Seeker Magazine

Doug Tanoury

Doug Tanoury grew up in Detroit and still lives in the area with his wife and three children. He has been published by The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Eclectica, Poetry Magazine, Agnieszka's 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. His work is featured in a recent book from Funky Dog Publishing: Athens Avenue-A Collection Of Poetry.

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

Stilllife Without Note

The sunrise is orange tangerine
Sunset is peach and mango
While twilight is ripe plum

These days are fruit in a bowl
Sitting on her kitchen table
Growing toward sweetness

That to me is a stilllife
Of bountiful color and rich texture
A blue china bowl

Holds the light of summer
With shadow that rounds out shape
Arranged carefully by her hands

She calls me the poet who eats
All the plums she saves for breakfast
And doesn't leave a note

Salome Dancing For Herod

If I was in the great hall
Of the palace
Watching Salome dancing
For Herod
I too would marvel
At movements
So erotic and executed
With animal precision

Her heaving breasts
Swaying pelvis
The white waves of her skin
Moving in soft undulations
Across her abdomen
And I smile knowing
That the king and I
Are both drunk with dance

And the beat of the music
The rhythmic flashing
Of bare thighs
Naked belly
Awaken the pagan in me
Who knows that lust is to love
What poetry is to prose
A sensual awakening of sight and smell
And sound and taste

And I would swear too
At that moment that the bounce
In each breast
Was worth the heads
Of a hundred prophets
And is more moving to me
Than the words
Of all the holy men in Judea

At The Waldorf

At the Waldorf
Where desserts are done in art deco
And abstractions in chocolate
Twist in many shapes
Everything is golden

The lobby a cathedral
Large and brightly lit
At a table draped in white linen
Like an altar prepared
For solemn High Mass

I study the ceiling
Done in Greek revival
Where reliefs of nudes
In white plaster
Resemble marble

At the Waldorf
Where words are whispered
Like prayers of the devout
At an altar
Draped in white vestments

And in gilded murals
On Peacock Alley
Where I see a sugar-coated sunrise
Over the rundown landscape
Of the far eastside

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

For Mildred Flynn

The wife now widow
Of many sailors
Laid to rest long ago

Who walked with me
Across summer afternoons
I was like a child with her

A boy who touched her hand
And followed wherever
She led me and I wonder

If she simply saw what I needed
Or was it I that saw what she
Most fervently wished for

In days like peacock feathers
And orange turbans
Where need meets want and

Sadness grasps melancholy
And leaves me now the sole holder
Of promises unkept

(Copyright by Doug Tanoury, 1999 - No reproduction without express permission from the author)

A note on the photo: Doug writes that behind him is a statue entitled "Le Génie de la Danse" ca. 1872; Jean Baptiste Carpeaux; plaster; height 7 ft. This personification of the Spirit of Dance leaps exuberantly upward, shaking a tambourine. It is modified from a larger relief sculpture created for the exterior of the celebrated elaborate opera house that opened in Paris in 1869. When it was unveiled, the public was shocked at the figures' wild, unclothed abandon, which violated contemporary standards of decent public behavior.

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Letter to the Author:
Doug Tanoury at dtanoury@ix.netcom.com