes old poets never pass away
They just somehow lose their vision
My eyes are going bad and
I can no longer see to write
I fancy myself
Like Homer
A sightless poet
I am blind as Milton
And one day soon
The only way I'll scribe
A line of verse will
Be to give dictation
To my children
Who will grimace
And make faces
That I cannot see

As my senses leave me
And my faculties flee
And all the muse
Take flight at once
Hear this from me now
That those the gods
Would destroy
They first make mute
Then take their sight
So I bequeath to you
All pretty phrases
To you all sunshine similes
To you the moonlit metaphors
I give you
All lightness and alliteration
I will you words
I leave you voice unending



Doug Tanoury grew up in Detroit and still lives in the area with his wife and three children.

Doug has been published widely in both traditiona print journals and at literary web sites across the Internet. Several of his electronic chapbbooks are available at Funky Dog Publishing www.funkydogpublishing.com

The greatest influence on Doug and his work was the 7th grade poetry anthology used in Sister Debra's English class: Reflections On A Gift Of Watermelon Pickle And Other Modern Verse, Stephen Dunning, Edward Lueders and Hugh Smith, (c)1966 by Scott Foresman & Company.


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