[Newspoetry] Five August Poems by Doug Tanoury

[Doug Tanoury]

Five August Poems by Doug Tanoury
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Autumn In August
  
The unthinkable came to me 
One night,
I felt her gone as a dream vanishes 
Upon rising and gathers up its memory 
In its wake.  
Her touch is summer wind
In Autumn trees, 
A  passing out of season,
Like leaves in August 
Turning brown and crimson
And dropping off 
On to still green lawns.
A thing out of step, 
An order confused,
A long pattern of seasons 
Broken and gone.
 
"She is not dead. . .
   But only sleeping."
I say out loud , 
Certain that 
Autumn cannot arrive in August,
As I make loud radio static 
And breakers on the beach 
By walking alone through dead leaves 
That bury the grass gone dormant
In days of dark clouds 
That sit on the horizon 
Like cats on a window sill
In the zenith of twilight.
 
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August
 
Late on these August nights,
I sit on my front porch
Unable to sleep,
And watch the stars,
But mostly I watch
The wind in the trees.
There is an elm a few doors down
That has branched out
Around the street lamp
So that the leaves glow
Translucent green in the night.
The wind moving branches
And leaves making it look
Like a carved jade sculpture
Come to life.
 
And I think that this has been
The summer of cut jade,
I have never seen grass so deeply green,
Or trees more ornate in their foliage,
And the sky has never been painted in
Finer shades of skyborn blues.
And I think too,
That this is what Icarus saw
And felt just before . . .
So if my wings fail now,
Let me fall, for I have kissed the sky
As if it were a holy icon
And filled my lungs with the
Pure whiteness of clouds, so
If I fall there will be no splash,
No sound except a sigh lifted
Airborne by the waves.
 
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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 brought to full boil
 
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
 
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August Leaves
 
Leaves of green
Foliage
Dancing lively and 
Synchronized
In sunset skies
 
Sycamores in full
Silhouette 
Are slowly changing 
Magically
Transformed and stained
   
In subdued hues
Resembling
Weak tea tint
Evening's
Watered down light
 
In sunset skies
Foliage
Dancing lively and 
Synchronized
Leaves of green    

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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