Featured Poet: April 1999

                                       The founder of Athens Avenue Poetry Circle and  Funky Dog Publishing, Doug Tanoury grew up in Detroit and still lives in the area with his wife and  three children.
                                       
    Doug has been published  by The Pittsburgh  Quarterly, Eclectica, Poetry Magazine.com,  Agnieszka Dowry, Savoy Magazine, Zuzu's Petals, Pif, The Blockhead Journal, Swagazine, Kimera and others.  Doug is exclusively an Internet poet  with the majority of his work never leaving  electronic form. He has recently published two online collections of poetry: Detroit Poems and St. Mary's Cloister.
                                        
      The greatest influence on Doug's 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

Athens Avenue Poetry Circle:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6915/

And I Am

And I told her
Matter of factly
That indeed I am
A poet of naked breasts
And that umber nipples
Centered in amber aureoles
To me are pupils
And Irises that serve
As windows to the soul

And I went on to say
Confident and self-assured
That I am too the bard
Of the bare thigh
That to me is nature revealed
Tan like the underside
Of sycamore leaves in fall
Softly wild and untouchable
As a sleeping doe

And I concluded by saying
That I am a lyric that can versify
The plump lushness of
A pale ass
In still-life form
Like so much fruit
As if it were a honey dew melon
Sliced in two and resting
On the kitchen table

August Rain

I remember an August once
When I could talk to him
But didn't and each word unspoken
Rested like a brick on the silence
That lay thick as a layer of mortar
And grew into hardness between us

These day's I think of him
Mostly when rain falls in gray sheets
With a soft hiss as droplets
Paint the pavement with color
Of an overcast sky and collects
On the road in pools

In summer storms with the
Sound of thunder on my skin
I recall in the air's smell and
The wind cool in my hair
An August once when rain fell
In mortar gray hardness on our silence

Habeas Corpus

Years from now when I am gone
And you sit at the kitchen table
With people who never knew me
Show them this so they will know

That I was touched and slightly
Giddy with the silly art of poetry
That to me was harmony and
Melody floating everywhere

They should know too that with
Eyes and nose and mouth and ears
And every organ that ties us to the world
That I love you and it grew and multiplied

Like fission in the nuclei of cells and
Was carried in corpuscles speeding
Through capillaries toward lips and
Fingertips and other body parts

That celebrate a passing touch

Monument

If I were a sculptor
I'd craft a bed of stone
Where illusions of warmth
And softness can lay together

A bed of marble
As white as linen sheets
An Ara Pacis to our
Pax Romano

Of nights that wander
Aimless in the forum of memory
Haunting like the cats
That run wild in the coliseum

To the stoic voice
That adds in parenthetic whisper
"Vespasian's amphitheater"
And edits my histories

As a monument to
The soft sound of her footsteps
Her hand resting warm
Against cold stone

A place she can sleep
Eternally entombed and buried
Deep within the catacombs
Of all these poems

Barstool Science

I know now that the world spins
Like a maraschino cherry or pimento olive
Skewered and suspended
On the sharp end of a swizzle stick
That is topped like a palm tree with
Fanning foliage

Indeed I have seen the sunrise
Glistening amber in the east
Newly liquid and
Deeply golden
Like a double Manhattan
Dawning in a tall glass

As a television speaks inanely
In the darkness above the bar
I do not listen and
I do not watch but study the
Neat rows of square whiskey bottles
The long fluted and ornate necks
Of the liqueurs

I know now that if she were here
I would lean to speak in her ear
Breathing through her hair
And smell a trace of citrus
The slightly sweet fragrance
Of old cognac
That moves slow
Like syrup on my tongue

Direct Investment

I give her new bills
Brightly green like the
First leaves of Spring

Folded small and tight
Like the wings of a katydid
The arms of a mantis

To kiss her cheek
I draw her close
In tender embrace

Lady Zappiano

She wears a white apron
In the kitchen and bakes
Italian cookies on Sunday afternoons
And smokes unfiltered cigarettes

On winter evenings
She simmers sauces and boils pasta
And sprinkles spices from
An open palm

She undresses slowly
In the yellow glow
Of a Pieta nightlight and lays in a bed
That smells of garlic and onion

Miriam's Song

As she washes dishes
I heard her singing
Softly to herself

I listen out of site
Octave and pitch
Beyond my grasp

And I am touched
By pureness of sound
Of lyrics sung

Above the tap water
At the kitchen window
Her voice floats

On the ring of crystal
The clink of china
A simple melody

Tropic of Capricorn
Tropic of Cancer

Today I awoke in summer
The air warm
Sun bright
And I am mystified
As to how I got here

Tropic of Capricorn
Tropic of Cancer

Did I paint this landscape
Like a dream with palm trees
That hold bomb bursts of
Foliage against a
Cloudless sky

Tropic of Capricorn
Tropic of Cancer

I have come through days
Of darkness where winter
Was one long night
That has given way
Only now to day

Tropic of Capricorn
Tropic of Cancer

And standing at the window
I whisper words
Chanted in the cadence
Of a holy prayer
Heartfelt and fervent

Tropic of Capricorn
Tropic of Cancer

Grass

I watch the tall grass
Move in the wind
Along the road today

I noticed each blade
Is one quick stroke
Of a palette knife

That creates a blend of
Yellow and green that
Rises up a hill to sky