To the Russian Poets

Gretal's Reminescence

2012-01-26T13:27:00.000-08:00

once there were clouds like flowers.
people held onto their hearts
with kite strings.

when they went floating up-
they held festivals for hours-
spooning out the thick cream

of afternoons

we walked among them,
penny-splendid,
breaking off sugar-candy;
above us,

continents of roses-

mary angela douglas 26 january 2012

Going North

2012-01-24T09:52:00.000-08:00

to George McDonald-

and to my mother, at the back of the North Wind-

dreaming lines from Your book of pearl
we carried the snow in our small hands
from the white-worked embroideries on the lawn.

you only feel the cold at first;
then you don’t.
a dish of frozen cherries for the King: scooped out-
a Queen looks out from her diamond windowpane
and sighs,

“will these ships sail?”

cover my words in the green shade of your hands.
the sun can blister what should be said.
and you may find the back-hand of the wind
and every lost subaltern telling you what to do
with your fine soul
though filmy valentines from God Himself
will shadow you…

and may I scoop from the frozen honey

of your tears, white velvet on my slightest wings,
bright words to remain on earth with
after you’ve disappeared…

she cried.

while children standing on orange crates
declaim it’s best to be
eating oranges at Christmas-tide
and peppermint ice-cream.

the Queen smiled out
rich stenciled window-panes
where they finger-wrote in frost
their last goodbyes.

carry fond words into the eternities,

she wrote them back -
carry blizzards on your back
for the sake of the truth

we saved from melting...

mary angela douglas 21 january 2012

The Long Goodbye to the Horse Thieves

2012-01-17T09:51:00.000-08:00

(my sweet doves leave the cults in droves)
{after Dante]

“the grass withers; the flower fades…the word of our God shall stand forever.”

-Isaiah, the Holy Bible

“And call no man on earth your Father.”

-Jesus

no more cattle drives, as I recount:

I was walking too close by the edge of the sea
that isn’t anymore;

weren’t you?

at least, that’s what they said,

among other things, before they shot the

horses out from under us…

I was counting vermillion angels

floating on silos at sunset; shining

apple- blossom clouded,
and listening to “Appalachian Spring”.*

somehow, they said, not so

pointedly at first, making me feel at home-
you’re not enough-

how it is with all of us now,

I couldn’t say. Too much
Stolen time…the circuitry’s been changed.

who let these people in here?
do you know?

they think I don’t know.

I know enough:
when blankness descended,
they called it music.

they still do…

they don’t like what’s in your head.
they don’t like that you have a head.
perhaps they’re waiting for the headless horseman.*

who could explain the beads they

bartered or why they shone like jewels so long ago;
thinking ourselves among friends, soothed by their guitars we were led away:

no rodeos left for the horseless riders.

no lemonade poured for the thirsty, anymore.
but there’s a porch in Heaven wrapped thrice around the moon,
tree-house balconies on pine-needled air,
where Bradbury’s grandmother serves us coconut cake…*
(the kind with dark cherries on top).
where we say Grace and mean it.

you’re not that far from where you were before…

in this world, this is no small accomplishment-

let us leave the kitchen chair pushed back from the table

consulting the dish-cloth calendar towel-the gold edged Psalms
with the purple ribbon-marker.

scarlet sparkles on the spiced apples

from your last summer studio day
when you left your Coke half-finished on the piano
thinking you’d drink it later…

and green- golden shadows guild the picture

you leaned against the wall at a king’s command,
not a king at all as some of us found out-

only a millennium later-

come help us save the world, they sing
with periwinkle flowers in their eyes
but it’s the last you’ll see of your childhood home
and the people who raised you-
and blts made by hand, finished off in your very own Munsey toaster…*

mimosa splendor

ermine tears
your thistledown sob
where are you, grandmother-

holding my string of pearls, my

necklace of the mustard-seed…

the gold signet ring of your favorite brother

who died at 12-

surely God will help me find

the dustless corner where I stashed
the Schirmer's olive folios-
the ivory keys scented just like snow.

the color of my eyes.

beauty wavers, losing her pleats
looking for lost pinwheels;
scanning the wrinkled linen of the skies-

oh, but we’re still on the fairgrounds of the Free

where the Laughing Lady’s laughing just as long as
you’ve got a quarter and a lime snow-cone-

and Christmas marionettes in show windows

dressed in special plaid velveteen for this occasion
pour and pour their Victorian tea not spilling an amber drop
all gold beribboned, glistening under - my Deportment Store sky.

Listen…they’re moving their doll mouths:

“It’s still not too late-run away; we wish we could.”

Pink thunder sounds above the Orange plains…

the buffalo clouds turn restive
above old cattle-rustled friends who think en masse and not like me;
the stars are broken ornaments above their Christmas tree farms…

I’m leaving this- dear Christ and your Christmas, tree-top Star, go with me!

I will rummage in fragrant dresser- drawers
for the pure precognitions
I know – were mine- before
the spiritual carnies came to town-
selling candles and sucking out
with borrowed straws
the ice-cream from my soul-

content to find in confetti tissue still

all my lost visions folded fresh
with gardenia sachets and
by such a kind hand….

I’d bring you the frosting rose unmelting

from my festive birthday slice, Grandmother, remember?

I’m almost very young again: with gifts done up in glossy pink and blue-

on 45 rpms, the music of the great composers-
In love with holy freedom with the raspberry finish of the sky
and the blackberry night shining down and down

the blessedly pathless woods

*Ray Bradbury, great American writer of real American dreams

*Appalachian Spring – incredibly lyrical suite by Aaron Copeland, expressive of the American Heartland and Appalachia

*The Headless Horseman, ghost story by Washngton Irving early Americn writer who lived and worked around present-day Tarrytown, NY

*blts - bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches on toast

mary angela douglas 15-17 january 2012

Listening for the beginning of snows, white flowers, celesta

2011-12-28T09:11:00.000-08:00

for the poet Elinor Wylie (1885-1928)

listening for the beginning of snows, white flowers, celesta-
I bowed my head far down
into the very velvet of God;

putting the jeweled sword back in the cupboard, carefully-
by the last of the fairytale cheese-
the plum-starred jam.

who knows what music held
for those who appear no longer;
wind the music box anyway
and don't despair,

your heart like a cloud
still does not drift
and it is a wonder

just to breathe the air
that later, snow will inhabit-

mary angela douglas 22 december 2011

Weeping Coins of Chocolate in the Snow

2011-12-15T08:27:00.000-08:00

weeping coins of chocolate in the snow
the sugar-plum tree still shimmers
with its long-ago.

I've castled all my castled
on the checkerboard afternoon
and all the pieces are

pure crystal.
I can't begin to say how
much I've missed

the flurries of hard candies
with raspberry centers-
the lemon sun.

open the window
so the pink light
on the floor

will grow into a rose
we will not trample.

mary angela douglas 15 december 2011

Speaking English

2011-12-12T08:42:00.000-08:00

courting the fair lost wonder of the skies
the ghosts of English poets stood out in the rain
wondering what happened
to the world edged all around in gold;

edged all around in gold,

who bartered what for what
and keyed it all down
so softly, by degrees, in the pearl smudged day

we hardly noticed when the Word

left glistening, alone
as though it had never been
spoken into green.

let the fairy ferns bend down their fronds through
these wrecked dells, now out-of-the-way

and the musk roses sigh in the Borderlands-

that even light dwindles, dividing itself
into itself and praising nothing.

O eglantine! O mild musk roses blowing…

brief Tyrian clouds above the foaming cliffs
were mine, but they swept by my childhood’s aching

that denied-not real enough, was said.

leaving me nothing more to say at school but
to hobble on, ever-after with the

clipped birds from my hocked fairytales

small scissors sawed part-through

I’ll never be

real without them-

who wants to be baked inside a very tasty gingerbread by the witchy experts

stealing the names that color the soul - this has always been,
oh my little little child

pretending to grow wiser you’ll escape
even further into the woods of gold and silver embossing-
pure silence gathers stars
and treasured there, you're a better country without bitterness…

this is the part of the story where you disappear, like a pearl
in the pearl of mist or cloud still owned by God
and safe from lies. It shall be so.

till the day you can come back

with all the light-rescinded years, the hollowed out rinds of suns
and snows, the wayward sparrows glinting in the shadows not in vogue

oh God what’s singing for
or speaking-
If it isn't this:

to brand on the wasted heart incessant amazement-
to be leased by God-

you’ll wake to wonder, too, so all- at-once to see
each drowsing castle in familiar mists of rose :

ever after, having been spoken-

the small house in the clearing
brimmed with Christmas lights,
the bright fields sown

of the full-throated music you did not disown-

mary angela douglas 11-12 december 2011

Walking on the Jewels of Your Silence

2011-11-30T08:00:00.000-08:00

walking on the jewels of your silence
I saw the winter sky come down
enfolding a long-ago radiance.

a child turns the page
and traces the angels.

you scattered amethyst on the snow
turning my pockets overnight
into Christmas or mother-of-pearl.

brightness, you called it:
will it fly away?

once I was living on the fair isle
where I learned to say:
those must be angels coming down
with diamonds in their hands...

there are deeper ripples in the air
where music was before.
my dreams are banked so high
where could I turn to start again
the porcelain beginning of the measure?

the first rung in the sidewalk.

my dreams are banked so high.
my dream is leaving this way

just as the glaze begins to fall apart
on a pale green piano piece
not yet memorized-

mary angela douglas november 28-30 2011

Burton Bringing the House Down

2011-11-21T12:24:00.000-08:00

On the voice of Richard Burton (cerdd dafod)

He didn’t want them to tell him

how it was going to be
so he stood back a
little from the stage of
burnished expectations

still, with a force of fire
and wonder shaping

while the gossip mills
stepped up business trespassing,
so I think, out of sheer envy

on a
something received beyond they couldn’t endure:
transcendence made immediate- an impossible thing-
cut crystal net overfilled with singing birds that little tamed out of wildness
so vivid who could believe it anything
but the voice heard by the saints in dreams made more astute;
or dream-music half-retained by kings
on waking to another day
forgetting for a moment where they were
or what they had to do

wading through poor Richard aftermaths
we’ve heard enough from the queasy forerunners
others at the scene

quashing the keylight
you didn’t even need

and asking themselves if it was really you

making the pieces fit
until the stained glass shone
as if it were almost Light itself-

then swallowing it?

oh who can kill God inside himself-
He’ll only rise to pity your
thinking you’ve brought the whole
thing to a close when you’re really
only tugging at the stage sets.
even if you burn it down He’s
smoldering half in ashes with you,
willing it to end well…cracking at the edges-

you think by flooding it to the very
brink the soul will drown
and then you’ll show them it was

Yours, not theirs-

but fare-thee-well-
whatever the heart sounds like
translated into Welsh was yours-

stand fast in a shaft of Heaven’s light
only you can see declaiming everything at last
without saying a word-

mary angela douglas 20-21 november 2011

Not Quite Drosselmeyer

2011-11-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

in memory of my father, Robert R. Douglas, newspaperman

his shadows are slightly sugared, largely,
ink-stained;
brushed cinammon, his eyebrows; he doesn't say a lot and
seems to be surprised at your surprise

at long pauses in the conversation.
all his waxen dolls
could live alone

happy for years with a good vocabulary
and no one left
to tie

a pink sash or mend
blueberry leotards.
his very name can never mean:
prisms shaken in chandeliered dreams; he

likes the railroad tracks, too much candy
rich desserts and understated jokes but
he prefers sliced sentences with

corned beef hash, boxes of saltines, no gift-wrap, please-
and a printing press, any kind at all.

in the corners of his eyes, a certain doggedness
and I dream, a dollhouse in a
tiny country space
where leaves are really falling

very small
perhaps, next year
a snow-globe bigger than you are:

when the snow flies
the king shifts out like clockwork
on the icy porch and strangely,

errandless, not believing his good luck
whistles that "Bye Bye Blackbird" tune
admiring the dreamsickle stars twinkling to Glen Miller

and a Very Old Newspaper* rubber-banded,
red or green,
in eternal Christmas snows...
--30--

mary angela douglas 18 november 2011

*The Arkansas Gazette, of blessed memory, the oldest newspaper West of the Mississippi...

Field Notes From a Fairy

2011-11-17T12:05:00.000-08:00

To Arthur Rackham, William Shakespeare, still…

you can’t make yourself small enough
to suit them
said the good fairy new to retirement
mulling over her temporary life

of filing files and

answering multiple phones and selling flimsy merchandise that fell apart long before first washings under moonlight..

nothing will ever be enough
though you make them pictures of gold
or silver
even embossed with stars
no one’s even found yet…

they’ll call the Agency
right in front of you:
“next time, send me a real secretary”
“you’re lucky to get a real person,”

I said. And meant it, charmingly.
soothingly, even…*

still, one must get by

you’ll punch in when

what you wish instead
Is punching something else

or glittering all the way back far under the hills to the Dollhouse left in the rain by the Metro train

where the merry kinfolk live in mulberry gossamer near the Bookstore of All First Folios-
where it seemed like Christmas every day

(They never called it just “the holidays”)

instead, you twinkle harder, feather-light, blowing the strangers bubbles
on their turf as you’ve been taught and exactly the way they spell it out for you in the secretarial science books-

even when they’re peering down
to see you’re hardly there
and booming like stage- craft thunder, the Drama Club kind-

where is she?

I’m right here I chime on tip-toe,

in my best lilac, your best prop, and
typing thrice the speed of light even when you don’t say a.s.a.p.
balancing appointments on
my rose-crowned head

fresh back from fetching you the

Golden Fleece or gooseberry cold medicine or ruby-collated whatnots triple- sided-

not forgetting the corned beef brisquet
piled on rye-and your potato salad with the skins left on!
I haven’t eaten a thing, but can a Muppet be hungry?
so I’ll pack all the leftovers for you,
shall I, hmm?

they’ll hand you the silly Box that means you’re leaving
just as the Christmas Party twinkling lights come on and you’re busy collecting the oyster shells from the caterers-

but you’re in disgrace and off to collect your things, now you bad, bad fairy- trundling the Giant-sized cat-litter carton behind you- following the tumbrels

in horrid wet mittens (that’s later)

trying not to cry and picking up your perfect demitasse from the kitchenette

they’d never drink from fearing the fairyland cooties on them-eyeing you each break-time whenever the ravioli explodes in the microwave…as if you cast a spell on it and didn’t even clean up after yourself (you hate ravioli: they know it’s not yours)

you’re ripping your tiny poems off the bulletin board as you fly by (the ones they didn’t get to yet in the Lobby near the elevators where the Guests can see)

and clutching your spare bright polka dot galoshes
while they keep looking at their watches grimmer far than Grimm and standing guard oh my, how threatening can you be at 3 inches high…

with irregular socks They’d never be seen in, especially when
drop-kicking you out in the rain just before the last bus

splatters your best lilac and disintegrates the cardboard as ice pellets quickly form in the clouds above the little gingerbread office park with the over-pruned trees…
you’ll hear, again, their monkey-money organ grinder tune on the drizzly breeze that
they need someone with a

Professional demeanor…someone, more flexible…”

(professional What? sardonically I think

go make a bouncing cartwheel on the moon-

that would be flexible- betcha yah can’t spell

“insubordination”
want some help? I flitter –

but They don’t hear and that’s how I know, once more, that God is merciful.

we have to let you go they bray
year after numbing year having no other script to follow night shift or day even on the eighth day beyond the Creation when you’re still working and there is no rest and they’re in the back room eating cordon bleu and ignoring your Last tri-lingual page about the SWAT teams out front…and the customers fainting in the aisles from the lack of air conditioning the whole summer the manager claims

can only be adjusted from the main office in another state where the penguins live. (try telling that to the next of kin).

yet…

God rest ye unmerry gentlemen and ladies…if we fairies have offended…but Puck is not “less productive” whatever you made up for the exit interview-pond scummy scum scum

oops! forgot to pack them the tiramisu…may

Christ in His beauty shield you child

From petty tyrannies like these and the idiot lack of song-

and so, goodnight, goodnight-

and a tiramisu, "Yum"...

Mary Angela Douglas 16 november 2011

Dress Code

2011-11-08T08:24:00.000-08:00

weaving the fabric made of clouds
and of the retreating armies-
I whisper to myself, again-
maybe it's not too late

for the new-spun colours in my head-
the cherry velvet ravels swept aside;
a silver tack of wondering again,
never setting sail-

who lost the Age of Rose?

I count the last gold
in the corners
and count again, sweet
polished cotton dresses with no seams:
the sprigged details
for the diffident day
on a simple field of honour.

not knowing the pearl of minutiae
as You do, oh God-

I'm turning this inside out to find You-
and twining the dreamy-treadled thread
that keeps on breaking yet still shines

in tiny roseate crystals stitched on snows.

piano music's sateen on the wind
and seems to disappear, pure lemon verbena.
but sparkles do not dwindle, lily-of-the-valley mine
though I'm so small and slide off of the bench
never reaching the pedals by the chiffoniere

where it's always almost spring;
you won't disturb
the shawl of dappled roses on the doll crib-

the childhood fortitude so pear wept
twig by twig, the same;

remember me, and, if not-
the pale green earrings-
my geranium gown...

I turn the diamond spackled key
of an antique conversation:
who lost the pockets of the
children filled, the little sashes made of
white violet velvet
isles?

mary angela douglas 6-8 november 2011

All Music Then Was Fraught With Angels

2011-10-27T13:40:00.000-07:00

all music then was fraught with angels
glittering on the winter air
and smocked with confetti tissue stars

and a stillness unlike any other.

how heralding my heart
still longs to be
as it was then

garlanded in cranberry or
in pine, in a gold or
silver largesse or

coated pink-silver apple clear
as my own mind was then
even when clouded with wishes

for the gifts hidden
in the opalescent instance
only you could find

when bending down so small to pick
the flowers of the invisible;

the word of filagreed pearl
I kept a long time through every last disaster.

may this glitter snow resolve itself
as if on a tiny wind carry me like chimes
over the red-ochre roofed village where
the kind people live

the one you held in your hands
like the ache of the Beautiful fearing to drop it
and sifting your song

on a sugar Globe shaken
as if by Eden caroling again
and not all that far away-

mary angela douglas 27 october 2011

Inexorable Rose

2011-10-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

(Against the interrogations of the wounded: to my mother, in memorium - 1927-1993)

“…the last rose of Summer.”

T. Moore
=====================================================================

Inexorable rose

blocked from the site

where you bloomed only

yesterday

in soft delight-

I think it may not matter yet

that I’m too clumsy, frightened,

locked out of the fete

and anguished beyond anguish

when I hear:

familiar cartoon music

starting up again

at whose expense

are the backstage cackles

managed best behind the scenes?

let’s all be clear, out in the open:

that the finite poison arrows

missed their mark;

and Your sweet colors live sheer loveliness beyond

the singeing, simpering order of their day

and The café, corner-market heat

of all the self-lit suns

not that inevitable…

it’s you with your one thorn left

till the jeering race is won

bloom out in the Watch of God – bloom on-

through this chill summer

linger, still

though petals curve to raindrops
In the end or to

remorseless winds that almost shatter you

yet they will not.

Oh rose fallen out of your legend

unexpectedly

or pushed from behind on a playground slide
unmonitored

never knowing when it will happen next

that petal’s torn from petal while you wait

For whose turn now

It is to speak

In the sold-out, sell-out play

and spurious miscasting

dripping with monstrous rhinestones-

Diamond paste this on the wind, then:

and paper-crown it

That I’m in the song I made for her repose

and myriad lovely others

In their fallen sparrow exits

dazzling into God:

bloom on in Heaven free from care

and in the poems I leave you here-

mary angela douglas 25 october 2011/21 august 2011

Not Wanting the Story to End

2011-10-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

to my mother, Mary Young-Douglas and my grandmother, Lucy White Young

Ashputtel has the loveliest dress
made all of stars or tiny spangles
on a peach background;
against an aqua cloud
she leans, or aquamarine-
in my first Storybook.

how can she stop herself from dreaming
in tulle that is aglow with sudden
marigolds?

she's folding a sapphire fan just
like a cake, not wasting anything
humming "La Traviata".

or in a tarlatan whispering
"violets, like the twilight hour"
that she believes in-
while I go on just reading,
lilies in a mist.

and everything she says
is only waiting to be:
A diamond or a
peridot embroidered on the air
in the distance between dream and dream.

it's God knows best
when she's blubbering over the parsnips
snipped too fine-
or snapping the clothespins off the
apricot crochet of clouds

or carnation petticoats-

how her shadow's pale pink silk
is dyed to match
His favorite orchids, orchards, sighs-

oh how could it be
any other way than this
when she glides out in the froth of
plinking moonlight unaccountable
happiness

that I have stored inside
to keep from crying
when the stitching's wrong-
the seed-pearls scattered-
and daybreak errands wounding
on a crooked-not a crystal,
stair-

she says, "God will take care of you"
and she should know.

before your melting vision soon
how gently she will step into the snows as into blue-belled meadows
holding on
in her glimmering house shoes;
decorative and true-
and spilling stardust as she goes
more beautiful than the mirroring sea
in my jump rope rhymes of green taffeta.

let the jeweled clock weep
the lucent tatters back-
the yellow gold pumpkin
crank itself up the hill
beside the little house with the rick-rack curtains and
the apple tree

let the raggedy rosebush
in the Mama's garden
burst into everlasting rubies
Raphael's cherubs gather still...

mary angela douglas 21 october 2011

Simple Interrogations of the Rose, Case Number...

2011-10-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

they interrogated the rose:
why are you-
who are you-

how dare you
bloom
did we say you could?

they could not hurt her-
freely, anyway,
her petals drift away
while they're all comparing notes
in another room:
and twisting the things how could she have said
(in all her pink unsayings):

into heavy unfestive balloon shapes.

they're stepping back
to see her after further considerations-

revealing only
the silvery outer shell of
a special rose silence

with petals, too-

mary angela douglas 12 october 2011

In a Year of Japanese Enigmas

2011-10-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

in a year of Japanese enigmas

the poets left home to see:
only the moon
floating on a lake=
abandoned by the sky.

it’s you who’ll brush away

this calligraphy of tears inscribed;

it’s what you always do-

so that the pearl-drop moment

stands effaced
and my living soul with it.

I’m thumbing through my

Frommer’s Pop-up Book of Stars
not sure of what to say-

I’ll ask you softly

so that you do not hear:

in the white jade mountains
with such a biting wind-

how did they find

the courage to write

about the plum blossoms

mary angela douglas 10 october 2011

For Emily Dickinson

2011-10-10T12:11:00.001-07:00

for Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas

Emily, it is getting late:

the blaze on the trees and

the blaze on the poems are one;

the snow clouds tick the towns away

and I am on my own to stare

at the wall that readily turns to stars.

I know that you would understand

the quatrains of this early moon

the open question of the wind

like something from Charles Ives*

that moves

over the same bent fields.

while in a golden age we think

we may have many years to see

but the maple’ s ensign warns us

you are nearer than

these silver riddles fluttering from your hands

we still can read:

Inscribed with their own answers

As God’s may be - I like to think

He’s pouring over them again

tipping back His amethyst chair

as any fond Father-

but in my sleep

an unnamed orb keeps bleeding ivory`words

and disappearing

as it did, so many times for you-

the lamp’s unlit…

and it’s nothing’s set upon the household candlestick now:

vivid for a nation or a world within a world;

within each secret’s secret self

to counter the miniature glorias set in pearl

you well remember as flame-

since it was just you singing them with no reply.

I can’t dispel the sense of something blamed or

someone radiant lingering here

with somewhat more to say on these lost subjects…

I stand stock -still by the mossy door

where Beauty’s shadow seems to veer

and wonder only to myself

just who in the glittering days ahead

will comprehend

as if by heart-as if they wrote the words themselves-

the least hue in your brightening palm

the gleaming instant caught out in surmise

I seem to clasp,

so briefly, meadow-sweet-

and vastly-then, as now-

before the first

or the last snows of Poetry itself-

mary angela douglas 9-10 october 2011

*reference to Charles Ives ( American New England composer) musical composition: “The Unanswered Question” which he refused to identify.

Hamelin

2011-10-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

“whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit?”

-Psalms
I saw crown molding tip the walls
of an unbelievable stage-set, real, at the time-
set the table
they will tell you everything
you’re entitled to know

while sipping their rubicund tea
on a lush and leafy afternoon you dream
is still your very own-
with your whole life ahead of you
as the saying goes

and still so near your own real
childhood home you could walk back there and be done with this
Why didn’t you
before they trained you not to love
or even be, as if they could…
and to fill your hands with pearls meant just for them….
but I learned slow and never
to believe
all their lost lovely angels far from home and
to fight the battles only

I could see –to know what’s mine
alone
not underwritten by game theorists
or Pavlov’s pirates, looting my bright way…

as from the beginning of clowns-
and mesalliance

oh all my faceless springs in the name of God,
my God, unused and lilac-
I’d teach the children not to ride
that monochromatic ferris standing by

the carnival children modified to sell: flowers waxen friendship-
and world peace...

I'll sing you the song my mother lent me

as she died:
I saw the cream of God
brim at the top
and those who skimmed and skimmed
rich bubbles from my only Soul and from my rainbowed home

I saw their skinflint empires rise
and the parties they threw each other
at each eclipse

who could explain
the vacancies of cranes
on the tilting horizons that they owned

and all the summers subcontracted out and
sparkleless

what made me turn around
to find
the trapdoor in the Night and
it was God up late, still
counting the tears of those waylaid
as if they never stopped being:
His own embroidery forever-

“Here’s your doll finery,” He whispered.
in the voice of all rosepetals-
“I’ve hidden it here.”
You are -pure life - I cried - I’ll never give away-
as if I could…
reward the kidnappers
oh my King where wishes turn to palms if we endure;

I’ll buy fresh groceries, pay the rent and
find the playground where they’re waiting still:
all my tin soldiers whirring in the dust-
I’m caught in
the lace of the day
and cannot leave You-

mary angela douglas 1-2 october 2011

Cracking the Mold They Made for You

2011-09-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

for Judy Garland

cracking the mold they made for you
and the little box of stars-
a voice made of everything living

spends all its diamonds
in one song
and still has more:

carved from a nightingale quarry-
outdistancing by many rubies
anyone else's rainbow;

we're opening now, a box of sky-

cloudy and bright
reconstituting everything submerged and
packed in lies you're

pealing out your perfect time in time
above all those
who couldn't repair
the sheen beyond blue
of the bluebird soul
savaged by idiots...

but she's in scarlet or in gold
and it's all holiday astonishment again-
and building the ship around her as she sings
breath by breath till breathless in the end-

notwithstanding-

shout Hallelujah! for the
rose-bright flare of song illuminating
more than was contracted for-
I am sure:

unique as a sunset thumbprint rainbow-ridged
perpetual as dreaming could ever be made to
be in sepia or technicolored.

you're all apart-
rebuilding a burnt-out nest
on every stage
till it shone
like a gold never seen
in the land of let's pretend:

a metasong sailing into space
becoming only you - yourself-

where is the place for us
and all our encores
broken from the stem
like the home you made for music
all along?

the seam in the earthquake shifts
and is never the same

mary angela douglas 22 september 2011

The Mere Mention of His Name

2011-09-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

old books came back to the
countries of my heart and
rooted there:

to all those scratching the surface
for loose change-
secretly, I said, "adieu".

I meant it.

familiar as twilight like a birthright
the white stones sang
under the thinest thread of moonlight-

I know that I will find
along this path
of the fairytale's declining year the

glissando shimmer of the
harp-won days-

and turn again, like Dick Whittington,

counting the silvered seconds till
all Beauty Comes to Pass...

it's the bright rose hush of petals
scattered near the rosebuds I
will guard like a severed childhood

the mere
mention of Your Name
that's outlawed, now-

mary angela douglas 11-12, may 2011

Green Were the Worlds We Lived in Then

2011-09-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

green were the worlds we lived in then;
green worlds have not departed.
moss of the stars, sheared

damson petals breaking off
from shifted moonlight
in my mid-speech-

I'm sorry.
I'll take the drenching word
again I laid aside

and presume to speak till it all comes clear

that you breathe the stars
you breathe the clouds
and carry the winds of
greeness in your pockets-
not only for an april, but ever-after...

through troubles bending the
wings of your lost angels
still it is all this seeming Emerald we
are meant to keep as the Heart's own Trust-
though it spills over
like a cataract
whenever it is that God may choose

this blossoming at Your Side...

mary angela douglas 9 september 2011

Lament Of Therese Of Lisieux

2011-09-09T07:48:00.000-07:00

just now the bars are coming down again
blue morpheus winds are rising
in my soul extraordinary

courier and friend-
in my soul there are no bells;
there is only You.

it's only waking up
that I can't bear;
the white rose in a dream with no confrere

remained so incandescent
in the end

and caught in a warren
I don't understand-
Jesu, my flag is not down.

bright dreaming son or brother
or someone else
under the drizzling skies I feel

that I'm dissolving far from you
and running late to say:
it's only that I recognize

that star you held in your hands-
the one that made you suffer-
the one that, even now
compels me to weep sapphires
endlessly
on your behalf-

and to lean into Space...

mary angela douglas 8, 9 september 2011

2011-09-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

the paper door cut in silence
cut the Maker
of paper snowflakes, coloured

Christmas chains, small birds
that fluttered in secret cherishing
never flew past the

small incisions necessary
for the valentines remaindered-
and the silhouettes strewn

in old storybooks shut.

behind the paper door cut, die-cut,
the Maker no one knew pursued
his endless dreams of making and

the scissored stars fled shredded
downwards everywhere
while we looked up in

amethyst confusion...

but He is the Maker
striving still
at the isinglass border of

your most recent dream:
someday to bring, in Person,

galaxies and real roses...

mary angela douglas 5-6 september 2011

Scribes

2011-09-06T08:16:00.000-07:00

the blackbirds in the margins of their songs
are long past earth
and poured out gold that

you can't see
my silence breaks apart
but not from theirs

on branches of anomalie.
this is the rippled singing
I believe, and God,

I'm not ashamed of there or anywhere at All
while here the meatless
spaghetti boils over again..

for it's wreathed in stove-top mists
the blackbirds in the margins of
their sighs will rise with grace notes, duly noted...

sweet cherried jubilee
just when you are reading in your room
or prescient, in the back garden
by the tangerine nasturtiums...

over your shoulder,
flocking jewels-
and in your heart as on no other day the

sparkling arrows of the inexplicable-

mary angela douglas 4-6 september 2011

Wild Roses

2011-09-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

stooping to find the name for myself
in the bottlenecked world brim-filled
with stones to stone or to confine-

I rise to find
all names are taken:
only Your Name shines

above gardenia galaxies
and our lost home
with the blue curtains-

and I'm in the
tatters of the words
I cannot find

to say that
even then, I know-while kicking through the vacant lots
You strewed my path with wild

invisible roses.
that I might not-
weep time away-

mary angela douglas 3 september 2011

Song for Therese of Lisieux

2011-09-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

keep me as the apple
plum peach
apricot and

muscadine of Your Eye
in all the hills, hillocks
burrows, rabbit hutches

flower-filled canyons on
Your green stone;
count me as all your stars,

extant-
though each one's carved
with hearts and wings to burn and
flow away...

I favor blue morpheus wings in
Heaven- please remember I
don't want to intrude

whenever you're painting your
rainbows' cherry after cherry
double-hinged but wouldn't you

rather make
for old time's sake:
another flood of roses?

remember that I am Your dove
though pressed in a leatherbound
book of saints and tissue-veiled

though edged all around in obdurate Gold-

mary angela douglas 6 september 2011

Lieutenant Colombo Drops by the Dollhouse on Christmas Day

2011-09-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

watching their very first rerun of
cooking with rosepetals
(on the dollhouse tv)
straight out of the box
the small dolls couldn't be

happier-
even if they can't
tell how

to change the channel.
somehow, bills never come
so why worry?

tonight's a feast as it will be,
always:
there's the stewpot

ready - the parsnips and
carrots glued to the kitchen
table beside the Big Spoon.

the immovable cherry pie
on the sideboard and
"beautifully latticed, if you

don't mind my saying..."

but why do the curtains sway in
the breeze when nothing else
here ever budges?

they're tightlipped but
smiling.
besides, there's roses

in their checks.
oh, and one more thing...

why is that plastic porchlight always on?

mary angela douglas 6 september 2011

Forgotten Waltz No. 2 (after Liszt)

2011-09-03T12:35:00.000-07:00

subsiding in the crystal wave,
the mermaid turns of phrasing
let us renounce
while we still can

the plated words, the minimal things to say
that wear off quickly and betray-
while the heart's

own music is buried.

oh when
will the jeweled cathedral

rise
from the lake of mere forgetfulness;
the sword be taken back

from the glistening hand-
and who told you

the prospering word,
laconic
day was gold-

and a necessary armour?

mary angela douglas 3 september 2011

Imprimatura

2011-08-31T07:56:00.000-07:00

wrecked gold of the far illuminations
is coming home
and moonlight sunk in

its own mirrors helplessly
I find forever
in the glazed word you speak.

but april blossoms on the wall
when you bind your luckless
clouds together

and you wound nothing.
imprint this with a spendthrift's sigh
with the knowledge that every colour breathes

the rose you gathered as if it were
long-ago

from very Light.

mary angela douglas 31 august 2011

Startled Birds

2011-08-29T08:32:00.000-07:00

over a bridge of clouds I passed
not looking at my reflection in the water
and it seemed to me there was no sound
when the harp of shadows passed
to no other

and that my heart was taken from me
by things no longer on earth.

then wind for me a harp of pearl
and I will stand
soundless on a bridge of clouds
with all around the startled birds

you folded into snow

II
sensing the clouds above the clouds
I tried to run-
finding the severed music, everywhere

forgetting how to walk

this loose stitching
always comes undone

undone

a thousand laments were launched;
they fell into foam...

and I am singing low, so low
by the edges of your seas

the startled birds of your lost
languages-

reprieved

mary angela douglas 27 august 2011

Pegasus

2011-08-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

these realities are so unformed
not like the immaculate visions
that once rose before us

when we were commissioned
with the first snowfall of
exquisite words

and the petals of the stars
drifted
in your so elaborate sleep-

these realities are so
unsolicited:

but we are unremaindered
and will not give our lives
just to be granted an interview.

even minus a "good job"
let the soul flame out from star to star,
not a horse to be installed

but to run through heaven, encrypted.

Pegasus! My gem-bridled friend pale
green is the day
whenever we ride together:

seeding the clouds near the
office park with
Roses of Pure Vermeil,

we are never that professional
when immaculate visions rise before us.

mary angela douglas october 2009

Knocking the Paper Doors Down

2011-08-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

knocking the paper doors down
that they have made of You
I turned away,

not knowing where to go
with my child-sized suitcase, in
my red cloth shoes.

the clock of yearning's set to
endlessness and

I weep on pouring the news out to the wind
but it's like a ripped-out seam within
not knowing when I'll find

all my lost porches
floating backwards on the Tide
and my best dishes, ringed with ferns...

when one Word tolls the
bells that they have muted, smashed-
maybe snow-jeweled quietude
will return

but now I only find
that I am I
and dream for you even
without knowing how.

ethereal clouds will come
and their attendant angels
as if from an extended Trip:

bring me crushed violets
bunched
in silver ribbons strewn
the never-ending stars
the winding mists to live in-

mary angela douglas 25 august 2011

Aslan*

2011-08-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

to Christ, the Lion of Judah (the overcoming one...)

the brigands go the other way;
calumny stares stone-statue dead
at the white-frost crossroads

in my head
suddenly everything
turned to song.

white flowers staunched
the senseless wounds
where late and long my soul had bled
and I cannot relate to you
how suddenly the winter fled.

everything suddenly turned to song
the hand upraised struck down
at last
and evil's anvil hatched and passed
flowed by You into
silver stars.

I wept at Your bright armies;
and I could only bow my head
when
wolfish sorrows stalked away

and shadow-puppet Scorn
knew Dread.

suddenly everything turned to song
like a forever Eastertide
and we were finally by Your side

and couldn't be overthrown-

mary angela douglas 7 february 2010

*After C,S, Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia

Facing the Dragons Down

2011-08-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

through kingdoms now
as it was then
you tread a certain

inward path
while they line up again
to stare you through

on a very tiresome playground-

or hurl, with no one else around
a mere boulder or two
down the embankment.

don't ask me how
they know it's you with
a birthday message for

your ailing children
done up in maypole ribbons bright
and the fairytale hour-glass

sands on the low-end...
but they could find you
in their sleep

on the margrave's run-down highway-
and creepity creep creep
through the heat-

roiling their chartruese scales-
waving a finny fin-
casting a munching eye on

your last bit of raisin toast
with frosting...

or burping from an office window
just to throw you off-
a murky word in-between

presentations...

do not fear them;
let them rave:
thrashing the marigold window shades

beneath God's diamond and
discerning eye-

you may look swiftly all around
but no one else is there to pound.
they must mean, you.

don't be alarmed;
don't be concerned.
it just that it's your

turnity turn turn
To Be Facing the Dragons Down-

mary angela douglas 23 august 2011

A Lapidary Stillness Fills the Room

2011-08-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

a lapidary stillness fills the room
while I'm too tired to hear
the angels singing. forgive me when

I say, oh God
that it seems hard to live this way
but I'm setting the scene the best that
I know how

and jewel by jewel,
as You did.

lay all your shaken griefs aside-
folding the opulent
shadows on the chair

not for the last time, yet-

while off in the distant
semi-precious Light
a heavy door opens and

then closes-

mary angela douglas 23 august 2011

Blake

2011-08-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

to William Blake

I saw you walking
the hills of green.
angels on either side of you, conversing
and cherry-bought bells resounding
in the dove-sought skies such flame-tinged
clouds appearing:

yes and the fleece of
skies that you loved once-
the cirrus roses...

you were so happy with an ink-stained smile-
peeling a scroll of topaz from

a frayed coat pocket,
meant for the martyred poets.
you said: don't cry anymore
all consternation's fled, don't cry,
no rose is dead.

art is a shining ship, delivered:
the choken river's spanned.
the mocking charter's been revoked.

they hoped your vision was a sinking sun
marked by three crosses on a stolen hill,
but the day is a flower endlessly fluted,

and cut in crystal now
where tygers kept their radiant promise-
where darkness is banished

to a farther castle and the
face of the Lamb is so revealed
whenever we are speaking in our
sheer unfiltered gold

and realize
we are still alive my
bartered friend!

a bright wind drives your
mended sails toward home
with the diamond husk of all your
poems received, the

heart of it believed in when you say
that all your trees are filled with singing now
where nothing, nothing is a bane
how

blazingly the Light
of every poem remains-

mary angela douglas 22 august 2011, 2 december 2005, 19 september 2005

Valentine with Doves on the Seven Last Words of Christ

2011-08-19T07:34:00.000-07:00

I am lost in the
Kingdom of the Heart
I said to no one living

since the day they felled the
King of it all-
seven swords run through my heart

seven swords and more
and oh the hilts
set with rubies

with russet diamonds
with
the sunset of the world.

and such a vein of
jasper runs through
the soul's so pleached amazement
standing still-

that I forget the words to
sing to you
a last border ballad.

my soul.
become the white dove's scar
and anodyne of mercy-

the cleft on the curl of the
last creamed wave
in this senseless valentine

diorama-
shifted by unseen wires
and winds.

the dove cries out
there's blood on the track
there's blood on the track

and more, look back
to the fairytale motto
of snow-cut

delicate drastic cameo
and descent:

Be True.

in the version scalded
by fairies under broken glass-
scattering their gifts of light far

from - from the retreating henchmen
among last things.

All swords dissolve
with the help of God
who is also weeping

who is also weeping
oh dove, dove, dove

mary angela douglas 19 august 2011, 1 june 2010

I Dreamed in the Sea of the Children of Lir

2011-08-16T08:12:00.000-07:00

I dreamed in the sea of the Children of Lir
coming through the mists of their childhood
unrecognizably

oh beyond reach
let words be fought for but
what am I supposed to say

when saints have courted endlessly
the hard and diamond edge of
your impossible retrieval?

when are you coming home
o vivid heart eluding
bereavement, banished wing-
are you carving the thick tiered

wedding cake mists as if they
belonged to you?
when will you find rest

beating the crystal air to a
fine snow over centuries;
are you very nearly free

or do you dream your muted
carillons below
have all passed on?

it is a real question.
are you?
stay alive can you

be carried sleeping into
deeper exiles over
God's bright shoulder?

it is a real question are you
finding no more countries left
for you

on earth...

I lived as some suggested
sending golden transcripts off
somewhere into space

from brilliant institutions no one ever heard of
and the envelope sealed with evensong and
all the mauve distances dissolving...

are you the one
bargained over at sales
not open to the general public-

subject to steering committees
charged
with capturing the data?

let us return, unopened,
frailer than snow and so unchartered
to live in Danish stories, after all-

dreaming of journeys
over long waters
looking at light

through the spent leaf
and the mottled cloud
as if at a kingdom
somehow lost to me

still still my own

prospective student,
employee, friend,
any person at all:

launched to the unfairytale-like
docket with a
mirage-like defense

jump over the railing!

there's no qualifying ground
for one so fey and the wild swans must
move through
the lilac foaming of their weariness.

it is also true
the glimmer of your sunset mind
is a sheen of no use to them at all

and will count against you at the agencies
more than the questions you leave

blank
when you're combing the waves
oh not

for 3 good references and a jacket
they can believe in.

then you'll descend, dear
Christmas-bright contestant, saint
like the exemplary

Children of Lir with your
one cloud-sleeve unfinished
down to the violet waterline at last:

caught up by sudden angels on command-
recommended by the wounded Trinity-

weeping poems and
the clear bells
of little stars

mary angela douglas 16 august, 14 august, 20 july 2011

To the Beautiful Kingdom of Norway

2011-07-25T08:23:00.001-07:00

and on an installation by the artist Ilya Kabakov, Where Is Our Place?

they'll bend down to see
as if to pray
it may be

the lily or the rose
invisibly wound
like a music box music

you'll begin to hear if you
are careful.

it seems so hidden, out of sight-
but it's just hidden in Easter grass-
glistening, multicolored always

waiting to be found

and it's a candlewick's wonder,
thread of delicate intent
that you can't follow, yet-

beyond the baseboard's curve or Hamelin's artisan
at floor level
the exhibit you waited all your life to see:

the one explaining everything so high
and yet, so low I see
a mirrored pond in lingering blues and greens

closer to Heaven, as you go
the very mirror's mirror on the shore-
the one you knew they'd leave behind-
edged in pink sapphires...

careless, cherished children

it may be hard to find the day before the day
before white flowers at the cathedral and
in between,

tears of the King and Queen
am I too small?
could I get in for free

midsommer's island's drifting out to sea
beyond the waves in the picture
you still might find the

children picking berries on the other side
of a small day with no candles in it yet
with smaller clouds floating by they

may not hear you they will find rest
in such a patch of shade:

fitted for a petal's scar
or to cirrus, lovely nothing at all
no longer wounded-

having found refuge under a rose leaf
rosebud stillness who could
understand...

a brief flash like crystal and a
splash "oh no!" you almost see
pure fairytale sorrow

stumbling past annulled in a pale
blue music fleeing

everything Large.

I've one doll slipper, satin-beaded,
left with a glittering shoelace broken
in trying to find the Museum with the

Giant's Installation: can you help me, please-
can clemency be granted to one
so small who can't find anything at all

among small flowers hidden in the grass
when words turn into stones
before the unbearable

I pray in a voice you will not hear but
you stare through in beautiful blindness

the keyhole, knothole to a deeper world
at rest
where gondolas drift always

upon the violet waters
under nectarine stars.

mary angela douglas 22 july-25 july 2011

After the Gaelic

2011-07-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

to Turlough O Carolan for his songs in Heaven
(1670-25 March 1738)

I could not see through the crystal page
I was ever that lost
and wandering through the

dream you dreamed
how could I spell
the moon, the stars-

let it not be said
I wandered there in vain
when Christ was on my left

and on my right
when bright through the
thickets of dim sleep

his kindliest name appeared all candlelit
in reels of rose, in my own sky-
never to be forgotten.

it was then I saw
through the crystal
men called poetry

straight through to the guardian green

of abiding song-then I knew
there is no farewell to music.

and God gave me
the names of the moon and stars
and the harp of perfect stillness-

jeweled

mary angela douglas 12 july 2011

Despues del Gaelico

Yo no podia ver a traves de la pagina de cristal

yo estaba cada vez tan perdido

y vagando por el sueno que sonaste

como podria hechizo de la luna, las

estrellas

que no se diga que vagaba en vano

cuando Christo estaba a mi izquierda y a mi derecha

cuando brillante a traves de la espesura

del sueno oscuro

su nombre mas simpatico se aparecio

velado en los carretas de la rosa

hay que no olvidar jamas.

entonces fue que vi a traves del cristal

que los hombres se llama "la poesia"

directamente a traves

del angel de la guarda verde

de cancion constante-

entonces supe que no hay ninguna despedida

a la musica

y Dios me dio los nombres de

la luna y las estrellas

y el arpa de quietud perfecta-

de piedras preciosas-

mary angela douglas 12 july 2011/Spanish translation 1 august 2011

I Sent a Letter to the Russian Poets

2011-07-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

I sent a letter to the russian poets
not expecting a reply
on an ordinary day when tulip

trees touched the last of
a winter sky.
I did not stand in my

own light, but I knelt down to pray-
thinking of the russian poets.
I saw the angelic orders rise

above the broken mirrors of the world
when I cried out, I want to stay-
here in the wounded wilderness of those

who only wanted to keep singing-

across the star-swept gorge of time
through fire, through flood
through rampant mysteries unfolding,

clearer in these returning years,
like them, I learn to
stand inside the music with the Lord

while the bullets fly past-
while in my soul
a lone bird's song

echoes and reechoes:
silver-sad as rain or missing planets-
yet with a mysterious gladness
on and on forever
like the Russian poets-

mary angela douglas 1-4 july, 2011

Envie Una Carta a Los Poetas Rusos

envie una carta a los poetas rusos

y no esperaba a una respuesta

en un dia ordinario

cuando tocan los arboles de tulipan

el ultimo del cielo

de invierno.

no estaba en mi propia luz

pero me arrodille a orar

pensando en los poetas rusos.

he visto los ordenes angelicos

elevarse por encima

de los espejos rotos del mundo

cuano grite "quiero quedarme aqui

en el desierto herido de aquellas

que solo queria seguir cantando".

a traves del desfiladero de estrellas

barrido de tiempo

a traves del fuego, a traves de inundaciones

a traves de los misterios desenfrenado

desarrollo-

mas claro en estos anos de regresar

como ellos aprendo a permanecer

dentro de la musica con El Senor

mientras las balas pasan volando

mientras que en mi alma

el cancion de un ave solitario

se hace eco y resuena

plata triste como la lluvia

o los planetas que faltan

qun como una alegria misteriosa.

una y otra vez para siempre

como los poetas rusos.

mary angela douglas 1-4 july 2011 Spanish translation 1 august 2011

Losing the Song With the High Ceiling

2011-06-30T09:34:00.000-07:00

losing the song with the high ceiling
it seems I wept in gold
where living among the roses

turned to thorns as
swindlers drained all colors from the sky
and called it better

when bees left the honey sun,
crumbling behind them.

how could the clouds so commandeered
be born at sunset anymore
splashed to a free-born rose

tuned to a flaking ember?
no one knows where to live now.
or who could anchor the flowers,

then
that could not sing; dominions where people
stared at the mire as my quartz pockets,

rainbow-filled turn inside-out to snow
and disappear-

I'm counting the rings on the Tree of Heaven
and not expecting anyone to pity
the least of my sistine tears.

but you won't ever find me
far
from the mauve mauve music so impugned-

I'm holed up in the bailed out of sanctuaries
clutching the eiderdown dream that barely fits:
the tiniest nesting doll in God's pearl-perfect

thumb:
under the rose windows, contemplating
humming little tunes that might seep through

if I knew how.
oh sky.
from all the shadows left to you
and all your frozen chandeliers-

find the one small weeping star

homesick for Light-
and I will follow it-

mary angela douglas 30 june 2011

Monograph for Juliet in Rose

2011-06-22T12:12:00.000-07:00

the rose-red sash at sunset
at your window
is glazing now with rain

that will not be remembered
by the leaves that rush
from summer's trees in

this bright wind
that will not be remembered by
the birds that fly

enspiralled in the clouds
that will not be remembered
by the moon

that fades so softly in and out
reweaving each pearl drop of light
into the event or its reflection-

into a long-lost caligraphy that
you can't read
into the dream that you will dream

that's not the color you'll intend
when you lean out too far
from any stage devised or

set-piece memorized
for anyone to take hold-
but, for the moment,

glad to be
by every fresh wind blown
and hearing a voice, almost your

own and longing to declaim it-
unscripted as the high rose mind of God-
until small tears begin to show

on the paper lilies held by your bent hands
you want to disappear in the sainted word
you can't pronounce you find

there's nothing you can say when
looking upwards at the stars;
you're reinserted in the slots of

the toy paper balcony next to
the cake with pink roses on it
for the cardboard matinee-

the one where the dolls just sit there-

mary angela douglas 22 june 2011

Contest Awards and Guidelines All Explained

2011-06-17T12:44:00.001-07:00

the henchmen came for Poetry in the end
to nab it in a cherry-colored dishcloth
but Poetry was non-compliant, a capella
laughing from the silver rafters, Firebird

flowing into every quadrant left
by the builders frightened from the site
by the same old bullies who

showed up yesterday
the ones to decide, from year to year, the same,
if birds may sing
the songs they would sing anyway...

and here's the process and the
cutting room floor and
here's the closeup of them

stomping to glittering mica-smithereens
behind the doors of faux deliberation
the cherry colored mandolin-
that kept on chirping.

ah, Poetry fluffed its sparkling feathers
far above the Zdhanov newborn guidelines of the
world-wide raffles:

unmindful of the spaghetti dinners, garlic bread
butter-soaked and the Bingo callers calling everywhere
the pre-arranged numbers by the coffee can

Christmas confetti candles you always wanted to buy
for the whole Family...
oh tell me why you have it in your grasp to grasp

the poem by the throat and shake it out like diamonds
and then slit its throat in triplicate, triplicate triplicate...
after asking God to leave the room.

"Beauty, Truth and Goodness, still" an unawarded someone
whispered from the wings unto their final radiance still,
unpublished...

ah then I am not that
paper boat floating in a green tributary about to be
choked off and clouded over, I muttered at the afternoon mail

what does Poetry itself need
with the long-stemmed roses and the
name in lights lights lights:

the phoenix, Light, itself so stand-alone-
no matter how many contests strangle it-

mary angela douglas 17 june 2011

Touring Angels

2011-06-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

fairytale bread was scattered the
birds did not eat;
the knights of the small hills

were locked in battle-
but here the shired wind sighs
the songs my mother taught me through

an open screen door-
cornbread and strawberries are whipped creamed and
the diamond spindles cut, as in former days,

the naive princess-
in odd etchings,
beautiful as still-

whole kingdoms shine entire...

yet all my towers face the other way
on leafmeal, cooler afternoons
when a gaggle of stars

drifts by and the goose girl
(with her jewels sewn into her for
safekeeping)

follows after them, in tears...

these are the things I tell myself
when God may be listening for
the shimmering years recounted,

in rosepetaled spelling blown
and every wish as sunbright, honeysuckle clear
as bacon and eggs at home grape

jelly scraped on toast that
later will seem so
high meringued-miraculous indeed

exquisitely hinged as a raspberry summer
suddenly frozen ruby solid
overnight-

oh guard with your eyes the scarlet
poinsettia on the piano from unstoried vandals-
the scarlet music

wrap it in golden foil
like a color you can use again
if you need to.

you will need to
you will need your
cottonwool dream wadded

in a silver keepsake box
in the back of the third
dresser drawer-

the crystal perfume stopper
and the opal-inlaid screen
of your best mind

on the day that touring angels
just drop by
unrolling the fairytale screed

you can't ignore.
oh step from the doorstep looking back
at what you cannot find

you who always knew how the best
of stories must begin
will know it now,

forever

mary angela douglas 17 june 2011

Recorriendo Los Angeles

pan de cuento de hadas se dispenso
que los aves no comen
los caballeros de las colinas pequenos
se encuentra atrepado en luchas

pero aqui canta el viento del condado-
las canciones que mi madre me ensena
a traves de una pantalla abierta-

pan de maiz y fresas
con crema batida son...y
cortan los ejes de diamente
como en dias pasados

la princesa ingenua en aguafuertes impares,
hermosa como sigue.
reinos enteros brillan...

pero todos mis torres hacen frente
a la otra manera
en las tardes mas frescas de

"leafmeal"

cuando se aleje un monton de estrellas
cerca de mi
y la dama de ganso (con sus joyas
cosido en ella para mayor seguridad)-

sigue despues de ellos, en lagrimas-

estas son las cosas que me digo a mi mismo-
cuando Dios podria estar escuchando
para los anos reluciantes relatado.
en petalos de rosa otografia saltado

y cada deseo como sol brillante,
madreselva claro
como bacon y huevos en casa-

jalea de uva raspado en pan tostado
que mas tarde le parecera tanto
de hecho milagroso como alta merengue

de verdad-

exquisitamente articulado como
un verano de frambuesa-
repentinamente congelado rubi solido
durante la noche.

o guarde con los ojos el Poinsetta
escarlata en el piano de los
vandoles, sin historias-

la musica escarlata
lo envuelve en papel de oro como
un color que puede utilizar de nuevo
si necesita.

se necesita.
Usted necesitara su algodon
hidofilo sueno
arrugada en una caja de recuerdos

de plata-
en el fondo del cajon tercero del aparador-
el tapon de cristal
de su perfume

y las incrustaciones opalinas
de su mente mayor-
en el dia que recorre los angeles-
acabo de entrar

desenrollados el cuento de hadas
que no puede ignorar...
o pasa Ud. de la puerta-

mirando hacia atras
a lo que usted no puede encontrar-

Ud. que siempre supiste
la mejor de las historias
como deben comenzar

ahora sabrala para siempre-

mary angela douglas 3 august 2011 Spanish translation of original in English

To Be Sung In White Tulle, Silver-Sequined

2011-05-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

the king mislaid his
blueprint for the stars
and cries at night

into his golden shadow
lost courtiers kneel
before the showcase cakes

little children may not eat
no matter how long they say
they are sorry

that the toeshoe thistledown moon
is slipping farther everyday
down the rimed rose campion

windows of the castle.
but they will keep their
diamond latchkeys safe

at this rhapsodic distance from the sun-
from the sparklers' fizzy dreaming at the end-
from that last summer-

and bless - and bless-

eternal lily snow on the fleeting ground

mary angela douglas 25 may 2011

Miniatures(You Must Live Within Your Means)

2011-05-08T11:19:00.001-07:00

you must live within your means
they said to the artist who was breaking off
little pieces from the sun

when he ran out of cadmium yellow:
"I don't know what you mean," he sighed
and dreamed

that he was eating clouds
while they remained perturbed...

out in the fields reciting
biting off the wind so late in the day
and in the green midnights

(lacking rain barrels),
he wept his rainbowed tears, quite carefully
and caught them on his

frescoed fingertips,
one by one-
so that later

in 200 years they were greatly prized
by the great collectors everywhere

for their unusual sheen-

mary angela douglas 8 may 2011

Azul

2011-04-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

to Juan Ramon Jimenez (1881-1958)

Juan Ramon standing amid blue flowers
did not hear me calling
small birds flew on every side

through chinks in a chain-link cloud and over
the scuttled rainbows of your sighs I picked up on the ground
to far-away laughter

oh but "not-it" I cried out from
the space left by your shadow
on the grass

like a child in a game of tag,
the last one left in the

blonde and feathered fields still
unashamed
of starlight by the railroad tracks

and hotel rolls with real pats of butter-

at home in the pink stucco of "play-like" afternoons...

Sr. Jiminez bluer than the bluest
shadows could be,
could it be the earth is disenchanted?

will we grow apart?
stand still, I said, with a mouthful of pins
I will sew your shadow to the sky

and line it with pale green stars

it's strange while
I'm still trying to speak
in lilies and small roses

in blue diamonds secretly

distinctly...
oh why do you keep on
haunting your own poems

it hurts so much
even in my minted sleep or
is it, dream?

to be crumpling up the violet
of mimeographed vocabulary lists
again-

and practicing
balletic leaps by the
persimmon trees

it's not that I'm that far
from all those merry dialogues
about butter about arroz con

pollo about beaten chocolate-

regarding time I find it hard to keep
the tenses straight:
do I keep breaking the heart of moonlight
without knowing why-

or is all that hushed?
and can I pray to God in
pure hibiscus, too?

entenderas...

a hundred years from home
no one recognized my speech
but the blue wind and God

and the tire-swing swung
in glittering silence by the
small girl dressed in

blue porous happiness...

mary angela douglas april 26-april 28, 2011

The Rose-Red Sealing Wax on the Letter's Dry Now

2011-04-07T12:18:00.001-07:00

the rose-red sealing wax on the letter's dry now;
the rose-red rose-white story comes to rest*
like the see-saw on the frozen playground
like the rusted swings still floating in no wind at all.

frost-emulsed are the Christmas windows
and the glorious Holly and the Star we looked through to see:
the golden bears delivered from their worst selves
on such a cinnamon-sequined day as this.

but I can't tell you the end of the story
or why my cloud-shaped jigsaw piece won't fit
(not even on Christmas morning)

in the thin sky above the little house
swept penny-bright and latched.

I went a long cold way in my scuffed shoes
to fling a milk quartz crackly word into
the moss green pools of
something not remembered but that shone.

don't tell your wishes ever or:
they'll not come true
was whispered in my every dream
but I'll tell you the Christmas angels cried:
"FEAR NOT"-
though years of speaking only underwater
made it hard to see
their real words on the page.

I wished that God would turn
the snow-bright word my Mother packed
(along with her sandwiches of butter and sugar)
into a language angels hear-

mary angela douglas 5 october 2009 -

*references to the Brothers' Grimm fairy story: Rose Red, Rose White

The Childhood of Marcel Proust

2011-04-07T11:34:00.000-07:00

your teacup brims with starry light, rich
traceries of time - translucent as
fresh raspberries bought

on a day by M. Swann
heaped on fairytale plates that chime
when the scenes shine through

somewhat berry-stained.
bright doves float through your
stained glass hands through

opaline rosaries of the rain and

turned to a strange cessation
in a dream we almost see
the glint of (home):

taking the madeline
dipped in snow
and a nectared universe...

your linden angels pause, mid-air
cognizant of a pale green rustling
but no one's there

just once to say:
Good night, dream's child,
you'll sleep the steeple

out of the sky's
late roses at Combray
and wonder how

it all turned into
stalactite colors overnight
dripping down winter walls

sweet candle-wax and pure
resurgences of rain.

but the 13th guest arrives
mid-scene to no
gold place setting

set with rubies
and who can still the lime-leafed - unrestrained-
lamentation of the rain...

your hawthorn branches
in the dusk
its storied snowy paths more dear

to lead you out of houses here-
this suddenly - no longer home.
but you're still writing when the angels come

the rose-torn chanson of the rain
scratched out, then blooming once again;
they wait for you to finish up

fanning themselves with their crystal haloes
distracted by your clouds of sheer Limoges...

mixing the pink or is it blue
tinctures of remaining skies
you turn to ask them

just to stall:
the peacock or mimosa?
but God turns down the flaring wick

color by color almost
regretfully.
the angels turn:

fiery medallions on their sleeves
like Christmas refractions
most intensely felt,

a silken step...
and mama comes
with a bunch of heliotrope

a fugitive smile then
"Marcel!"
blue violet banks off creamy distances.

prevail in Heaven now
when childhood fears are hushed
and the holy candles lit forever

from hawthorn petals in your hands
you clutched at the last moment
afraid to let go.

how would you ever leave them here-
all your white orchards,
where Beauty's often not revered

along the via dolorosa
and breaks the thin importunate glaze
on a lake of half-way frozen

lies.

and lost and lost
where mirrors on the
other side

can't give the key-light back
of cherished nacre

anymore.

but the phrase in rainbow clarity appears
through veils and veils of summer rain
and this gardenia darkness knows that

every time the music's played.
it rushes on...

mary angela douglas 29-31 may; 1 june 2010

Van Gogh to His Brother, Undated Letter, Summer, 1891

2011-04-07T11:31:00.000-07:00

the yellow leaves were falling
I could not catch them with my hands
the yellow stars and the pastel haloes
round them, ringing like colored glass
and every shade, a sound:
I was painting them mid-flight-
rosettes, like medals pinned against
the night, my
Legion of Honor-
you know, we always knew the
time of orchards was so brief, remember?
the pink and the mauve - the
apricot light - the moment's lightening.

I have a new studio; the walls are iris,
touched with snow.
I'm painting in colors we never
dreamed existed - without haste.
Dear Theo.
nothing is wasted.

mary angela douglas 23 april 2009

Note: I do know that Van Gogh took his life in 1890. I wrote this poem imagining what might have happened if he had held on for another year as it often happens in life that unexpected good happens after tremendous difficulty.

Or the poem can be understood as a message to Theo from Van Gogh in the afterlife where he understands his art completely and is allowed to continue.

Shed No Tears, Fond Unicorn

2011-04-07T11:14:00.001-07:00

shed no tears, fond Unicorn
golden are the tapestries, still,
I leave you to inhabit, shyly on these

museum walls,
in rooms with guilded conversations
guided tours-

beyond burgundy ropes of velvet
graze on, continually - with good will.

your hoof in my hand:

I hope you'll be discreet
munching the shadows of
departing guests

only a little
and the pastel mints at party's end.

Be brave, always.

I'm braiding my primrose stories
just for You

and the farther fields of honour.

mary angela douglas 30 may; 1 june 2010

Around the Fairytale's Gemstoned Page

2011-04-05T10:04:00.001-07:00

to my Grandmother, Lucy W. Young, my Grandfather Milton B. and to Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm, among others...thank you! and thanks are due to God since as a friend once said, "God gives us the fairytales to show us the way home... "(P.S. To my mother too, of course who spoke in syllables of strawberry and utter diamond all the time. really.) around the fairytale's gem-stoned page are sun splattered leaves and berries softening the borders ferny angels lightly penciled in beyond the trees that shift like pedaled dreams on the dream piano of the pale blue country lined with gold I pray to someday rescue if I can- pure swansdown drifts down these elaborate Capitals on every sunset's page the swans revert to children and are saved on the one rock left in the watercoloured whirlpools of their sea- and I skip backwards to a small green house with spearmint strip-ed awnings or a pink- beige brick with picture windows and mimosa trees... you can't fade away along the borders flushed with glaced roses I won't let you- and everytime I close my eyes the skies are pleated with your swans the ruby candlestick in Beauty's room drips very lime-green wax all over my small table with the circus scenes. maybe for childhood's jam-spooned days, alone, they gathered all those startling coronations, words of best green velvet, I don't know how else the carriage came to be cut from the creamy rind of citrus afternoons as if with the golden scissors of a King Hans Christian Anderson it's still me wavering in a pink embroidered dress and golden slippers, wobbling near the icy angels with their candlespun whispering as they say: rework the hidden brocades now of all lost feelings, places, courtiers, things- in snowy silence heaped with silver lilies...shine... I can't break faith with the fairytale task till vaster kingdoms come and my sister's perfect Chopin bubble clears the pink-white-red azaleaed fence while the clouds keep billowing out beneath their clothespins the milk makes butter islands in the oatmeal until- the last sweet early peas are sorted satisfactorily from the Milky Way and kept in the stoppered bottle on our etagere, the one the colour of ashes of roses... but will they turn to diamonds in the end or chicken pie you may well wonder when the curtains close... Grandmother's playing Liebestraum again in her rose taffeta on a rose taffeta staff she turned to diamond music in the end taking my Grandfather's arm and heading upward without her pearl opera glasses but with the Psalms all double scored in moonlight... the day winds down like antique toys in soft yellow chenille- the jeweled heart sifts in the furnace the tin soldier cannot reach the tabletop... someday I will learn to live expecting better swans and in your name I'll find the lemon latitudes so fine of the summers everywhere now- of the hidden mermaids with a sainted love dissolving into foam... mary angela douglas 5 april 2011

Memento Vivere

2011-03-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

in loving memory to my mother, Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas (1927-1993) and
to Sara Teasdale (1894-1933), with abiding respect

pink marigold suns have slipped away
like the cameo cares of Sara Teasdale
but I am here

with the dove-lapsed valentine
folded up I always meant to
send her, across time-

and the air of St. Louis
crumples like rose parchment
kindling lost kingdomes:

are you there?

as I hold out one cream starched
dawn's particular corner
for you to catch- dim orchards washed-

green rains...

forget-me-nots at tea

I'm dreaming a cloud
like an envelope. sepia-dipped
twice over. filled
with your manifold

weeping harps your sunbursts

but it's delayed, misplaced,
and where

will I really be that
ringed with light again
sustaining when I can
the fleeting imprint of so many violet skies...

here at the orphaned window still
I trace your leaves and lilies through the mist
in tinctured starlight
scrapbook cherished
weighing in scales of pearl the clockface moon
but the afternoon grows older, after all

the tide of wishes turns...
above the noise of mere battlefields
every singed and salvaged word

I praise
and look past
the garnet consolations of the epic dead
to see

white wave on wave
of your delight
bright words

never blind, inlaid
like fires in opal
self-contained

the rainbowed startled reveries (of God)
inferred:

and on - at last-
the unclasped fairytale page unwavering
the heart stenciled postscript of the child

who cried for Beauty
and was heard-

mary angela douglas 13-14 march 2011

*"Latin, remember to live"

Dim as the Bride

2011-02-23T09:32:00.000-08:00

dim as the bride
on the last horizon-
all of my snows were home

they have floated now
like light through veiled prisms breaking;
I'm not called away to their collapse.

the offices on the moon are clouded.
there's no line left to stand in here on earth
all of my snows were true

but now, they freeze into
these pale trajectories of flights dismantled
where green grass doesn't stain

where blue is no longer sky yet-
"bends not with the remover to remove"*
love is not love that bruises
the least snowflake fading

though the windlass fails.

now the pollen of my farthest star
is weeping
and someone's yanked the chain
on the light-bulb moon

lily shadows lily

but all my snows
in soft, bright encore reappear
as I am gathering still

these small waxen words revealed
over a roiling sea...

oh icarus
o Christ.

remember me

mary angela douglas 22-23 february 2011
*Shakespeare sonnet

I Looked Up and All the Stars Were Jasmine

2011-02-20T13:16:00.001-08:00

"The call to action last Saturday draw less attention to the Chinese people. However, in Beijing, a man named Liu Xiaobai 25 years old was ambushed by the police when putting jasmine flowers in front of fast food restaurants, especially, McDonald's, which was mentioned as the location of a planned protest, and took some photos there.

"I was very scared when the police took my cell phone. I just put some white flowers. What's wrong with that," said Liu. "I'm an ordinary citizen who love peace."

Security forces intended to arrest Liu previously, but the crowd of journalists initially prevented the arrest. Two other men were also arrested. Not yet clear whether the actions were related to 'Revolution Jasmine'. The arrest took place in Shanghai.

On Sunday, the government went further, reaching the virtual world. Search for the keyword 'jasmine' is blocked in similar micro-blogging site Twitter in China, Renren.com. Not only that, short messaging service via mobile phones are also disturbed."

AP Article found on VIVA newspost Internet Sunday February 20, 2011 after initially hearing about this on BBC Radio
====================================================================================
I looked up and all the stars were jasmine
the moon was veiled in jasmine
the crickets in the dark
sang "jasmine", "jasmine"

in my heart a small white
flower so perfumed
in my heart a small
white flower, delicate, in freedom

bloomed and bloomed.

I looked out and all
the earth was jasmine
folded into Space save in

one place, only-
a poet with one last word to spend
spread a trail of jasmine

and was led away to who
knows where by those afraid
of only flowers.

now the lines on God's own weeping palm
are crossed and crossed again,
but they spell "Jasmine"

and all my tears-
and all my tears-
are jasmine. jasmine.

mary angela douglas 20 february 2011

Many Beautiful Things Are Lost

2011-02-20T13:06:00.000-08:00

many beautiful things are lost
in the sea of forgetfulness
and the clipped birds

from fairytale regions
cannot rise
oh bring to me

as of old
the laden ships
and the gold of words spoken

for beauty alone and for no other reason
so that I am not lost
so that I am not lost-

with them-

mary angela douglas 20 february 2011