Let's Move Away From Earth

let's move away from earth sang my soul
packing only what is necessary
for the soul to live

forgive the evicters what there is to forgive
and the victors their spoils, after all our toils
and all their souvenirs.

we shall pack light
and Light I echoed
echoing the spheres

transcendent are the skies
the clouds that float and fly
above the exigencies here.

oh God, my soul!
don't let it disappear
here where the waiting lists

grow longer by the hour
the eccentricities
of those in Power.

mary angela douglas 31 october 2018

How Will They Manage The Clouds, I Dreamed

how will they manage the clouds, I dreamed:
when they dissolve in tears.
how will  they fetch their gold from the moon

they banished years and years.
knights fall away from the path of truth;
leaving behind a world of rue.

damsels bury them with no proof
that Love was under the starry roof.
and orphans wail at the vanishing hoof

of the horse sent to save them,
the milk white steed
while kings go on

from greed to greed

but God is God
and need is need
and there is accounting in Heaven.

mary angela douglas 30 october 2018

God Is Not A Game Show Host

God is not a game show host:
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
there to give you what you wish

Spin the wheels and you are rich
He who made the sun and stars
there to shower you with cars

He who made the angels sing
there to pluck you diamond rings.
nothing in this world compares

just to knowing that He cares.
go out on a shopping spree
if that's all you want to be.

as for me, I'd rather have
God as He is
not a wheedled Dad.

mary angela douglas 29 october 2018

For Buzz Aldrin As Interpreted Perhaps By Ray Bradbury

leaving the capsule, veering into space
did he see the moon's scarred face differently
the creases in the lined with silver stars

the probability of where you are and why
in an ancient neighborhood not yet understood
with nothing to lean on really

but the curve of God
how translate this
in any language going home

perhaps he never did trace
it back to the beginning
the backyard sightings

the Tom Swift Lightning in a bottle

the raw silver shod not thy feet oh man
though walking no longer on the ground
all this is holy
did he hear whispered where there was no sound

but Seraphs, implicit.
in a hometown visit.

did he feel lost
or Found...

mary angela douglas 28 october 2018

Bright Penny, Rolled Out Of Sight

she wrote in emerald on the falling clouds
Goodbye to Oz, to the lavender teacups
in the china cabinet

boardwalk taffy and the Land  of Sighs
to everything we were to the rose garden,
scented in the rains

this, my refrain, my canticle falls apart
in the naming of names so Beauty appeared to us then
the shimmering Christmas angels come to

gather us near too
early you cried and hid
in rounded handwriting

Scheaffer penned.
so, our blue room dissolves

I cannot find it again

the only thing I hold onto

is our prayers back then, the lilied verses
when God knew where we were
and still He knows, though wild

the winds have torn us
from the place we loved
and oh sweet Dove of former remembrances

when will we be
bright penny, rolled Where there is only Light

beyond the music of Time.

mary angela douglas 27 october 2018;rev. 2 february 2019

Face To Face With Reality, As They Say

face to face with Reality, as they say
I saw each leaf by God outlined with fire one day
my heart's desire in every wind conveyed

I saw. though I was not seen.
what did I care. I was living like the green world
and in the forest of words

I heard resplendent singing in the silences
in the gaps where beauty perishing remained
behind the fortress walls where I had learned to say

each word like a honeyed clock is ticking
the more I am away;
away from home, forever turning back

forever missing the bus
my train on some irrevocable track
knee deep in homework, far from the flowery fields

I yield to circumstance
I do not yield my crown
indivisible it seems when

I know it's richness to be here
and through the louring clouds to catch
the gleams of the Brighter World

the lapse in suffering
where the diamond light sweeps through.
the towers that I knew.

mary angela douglas 27 october 2018;rev. 2 february 2019

Greater Than Your Disease

where will we land when it's all over
some of the children asked in their sleep
as if they could speak

scoffed the Known, certain of their assessments,
blandishments.
we don't want blandishments

we want home
forever they sighed
the derided, living in their vans

on Ramen and the lean of the land

abscond with the truth and tell "them lies"
and say they have no enterprise
yet God in his golden realms prepares

for these
a homecoming greater
than your disease.

mary angela douglas 25 october 2018

This Strange And Transient Hour

(cradlesong for Titania)

this strange and transient hour
we are here
in fleece of snow or flower

that will disappear
has - Something -
lit within it like a dew drop tear-

lingering, to bear as away,
in any mysterious year.

mary angela douglas 22 october 2018

Waiting For The News To Come

waiting for the news to come of where to go or why or how
is easy for no one to bear especially those who have had
their share of waiting, balancing on a beam not even there

and waiting for what, the axe or the angel
to come floating down with good tidings
warm food, the Deluge

your own door in Heaven if not on earth.
some refuge that wasn't there, a minute before
you could explore infinities while waiting 
the infinitesimal worlds

in the lobbies, the gutters, the basements of the in between
you're living in a dream to keep on living at all
and you wonder 

how long can this go on
how long will I my children or the ones I haven't got
at least the sky will continue

you take comfort there.
they can't evict the air.

mary angela douglas 22 october 2018

The Ash Tree Is Weeping I Said to My God

who else can I talk to about the clouds
about the reasons saints felt clouded over
though the sun within their heart

still shone from the ikon in the corner
in the Cinderella corner, shards of the golden ash
the ash trees weeps in the picture

and I have bound fast the pictures of your Heart
though they came out dim
dim are their rainbows

not their promise
who can I tell what I have found
in the grey edges of the world dissolving

the borderlands as they used to be called
your light neglected the gold of my soul
gathered not even as trash

and in the gutters of the page
where last my heart bled
the space

the miracle
where multitudes are fed

mary angela douglas 19 october 2018

Interruption In Pink

the view from the castle's more charming
when raspberry tarts are near
and chocolate with clotted cream

to drink in a dreamity dream
and you're in blue tulle
not unlike the Blue Fairy

while everyone here is a little bit wary
of telling you lies.
and it's not a disguise,

you are.
in a room to yourself with hydrangeas
a porch and a terrace of stars.

yo're blending xo well with the dusk
that it glitters awhile
but does not beguile the child

who can't stand it any longer
in her PINK tulle and wants to know
what happened to the raspberry something?

and can she please HAVE some now.

mary angela douglas 17 october 2018

A Prayer For Thumbelina

thank You, God- for drawing me through the needle once again
in your inscrutable sewing, mending the hem of my soul
so that my heart no longer ravels out

in the season of snow, the thin atmosphere of this planet.
I hold my jacket tight, the quilted one in a strange, an old rose colour
a dye no longer used

and seek to hide from drafts no longer new
under my Grandmother's golden thimble,
the smallest one.

no longer the roseleaf over my cradle,
the violets song.
I row on filaments though on a moss green pond

I call the sea and rely on Thee seeing
that I make do with homes
snatched from the rainbows, abalone and dew

cast off from sea creatures gone
and paper weights find to weigh me down in the breeze
that puffs the puff ball

when I sneeze.

mary angela douglas 15 october 2018

He Cries Inside

he thinks he's landed in another country
after the bus doors close
in his office best

a new briefcase.
first days are hardest.
no one speaks a word.

what can he say to break the ice
to make the continents drift a little less
he tightens the belt on his raincoat.

he spent his last salary on it.
now he works commissioned.
oh for a swig of coffee from a thermos

but people don't carry lunchboxes
where he works. his new shoes hurt.
they think I'm a jerk he thinks

though really no one thinks of anything at all.
they're still too cold and the bus hasn't heated up.
My car is in the shop he says to explain his

presence among them,
almost apologetic, shy.
no one responds.

he cries inside.

mary angela douglas 15 october 2018

Those Who Understand Orion

those who understand Orion are stately
in their dawn processions to the bus
figuratively on its way

who from childhood could connect the silver dots.
though they wear plaid while kings wear solid colours
still, are they owners of mystery

who stare straight into the winter light
with a fixed gaze needing no newspapers.
unlikely contemplatives

in garish scarves from the Goodwill wound too tight
smelling of mothballs
you sit next to them

only because you must
my car is in the shop you say
no one hears you without knowing

what you mean. you're not the regular riffraff
too finely dressed to ride in coach
to dip your toast in runny egg

at the breakfast diner on the route.
you are astute and think nothing at all of the cattle riding with you;
so peerless are you

in Italian shoes, the standard issue raincoat.
but those of us because we must ride everyday
have learned to do without the hash browns

the glorious paydays

turning ourselves inside out when we are worn
and dreaming of the stars
not of the office parks the scars of the disregarded

in love with light years speeding on a different plane
with God, on a silver highway
in the dark cognizant of the Eternal

His radiant trademarks.

mary angela douglas 15 october 2018

Winter Song From The Snow Queen

to Hans Christian Andersen

she's on her winter planet
under a fleece of stars
but I'm in a blizzard of moonlight

wondering where you are
and why it hurts to breathe here
when flowers of frost appear

and why I have this feeling
at the turning of the year.
too far to measure the distance

that floats between star and star
to undertake the journey
where the earth is diamond hard.

though holly grows under the window
that shines in sapphire blue
and all I can remember
is a little crystal shoe.

that she's on her winter planet
under a fleece of stars
and no one's left to tell me
what the riddles are.

mary angela douglas 13 october 2018

Poem To Sharon, Through The Looking Glass Of Time

to my sister, Sharon F. Douglas


we'll write on the snow in cloud languages
no one will know the poets were here
that someone pushed the swings from behind

so that we landed in different countries
that's where the angels snowdrift through red roofs
or through the yellow skyscrapers

on a blue background
as though you said
as though they were sistines.

we wanted a ceiling of roses
bearing down hard on our old crayons
red and pink, occasional blue green leaves

rococo as the day is long, we laughed.
rococo sipping cocoa.

I pack them up with my tears
remembering sad years,
seraphic, your piano.

its silver blue plink plink.
the rain falling on taffeta.
she plays the music of the spheres

I cried in assembly
no one believed me.

we went on from year to year
surviving adjoining kingdoms
the mustard coloured jester popping out
from the jack in the box of our worst dreams

you wrote on a postcard
in pink ink perhaps from Siena
around the world scenes in our paste them in books

the pines are too beautiful to live on here

let's turn them into far
green angels

mary angela douglas 10 october 2018

On Saint Saens "Aquarium" from The Carnival Of The Animals

ON SAINT SAENS "AQUARIUM' FROM THE CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS


(there are many days when I feel this is the most beautiful piece of music ever written)

to saint saens for the jeweled music, once upons remember when
I think, he dreamed of the Queen's Aquarium
the angel fish, the waving of

the purple and amber fins beyond all this
and this is where she goes toward orchid overtones
in the ruffling palace offended then

to ruminate in silver and blush quartz melting
in mother of pearl and liquidly, paradisically
to fashion a world

where things are smoothed out.no longer quizzical.
and the fish know this as such fish can
who are fed by a royal hand

pure particles of gold. this 
is the turning of the soul
in Eden's shade remade.

in the healing waters of
mysterious days.
ethereal afternoons.

mary angela douglas 7 october 2018/rev. 9 october 2018
(saint saens birthday which I wrote for early, without knowing it then.)

Landscape In Pink Chalk And Green, That Dream

it's never too late
where wishes wait
to open the gate to the same dream landscape

on manila paper
we used to call it vanilla
the teacher unfolded

the one in pastel chalks
two green hills
a very pink sun coming up

between them
as though it had gone to sleep in the hills
and you just woke it up with your oohs and ahs

and if you are careful
if you really try
you can blend the sky

its pink and blue
so that it edges into violet
into violets I thought

in the second grade
I found in the glade
I found in the shade
and loved for a very long time...

mary angela douglas 6 october 2018

Helping The Less Fortunate, Some Notes On The Subject

HELPING THE LESS FORTUNATE, SOME NOTES ON THE SUBJECT

(God Bless Everyone Who Ever Helped Anyone Still Feel Like Themselves)

I think the less fortunate

is a most unfortunate phrase

I know it's meant to convey kindness.

try this test at home while you've still got one.

home AND a mirror.

stare into a large mirror, or a small one will do:

one that hasn't been pawned yet.

murmur to yourself
I'm the less fortunate,

now try the whole phrase

as it usually occurs in nature:

helping the less fortunate.

helping me, the less fortunate, they are.

feeling the spirit of Christmas and the Star.

when you're not the one needing help

it gives you a little glow, doesn't it.

it used to give me that glow.

until I was somehow checkerboard moved

for some time, though I worked hard all my days

into that very cage of the extremely unpraised,

the less fortunate.

some kind of game piece indeed

then I felt differently.

no one believed me when I said I prayed.

I love God. Im not bipolar. I don't drink.

or run around all over town

They looked skeptical and kept on taking notes.

delusional I read upside down.

sometimes they seemed to be gloating

then I felt so detached I was floating above them

watching them from the ceiling

and saw they were doodling on the clipboard.

I saw they were thinking of lunch (their own).

I can tell you for sure

this is hard to endure

especially at Christmas

being considered "less fortunate'

watching the tv bolted to the ceiling

in the next to last place to ask

you're in that particular caste

knowing, they think you'd steal it.

bolts and all.

oh holly dolly

each time the kettle bell rings

nothing to carol about except the King

do you know what I mean

but He's the main thing!

little match girl stare into the flame

to find your Grandmother again

I want to say to any girl feeling this way.

it's as if they are calling your name

each time that they explain

this is for the less fortunate

you you you are less fortunate
not like me in my Italian heels
well matched with my dangly earrings

turned out as if for the Queen
making the non profit scene

it's not appealing to be dealt with this way.

unless you remember back in the day

that when Joseph and Mary

arrived at the inn even being less fortunate

wouldn't get them in.

I remember the less fortunate early martyrs

being fed to the fortunate lions.

no helping there.

it's not a feeling you want to share.

try it now. say it.

I AM THE LESS FORTUNATE.

are you walking on air?

I'M THE ONE YOU WANT TO HELP

HELPING YOU TO BUBBLE OVER WITH GOOD WILL.

I'm in that tribe.

while I'm alive I'm just that prop

with feeling still.

against my will

you make me sup

at the less than table wearing that label

and give yourself banquets in the sweet Spring

and prizes for doing oh everything

to help but you know some people

just won't help themselves

the banquetees agree

the honored speaker

when all I really need

is to feel like I am the same person

I was before

when I had my own door

and I know I am.though you don't understand.

Was Jesus the same man

when he hung on the cross

and they tossed the dice for his last garment.

Give HIM free clothes. Ask him what he's addicted to.

He'll answer Love. God.

all of you.

Show HIM how to make a budget.

who made the whole world.

how to make do with 15 cans of corn.

picture now yourself

in the self same flapping shoes

hearing your 'name' on the news.

"at this time of year, helping the less fortunate

disappear beyond all christening.

do you feel helped? feel Christmasy, do you?

do you feel You?

mary angela douglas 5 october 2018

The Fairy Tale Not In the Corrected Editions

(in allusive reverence for Charles Dickens Fairy Tale "The Magic Fishbone"as concerning Present Time)

ah, my bent fairy tale
who will straighten your spine
correct your magic fishbone now
dare I wonder aloud in the milk white wood
in the season of misunderstood
this harvest of weeping pearl
half murmured to no crowd at all.
yet to the singular heart, a Throne
that's recognized.
be good then and don't.
that was the quote from the godmother dressed
in peach and pale silver far from the
census of what is allowed.
I will bury your treasure
in deep snow, forgoing all roses
forgetting all else I know
standing guard in white velvet.
that the children may not wander alone
without a single glimmer
vacant flowers in their eyes.
what is bending for sighed Light but for
jewel like refraction (as in rainbows)
wishes don't grow
on the tree of coercion
measuring your shadow's height
on the executioner's wall
ah, ah, my bent fairy tale. No.
not at all.

mary angela douglas 5 october 2018

In October, Commemorating Ray

(For Ray Bradbury


always we banked on another sunflower sun beside

a timeless river of stories

or the green one

with the pop up trees

the thinness of oxygen on other planets

yet, the rustling of leaves.


through the drear trees

another race run

in orange October finely spun

poster board orange shouting


I am the one

the one with all the stories

bursting out of pockets, old lockets

the closets stashed with them

the fireworked Rockets;


making hash posthaste

never to waste the Sun


getting it all down

the cosmic reporter. back in town

back with the story, that's him

grinning that grin

gulping hot dogs, washed down with

fountain sodas

any modus operandi you have ever heard of,

forget it. Bradbury's got his own

his very own carnival, circus train


arriving at 3 a.m. with the elephants, the mystical elephants

the dinosaurs bewitched by foghorns


go twirl the dark green dial back the

leatherette luncheonette stools

the ceiling fans unwinding summers slowly



so that you taste again the potato salad, cherry phosphate

nobody makes like that anymore the fried doughnuts


and you are out the door in brand new tennis shoes

racing with the leaves



across the lawns of the Carnegie library

breathing in all the book fragrances

as if there had been

some harvest of gold.o keeping the spell


of all the stories ever told you,

you would ever tell.



mary angela douglas 4 october 2018

Here's To The Candy Corn

october winds have gathered
the moon is on the trail
the children go ghost sheeted

and the branches scratching wail.
our hearts were high for candies
the risk we didn't mind.

when folks latched up their shutters
and swiftly shut the blinds.
we knew they owed us greatly

at the turning of the year
like pirates out for treasure
with foil wrapped cutlass, spear

tiaras in the daylight grew paler in the shade
and we were ghosts of princesses
who wandered dale by dale.

we prayed for chocolate kisses
three muskateers and more
we prayed and prayed on Sundays

for pounds of candy corn.
how well can I remember
the plunder that we made

rejoicing over chocolate
over licorice, dismayed.
how simple then to gather

from neighbors of good will
a cup of apple cider, a brownie
what a thrill.

or caramel covered apple
a ghostly tale or two
and then to plunge through darkness

to safer shores we knew.

mary angela douglas 4 october 2018

John Keats Between, What Is Written, What Is Dreamed

between what is written

and what is dreamed
I saw a thin, a golden margent

and the seas rushing over it
the seawall, the rushing words
becoming music, after all

in the tree shade as it was remembered
and the days dripping down like the honeycomb
the moon, its silver door left ajar.

come tell me where you are now
something called.
I couldn’t say it all

in nightingales, in urns
in the mauve turning of the stair
into the everywhere

I tried.
until I died.

a maiden cried:
plant myrtle- here.

mary angela douglas 4 october 2018

On The Princess Aurora, Certain Lies

how can  roses bloom in a thicket of lies
the townspeople never asked
the ones who kept her legend alive,

the Princess Aurora.
sleep where there is no dawn
but empires poorly run

the evil fairy screamed.

dream though the world
seems a nightmare.
this small children knew

and they grew up
to know it even more.
and closed their ears in school

when errant teachers droned
dream is an insubstantial verb,
what can you do when every word's ill spun

that's bright and winged and wants to sing
is shot down;then the fogs roll in
and misanthropes hold sway

who think they own the day
and put the Sun in chains.
and tell you how to

rearrange the furniture of your Soul.
I don't care how many naysayers say
the truth is not the truth

I'll never swallow it whole.

the rose still bloomed in a thicket of lies
more roses, besides
and truth, real truth

can never be undermined.

mary angela douglas 3 october 2018