Sunday, June 30, 2013

Never Are We To Perceive The Endings In The Clouds

never are we to perceive the endings
in the clouds;
what if they never come?

the dangerous horses pulling the coach

from the cliff as the princess is waving
her handkerchief of  finest mist

then falls away from the orphaned snows.
never in the clouds are we to let go
though everything we hold seems cloud-like to
the point of vanishing before we even know
what we have loved-

if we have loved-
mysterious God beyond reason

mary angela douglas 30 june 2013




Variation With Glitter

you seem to be getting your sparkle
back, my godmother said but not
drily, since this is not modern poetry;
I warned you.

go out to the pumpkin patch…
oh look, godmother, your breakfast is
boiling over, I lied, but only because
I was tired of bringing the pumpkins
in all day for the inspectors
after washing all those dishes.

well that could have happened
if Charles Perrault  had suddenly keeled over
elegantly, of course,

Into his golden baguette before
buttering it...
back to the story.
sparkling takes a lot of work unless

you’re a star or glitter my little sister
said having scattered it
all over the house in her own
personal glitter parade

the moral of the stories
oh my dears my dears
don’t stop shining

mary angela douglas 30 june 2013





Elementary School Daydream Reprise

cross-stitched, my bluebird, on a lemon sky
cross-stitched, my cherry tree
that will never be a pie-
and cross-stitched is the cottage
by the navy blue river I could live in-
if only my stitches were more even.
but I write in sloping letters on the blackboard
I love you all
and it doesn’t seem good enough to the Teacher

and I trip on an untied shoelace on the way
back to my desk near by
the drone of the pencil-sharpener curious.
and I wonder if we’re all meant to have leadership skills
where on God’s earth are they going to get all the followers?


mary angela douglas 30 june 2013




Lost Poets On The Decks Of Their Lost Words

lost poets on the decks of their lost words
are always setting sail and setting sail again
out of our sightless sight when the books are closed…
o open the Moroccan green Atlas
to the page with the sugar-candy stain
or the baby’s tears from 1913
and start, again
to read the golden primers of the sun
and, one by one, even if it takes all day
because
we’ve lost the maps to everything and cannot run.

the princess sits in the corner  incapable of spinning
forgetting  the way that mica flashed  in certain stones
on a path she knew was still her very own
not all that long ago

oh once there was a ship and laden
with so many things, it may be
every one was  only launched
from a far-off time
to thee…

mary angela douglas 30 june 2013

Friday, June 28, 2013

Out Of A Golden Nutshell Or A Sigh

[to poetry, itself]




out of a golden nutshell or a sigh
I whispered to the wind, let it begin.
the moon spilled ivory into my dream



and even the shadows were green.






and I believed in You so much,




how could I understand the outer languages

or why anyone would speak in them at all?




I saw I was here in the hereafter





already looking back on them.





and that was so long ago.

before School.



mary angela douglas 28 june 2013

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Scarecrow Not Quite Dissolving By Orange Lollipop Lamp Light

the scarecrow mixed his tenses but
he smiled
although inside he was

weeping straw, sometimes-

he gestured with his rag-doll hands,

the very soul of courtesy.


oh did you hold onto the tangerine days?

each one was like a best balloon-
and straw-by-straw on your


lopsided way, find everything

was meant for you?

and we were sorry for the times

you skittered into the flame-throwers-

and so happy you were stitched up-

in the end-


mary angela douglas 10=11 february 2010


Thursday, June 20, 2013

Holy Freedom Cried In A Cloud

holy freedom cried in a cloud,
the one that Blake sent
when the winds were soughing

green-starred,


forever at the beginning of all things
I wonder where you are.
holy freedom dreamed apart
far from the frontiers 
where they thought they gathered gold.
and the children weaned on your fairytales no longer
your bright blue that I held in my heart
wandered in a technical wilderness and cried
in the valley where the lilies hung their heads
and sighed not only when the winds blew
where are you

where are you
mary angela douglas 20 june 2013

Thursday, June 13, 2013

To You, Reading Over My Shoulder

to you, reading over my shoulder,


may you find light in unexpected places



may the afternoon suddenly be wrapped in tissue;


ornamented with impossible stars waiting for you

to unwrap: soft pearl bright ribbons of the borealis

may it all unravel like a forgotten birthday.

we are untaught to take the sky-blue end of the crepe paper streamer and
keep following it

I’ll hold the other end

just as if it were a holiday neither one knew about.

there must be cake in here somewhere

they make you look for bitter things in your line of work.

or do they?

let’s pretend I cried only to the wind

you are in a honeycomb, believe me.
do not take burnished flight

until you reach the end of the story, even though-

how could I know the ending you were meant to find,

invisible watcher, watched over by God

reading over my shoulder

or Icarus, in the archives in the very clouds are


the blueprints into freedom someone somewhere stashed 



with a beauty overflowing, a glance over the shoulder

in the kernel of the word within the Word.
(in the government of  God, My King)

mary angela douglas 13 june 2013,27 november 2014