I remember it well, the night was hot, and you were there. Oh, there were others around too. But they didn”t matter. All that mattered that night was how you peeked around the hood of that old dragster that you raced at the speedway on Sunday afternoons. The glances that you imparted as I pretended not to notice. Looking back now, those looks were a gift.

That was the night that I fell in love forever with Jackson Browne. “˜Running On Empty” came on the radio, and you paused in reverence”“whether to the man or the lyrics, I”ll never know. I do know that still, even after all the years that have passed, I still think of you and that night whenever I hear the song.

Maybe that it why I am writing this. I heard the song on the radio this afternoon. The flashbacks began, as they always do. They begin with the memory of that night, the night that we met, and they continue through the summer, with memories of too many beers, long drives going nowhere, hot Sunday afternoons in the “˜pit” at the track. Redneck times. Young times. Good times.

It”s funny to me how I can still hold those memories so close. You see, you were the most romantic love I ever had. The memories I have of sitting in my dorm room waiting for the ring from Ma Bell, staring at the clock, watching the seconds tick by at a merciless slow pace, are some of the most precious memories I”ll ever have. The memories of how my thoughts of you then were all encompassing and shielding from the rest of the world are part of the glue that now holds me together. I guess I”m lucky.

You”re married now. You married the one you left when you met me. The one who you said no longer meant anything to you. The one who you started secretly seeing when I wasn”t there. I hope you found in her what you didn”t find in me. Guess it”s pretty obvious that you did, huh?

I hurt for a long, long time. Years. You were my greatest love and my greatest heartache. I guess we can”t have the second without the first. Does one negate the other? I think it does, in time. I consider my brief time with you as something to be cherished, because in my darkest hours I can relive those moments. It was a time of giving and receiving without the fear of pain. No, you taught me pain. It was a time of reality in its purest form”“there was no albatross around my neck then. You became my albatross..

I do hope you”re happy. And I wonder if you ever think of me? Another answer I”ll never know. I wish, just one night in my dreams, I could once again hear you say, “I love you.”

***

May 2004

Spring comes to me now
Like either a green hiatus
Or an abrupt scene change
In the surrealistic landscape of some dream
And I am neither fully awake
Nor completely aware
Of all its meaning and import.

The willows awaken
In wisps of pale and subtle growth
That forms around their branches like a mist,
A nimbus of color,
That sways in the breeze on May mornings
In ways that reminds me of the soft movement of air
In a woman’s hair.

I walk through the day,
A somnambulist’s unconscious journey,
Seeing, but not seeing,
Hearing, but not hearing,
Feeling, but not feeling,
Perceiving, but not perceiving.

And when I talk, it is the one sided
Soliloquy of a sleeper’s dialoged
Where each word I whisper
Has the visible substance of the vapor
Exhaled with each breath
Onto the frozen air of a January morning.

I dream of spring,
Of soft breezes and mild mornings
And of the sycamores
That awaken ever so slowly
And will not show a hint of foliage
Until the first days of June.
________________________________________

About Doug Tanoury

Doug Tanoury is primarily a poet of the Internet with the majority of his work
never leaving electronic form. His verse can be read at electronic magazines and
journals across the world. Collections of poetry by Doug Tanoury can be found
at Funky Dog Publishing http://www.funkydogpublishing.com and Athens
Avenue http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dtanoury1/Athens/index.htm
This and other ebook collections of poetry by Doug Tanoury can be read and
downloaded at: http://home.comcast.net/~dtanoury1/Tanoury.html
Doug grew up in Detroit, Michigan and still lives in the area.
Doug Tanoury credits his 7th grade poetry anthology from Sister Debra’s English class,
Reflections On A Gift Of Watermelon Pickle And Other Modern Verse, (Stephen Dunning,
Edward Lueders and Hugh Smith, (c) 1966 by Scott Foresman & Company) as exerting the
greatest influence on his work. He still keeps a copy of
it at his writing desk.
***

August

This afternoon
The day lily’s
Abundant blooms
Of canary and crimson,
Leave me mute and unmoved,

And the hammock
Hanging weightless
Between greenness of grass
And blueness of sky
Lulls me to silence,

And in the night,
In the darkness, under the trees,
Where the branches
Of the ash meet the maple,
I sit quiet,

For the night sky
On summer nights
Glowing purple in the West,
Translucent and backlit,
Leaves me wordless.
***