Drif(ting Into God

to Matthew Arnold

to Alfred Lord Tennyson

parrot gaudy, carnival emblematic the stream of human events
we watched over Avalon, Camelot
the faring Fair and thought of this: the hidden life

as on the other side of a mirror recessive, recessional
the nightingale furled music killed despair
the saints and fools for God achieved finally

their very own silence.

which to choose the candled gloom or the rainbow riot
each must choose beyond the news, the collective summing up.that signifies, nothing, really.

swans as they vanish leave a trace
as Jesus did on the Loving Cup
of what has been and of the Return.

we seized our chance for a furtive glance perhaps
and were doomed to litter the knight bled trail.
but saints, they know whose they should be

still seek the Grail,

and where to go even to obscurity or further into woe
it still, it will always come up Gold.
and where far from the madding crowd

as the expression goes
oblivious as snows they are
drifting into God.

mary angela douglas 29 september 2018

That I May Be

the heart's own music will you find again
tucked away in some old book
the looking glass river sifting gold

roll on o dreamers, pioneers of the bygone
across the invisible prairies now
and show us how to mend our ghosts

the skies are dim with premonitions of the late snows
the Heavenly hosts
my Grandmother sews the windows shut

on the crisscross house and I thread the needle

as she did one cerise length of thread to finish up
the embroidered heart
to freshen anew with bluebird floss

remaining days

that I may be a gloss in the margin of
American poetry.

mary angela douglas 29 september 2018

Who Wouldn't Have Wanted

who wouldn't have wanted
the valentine with the bluebirds
hoisting the pink satin ribbon

over the girl with pink flounced skirts
carrying her basket of roses, wearing
as well a festooned shawl

and she is a rose, the chief rose
on the valentine
with her picture hat

and one rose there
near the brim
and the light is crystal clear around her

there where there is no weeping
but a sunny lane
a small house

with slate blue shutters
and it's early morning's
faint pinkness in the skies,
no cloud of war.

mary angela douglas 29 september 2018

Otherwise

were we the sailors on the seas of laments
perhaps we wondered in the afterlife of smiles
of the new grass green

new blossoms not that hardy in the snows
all we know, she sighed
so small it could fit into a fairy tale's thimble

who will dissemble
before the little children
I used to think

now I know.
little flowers in the snow
I dream of you sometimes

and pray it was God that plucked you out.
let philosophers dream the earth as mirage
the children know through tears so often,

otherwise

mary angela douglas 28 september 2018

The Dreaming Room

how did it get here we wondered
when we first found it,
the dreaming room
did someone dream it here

pulling it in like a kite,
or a scarf of Art Deco flair?

they must have dreamt strong
because it didn't disappear
though it abounds with blue mists
vagrant sparkles

will we get out again
that depends
on so many things
it would take a lifetime to tell

and another lifetime
to recite it all competently
as though you were in
a schoolroom of dreams

aren't we
she softly asked
stuffing a silver knapsack full
of sapphire sparkles,

of the Timeless;
while I, well I lost track
how will we ever
find our way back

we will do well.
wearing God like a beautiful Shell...

mary angela douglas 26 september 2018

What To Pack In An Emergency

three acorns full of sudden illumination
three dresses to match
a match

and a thousand candles
the Gospel of John
a rug to fly upon

rose seed, the King's own sealing wax
the golden stamped insignia to go with
a child in need of fairy tales

the fairy tales themselves
the Book of Kells and gingerbread

a rain cloud's wishing well, a featherbed
with multicoloured quilts innumerable
and a pda

the spell of human kindness.
green leaves

in case the new planet doesn't have any
a Christmas toy train that runs at all speeds
through a welcoming village

the radio from Cocteau's film
that only telegraphs poetry
silver songs, indifferent swans slightly rumpled

a cherry orchard
that cannot be felled.

mary angela douglas 25 september 2018

I Could Weep For Joy

the last wick of the blue dusk verging on nightfall
I saw once in a dream in the twilight that precedes
wakefulness

and it seemed to me the angels were saying goodbye
and I was still in my grandparents house in the room
with the taffeta spread, the frost white curtains

the earlier blue of twilight
and I remembered a dress that colour
I wore once with a tea rose

picked from our garden.
there are moments cloudlike
in the silver treasury of my mind

so that despondent angels sing suddenly
though it isn't Christmas
and when I see my face in the mirror then

it seems also lined in silver
like a sudden cameo in the gloom
or a star in the spring evening

when someone is playing the piano
and I could weep for joy.

mary angela douglas 23 september 2018

Postcard To My Sister From The Magic Kingdom

maybe we will write again with the ruby, the emerald fountain pens
we got one Christmas
on fine tea coloured parchment as on clouds

with mysterious rays of light falling down
as we fell in rings o roseys to the ground
when poetry was still allowed

and fairy tales recounted
in swan whisperings, enchantments of the Rose.

and we will write all birthday crowned of those
and maypole streaming of what we found
in the school Lost and Found

in the square dances on the early stages
dear Virginia reels,and folkloric ones too
when our favorite costume was the gipsy skirt

(or the pink tutu)

the peasant blouse, embroidered
the lustrous dime store beads
in many colours rivaling Joseph's coat.

in particolored ways we wandered
on strawberry sundress afternoons
a little confused thinking

shouldn't sundaes be consumed on Sundays
and why are Hush Puppies edible, and yet shoes?
till we found our language all apricot filling filled

bursting at the seams with extra cherries
the Frontier and Tomorrow Land.

I'll dial you up on the red plastic phone
that Mickey's voice came through on
or Donald, or Pluto

and we'll be Mouseketeers again
loyal to the end
counting our red gold pennies for the pilgrimage

to the pink and blue castles, by turns.

I won't say everything was perfect then
but in imagination world's fairs and all
it really was spectacular

and all of it in living colour thru the Vu Finder,
Living Stereo, razzle dazzle colour wheel turning
on our aluminum Christmas Tree.

mary angela douglas september 22 2018/rev. 4 december 2018

To The Beautiful City In Waiting

I had brought no silver but the moon
no gold but the sun
I was remiss to everyone

all winter the earth wore white
beyond Labor Day
to whom shall I complain

cried the complaint to the lute
the Madrigal across time
I sang at the doll sized sink

or amid the eglantine in Keats or in
the remnants of the Beautiful City.
I was housed there

but mainly in my mind
anchored in mist
anchored in mist and God

I rose to tell you this
but you, you persisted.
banishing me again.

mary angela douglas 20 september 2018

The Black Evening Gown With Its Single Rose Found

I see the black evening gown as a pure object
with the familiar delight of its off the shoulder rose
the rose being a true red, not a false one

and layers of black tulle
with their occasional sparkles sewn in
oh, are they jewels? we wonder with delight

like those sewn into the clouds when they break apart
like the light of small small stars in the evening

I think of the play by Maeterlinck
and this is the costume for night
Night in an allegory

with its exquisite red rose
we point it out in the picture
see? it's the same one

its puzzle pieces of little stars
oh purest of gowns

then, the costume of sheer poetry
nightfall and the blue dusk leaving us behind
at dreamland's dreamy edge

with the scent of violet cologne

when my mother bends down in the old novel
we made up for her
kissing us before she turns to go

leaving us with realms of Let's Pretend

to step silkenly
into a golden carriage.
the one we knew was coming for her

at the End.

mary angela douglas 19 september 2018

The Jeweled Way Is Gone

maybe holy angels then inspired us
building up our defenses of beauty
against the cruelties lapping at our door

this was what the grownups called playing.
with all conceivable blocks we built the playhouse
the one we would live in evermore

when the storms came battering
the trick or treat scares,
silos for the candy corn.

Ive thought a lot about it
how the green trees made our grove
long after the leaves, even the trees

were felled.
and how the wishing wells in the picture books
looked so realistic

we believed in so much then.
now I think of little children
little children in school

day by day forced to call it the environment
when for us it was the faery woods.
what is gained I wonder

stripping the branches bare of the gold leaf
the veins of gold, the ramifications
and the ramparts too

of invisible kingdoms.
the jeweled way of measuring the worlds.

mary angela douglas 19 september2018

Be At Rest. The Ark Has Landed

I dreamed we were going home
not the last one. but the first
the one with the pale blue walls

the glass swans sailing
on the toy river
the lost thimble found

the thimble of gold
the locket of silver
the baby locks of hair

she must have kept somewhere,
our fond Grandmother.with the musical flair
there was the magnolia

floating in the silver bowl
the way she placed it, always just so
the theme from Paliacci...

the pine needles all over the

lavender rug
the Christmas tree still resplendent
and autumn's apples

summers nursery rhymes.
how far we have gone to lose you
every time beyond the bright mirrors

in the strange encryptions of the world
it was hardly the fairy tale road
and yet, there was gold.

that never disappeared
let us be launching now
caught out with our nets of dream

our natal stars
knowing where we are now
that it was Heaven

and will be, again.

mary angela douglas 18 september 2018

I Saw The Ghosts Of Roses Rise

to Alfred Lord Tennyson

“…My children, who do not lie.”-The Holy Bible

I saw the ghosts of roses rise
the hour that the Princess died
that way of looking at the world

died with her.
then poetry unfurled
the thin silk scarf of grey

the thread of warning.
I saw the clouds disperse
but only to reveal blank skies

blank pages blank Ages
a spark gone out in the eyes
of everyone, it seemed that way

to me then when
I saw the henchmen looking for that spark
only to quench it.

the execution of children
by subtle means
the ones who still dreamt

when they slept
and in between assignments
on the crumbling steps of all parthenons

the unscheduled dreams…
we met in grottos

our candles of thin means melted down
and remembered when Song
was the highest art

for what it dared impart
to the human heart
of the Divine.

Oh King in exile
your children too
refuse to honor the wastelands

just like You

to drink from the professional cup
when the empty toasts go round
to sound the trumpet

of the vacuous – New.

mary angela douglas 18 september 2018

Hyping The Hurricane

I was alive when they were hyping the hurricane

while in the shadows of small riverbank towns
the floods really did come.

the shadows thickened in the mud flats
the tree frogs sang.
then we were a million miles from home

home floating off as if it were a barge
so far from Homer and all his songs.
they were all out

hyping the hurricane. so long, they said to us
while we just prayed.

in a parallel universe
they remained
on a flickering tv screen.

seeming to me at least a bit insincere.

drowned crickets sang
their angel ghosts
the Heavenly Host

the ghosts of summers drowned.
what does truth matter anyhow
when they lie about the weather

some places got no rain at all.

they think we are too Southland
small and stupid to notice
when rain gets hyped

and small towns too.

and who is who
and catfish fried
where someone died

and water burials
lily pad dreams.
and schemes of those out

hyping the hurricane.

those of us
who really miss our homes.
who care about the details.

of an elegiac sadness
getting the story right.
staying up all night because its

us you know
with no place left to go
no games to play

with an ear out for rushing water.
oh sons and daughters of the being not seeming.
look to your redeeming.

the folklore of the free
who can still see things with their own eyes.
and know the wisemen really did come at Christmas.

no matter what the papers say.

mary angela douglas 17 september 2018

Codes

things are coded
each in their own way
I can't explain it

but I know it is that way
even the trees
their tree codes whisper

in the light of day
and when the stars appear
the trees are near

and understand the star codes
year by year
ring by ring

the angels sing
the green trees fire
is lovelier than we can see

and God has the key
also to you
maybe to me

reading the codes
in dreams where
it's always snowing.

mary angela douglas 18 september 2018

Let The Waters Go Down

let the waters go down
the beautiful waters
the fountaining fountains

the healing waters return
the trees uprooted reverse
their green in the greening sun

that we may pour distress
no longer from the silver pitcher
into the golden

the golden into the silver
let the waters be blessed
as they go down

into the ground
or vanished into the air
with all our cares

let the rivers be swollen no more
your rainbows hidden from us
your rainbows drowning headfirst into

the sea
let the seas recede
and with them our fears

the diminishing years
the nations of our scorned
the scorning thorn

grown up among us
as if it were a brother
the spoiling foxes

among the purple vines
in time, before time
before the chime of our last heart

is chimed in the sullen land
let the waters recede
at your command oh Lord of

the heedless waters
of the floods of our tears
and the thieving, thieving years.

the grieving of statues
who were men
turned to stone.

no more
and the loved shores again
returned

yearned for in the little dreams of children.

mary angela douglas 18 september 2018

It Was Not The Way They Said It Would Be

I see the patchwork on His stars
how He is holding us all together
in the supposed flood zones

I see how the flood doesn't come
not the way that agrees with the models

outwitting all predictions.
the rain is soothed

going as if in a dream into mist
some other way.
predictions fail.

the bold pronouncements
this and then that
the flood plains drowned

but the wind is stilled.

love remains
He remains patching the stars
they shine in us

and there is no flood
no flood at all not the epic one
they wanted to come

since it would prove 
their predictions true.
no rivers cresting

in the small and ever smaller midnights
I forsee 

overreaching their banks
swallowing us whole.
rremulous, discounted, not in the mix

 we lift the lamp of faith

above the dark caverns
and men are angry
who don't know themselves

why they fight so hard
for the floods to prevail
while the floods fail

and the patched stars shine.

mary angela douglas 15 september 2018

Some Days I Just Want This

some days I just want to look at the land
at the bands of rain sweeping over it
in crystalline beading

at the green haze of trees sponged in
as if in some middle distance painted
by an unknown painter, not me,

who can only gaze and gaze
into the violet blue of skies
above thunderheads

the cream of what's left of the day
brimming, the birds skimming
thin gold off the horizon

the moon made new.

those days I cannot speak at all
or be spoken of
be spoken to.

what language is greater than this
to see no matter how briefly
to feel

the scope of it all.
to be caught in the rains in this way
may be sheer Heaven in the end

to feel as Whitman did
the sacredness of grass, blade by miraculous blade
the petal of shade falling over it now

near nightfall
the rich eventide the hushed etude of the soul
even with its scarcity, cloud covered,

of stars.

mary angela douglas 13 september 2018

Lo How A Rose On The Down Low...

"amid the cold of winter, when half spent was the Night."
from the Christmas carol. "Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming."


the maiden speech of the maidens cancelled
the filmy veils wrecked
because the dragons were hungry

no longer circumspect

this was left off the menu
the literature of the field
the field where lances broke

against the Invisible
and on covenant lands,
the quiring angels queing up

for the inevitable downtown sunsets

or the food trucks
of the newly glitzed
the condo served.

oh poetry my lost
amongst the herds trampled
the popcorn crowds exiting

and under a sullen moon
no longer recited.

while we make our covert home
among the briars
waiting for the resurgence

of the Rose.

mary angela douglas 9 september 2018

Even If We Are Scattered

even if we are scattered to seven winds
so that our dust flies up in the face of
the disgraced

our candlewick snuffed by a wind in transit 
prelude to December=
God will puzzle out the pieces of our diamond souls

we will return as snow

I will she said, clutching Hansel's hand
purpling as night the shadows around them
as though they were berry stained.

there had been no berries that day.
the doves took the bread away.
they ate music out of the sky

oh skylark, skylark
what am I
neither bread nor berry

that they may get by.
and scarcely, music.

mary angela douglas 9 september 2018

After Awhile

we'll live like gypsies after awhlle
or at least, the ones in folktales
and live in places under the stars

with no bugs.
and beat the rugs until they shine
like fairy gold.

maybe we-ll find
abandoned castles
with the feasts newly laid

in summer, sudden shade.
and lemonade.
and children will grow used

to the sound of the sea
and need nothing from the earth anymore
but a secret door

into God.
a million scarves
the color of sunsets.

hope as blue as larkspur.

mary angela douglas 9 september 2018