Doug Tanoury: Three poems

ORPHEUS IN OHARE

Under jaundiced light from recessed lamps
Conversations run incessantly
Like water in a fountain and
Blend with the unceasing whirs
Of jet engines and overhead pages
Too weak to hear like neighbors
Voices distorted and muffled by
Apartment walls

I am Orpheus descended in the underworld
Moving through the dull glow of Hades
Filled with spirits trapped and trudging
Aimless in corridors with terrazzo floors
As I search for Eurydice in airport
Lounges or standing at a payphone
Slipping one black pump on and off
Her foot

RISING

The nimbus of sunrise
Reflected in architectural glass

Articulated in panes
Growing large and more golden

Across the street
The financial center holds in each

Window a piece of sky
Like a mosaic in a Byzantine tomb

ARRANGEMENT IN GRAY

Mist on Manhattan this morning
Was framed in my window like a
Poorly exposed black and white print

With graininess graduating to fog
Subduing the sharp geometry
Of the skyline with softened definitions

blurred lines and intimation
Of forms a black and white tug
Pushes a barge up the Hudson

As sky and buildings and water
All blend into an abstract landscape
Colorless like Nebraska in January