dtanoury@ix.netcom.com 

Signs In August

As the mornings grow cooler in later August
I notice flowers grow more vivid
Each blossom wears a brighter shade
Each bud promises a more vibrant hue
And leaves grow a lusher green

In these evenings of late summer
The crickets seem to call louder
In a meter more pronounced
And becomes to me as I listen now
The very heartbeat of night

And in these signs I see
The season's end foreshadowed
And I reflect on its last days
As rain falls in the afternoon and
Ends in white bursts across the pavement

Making leave and blossom twitch and tremble
As if animated the flowers awaken
From dreaming colors of summer mornings
And trees listen and sway silently to songs
That fill an August night

And I too am now awake
And wear a new more full awareness
Of the signs and signals of a season passing
And the significance of small and tiny symbols
Like a raindrop glistening
On a cricket's charcoal back

My Father Dying

In the gulls cry I can remember
My father's voice and recall his smell
In the coolness of air drifting off

The lake that lay translucent green
Like the jade backs of crayfish
Its surface still and the only motion

A black-hulled lake freighter that
Travels the horizon like a body being
Wheeled down a hall on a gurney

The glint of sunlight that stretches
Across the surface is the silver tails
Of minnows swimming in schools

And the glassiness of his eyes as he
Falls into a stillness where unmoving
He becomes without wind or waves

The lake where mahogany earthworms
And ebony leeches are bait
For stained-glass bluegills

© Copyright, 6/14/99, Doug Tanoury.

Cosmic Theory

I believe time and place bend and twist
And tremble and sometimes spasm and twitch
For poetry is silly science a wacky physics
Where consistency is pure illusion
Boundaries imagined
The big bang only the screen door slamming
On an August afternoon
And the universe at its very core and center
Is a corner house in the central city
That borders a busy highway
With traffic noise that never stops
And is ever present like radio static

Where randomness is the moving
Mysterious sounds from stream radiators
And each quasar the creak of wooden steps
That lead up and run parallel
To a long wooden banister
And all light is a prism projected
On a worn and faded rug
Through the beveled edges of glass
In windows that catch afternoon sun
And the radio spectrum plays repeatedly
A somewhat sad sonata
Of Beethoven as background hiss

On The Right Side of God
For Mike Timonin

At the Second Baptist Church
Black angels in stained-glass windows
Guard the front entrance

And I think that God so loves diversity
That Cherubim of color
Wearing golden garb

Sing Gospel that makes the Saints
Slap their sacred knees
And I know that Seraphim sing the

Blues so plaintive and compelling that
Bare feet that bear the wounds of nails
Tap the holy floors of heaven

In perfect time with the rhythm
And every Saint and Martyr sways
On the right side of God

© Copyright, 9/4/99, Doug Tanoury.

© All Copyright, 1999, Doug Tanoury.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.