I, Doug Tanoury, have been writing poetry all of my adult life and I have very strong opinions about poems specifically and poetry in general, but I will spare you dear reader out of human warmth and charity. I live in Detroit, MI USA with my girlfriend Michelle and my stepdog Lola.
I found a classical guitar in the thrift store one afternoon.
I plucked a string from above a sound hole
As wide and dark as the Rio Darro at dusk.
It rang bright and reminded me of an afternoon in Granada,
The first time I heard Capricho Arabe
Played just above the sound of a fountain.
Stange how a memory reaches out with a cephalopod tentacle
To snare your consciousness away and hold it
Crazy tight with the immobilizing grip of a cuttlefish.
Yes, a simple Andalusian tune plucked out on a classic guitar
Can spirit you off to a courtyard in the Alhambra
Where marble lions with wild expressive faces
Spout water from wide mouths.
Capricho Árabe
In the medina of Marrakech
Someone was playing Spanish guitar
A slow sad tune of Tárrega’s.
Plaintively it bounced up and down
The narrow pathway winding
Through the old city that morning.
The music seemed to emanate
From every shadowed corner that
The sunlight had not yet lit.
Its voice spoke of things broken and gone,
A dry fountain in a garden courtyard,
Moorish arches and abandoned places.
It reminded me of feelings lost but not forgotten,
Of things let go and left somewhere
In the shadowed corners of the morning.
The Southern Coast of Spain
I hear there are towns on the Spanish Costa Blanca,
Benidorm and Alicante for example
That are full of poetry and sunshine.
I have never been there, but only to Costa del Sol, Torremolinos
And Málaga by the sea, and I can attest
Firsthand they are also filled with poetry and sunshine.
In fact, all Spanish towns along that Southern coast
Have equal amounts of both,
And they are amazingly similar in that respect.
They all have vendors along the beach that skewer
Large sardines and prop them up
Between smoldering coals and the sea blue sky, the
Sardines’ mouths all agape as if they were both surprised
And astonished to find themselves
In the unnatural position of being a poetic prompt,
In an otherwise perfect afternoon on the beach
Along the Southern Coast,
In a Spanish town filled with poetry and sunshine.
Poetry in this post: © Doug Tanoury
Published with the permission of Doug Tanoury