Awake Erato

"Awake Erato" 
I whisper in urgent prayer
As we play master and slave
To senses that blend together
In this moment so finely 
I can smell her movements
Taste fragrance
Hear texture 
Touch her words
And see her thoughts

In passionate confusion
The hand is quicker than the eye
And mechanisms that trigger illusions
Is the obvious as
I am transformed into
Animal
Vegetable
Mineral
Reduced to the basic
And most elemental parts
In a universe of limbs
That is ever expanding
__________________________________

Laundry Night

Doing my wash in the 20th floor laundry room
With broad wide windows that give a panoramic view.
The Chicago skyscape far above the ground traffic
Becomes a study in stillness, the only motion 
The reflection of the dryer behind me 
Spinning sheets alongside downtown towers,
Its portal doing lunar cycles full, half, quarter, crescent, 
As white linens tumble dry like the moon in the night sky.

I stand in an urban aerial of black and white, spanning
The city heights and rows of terraces that I image
Must look like the hanging gardens of Babylon 
Magically suspended far above the ground traffic,
Where winds blow without end and the only motion,
The fanning movement of foliage on floating trees, 
Billow unceasing like linens in the wind suspended 
Somewhere between earth and heaven in the night sky.
__________________________________

Histories

I watched her light a candle
And move in the weak light 
>From a bygone age

The flame so fragile
It leans and sways in air's 
Faintest motions

My burning love is a lamp
>From antiquity a pre-industrial
Hand-crafted artifact

An oil lamp of glass from Rome
Bronze from Carthage
A terra cotta from Athens

She smiles at me in a flicker
Of light and knows all my past
Like a life from Plutarch

A chronicle from Tacitus
An Annals from Leviticus a history
>From Herotodus 

And me ignorant knowing nothing
Of her can only quote Ovid, Cattulus,
Hesiod and Gilgamesh

Lying in darkness with her
On Spring nights everything learned
Is forgotten 

And yesterdays are so many
Shadows cast in the glow
Of the lamp light of love
__________________________________

Big Two-Hearted River
           (For Matt)

I tell him:
"This is where Hemingway
Loved to fish."
He seems unimpressed,
And I smile,
Feeling it is
As it should be.

Somehow it seems small,
For words don't swim
Like salmon in the Fall
Through coffee colored water,
And poems don't hide
Like trout in Spring 
In shadows under logs.

We cross the river
Over a walking bridge
That sways with my steps,
And he chides: "Walk softer!"
I smile, feeling it is
As it should be,
And I walk softly.
__________________________________

Of Wishes And Fishes

I went down to the lake
After dinner, lazily,
The way I use to,
With pole and tackle,
To fish on the pier's 
Farthest edge.

With painted spoons,
Feathered jigs, skirted
Spinners and rattling
Shad, I begin the
Mystic rites of a 
Summer evening.

Each cast reaches farther 
Out into waves
And I am again
Living my old life
Uncomplicated and
Simple.

And I recall from my 
Grade-school reader, 
The story of fisherman
Who caught a magic
Flounder that granted
Him three wishes.

Now, like the fisherman,
For who things go
Badly, I too return
With a wish to undo
All I wished for
And live my old life.

________________________________________
Athens Avenue Poetry Circle at:
http://www.funkydogpublishing.com/
 

Post-Dogmatist Poet Doug Tanoury