your slanted chalkboard writing tells the tale
or mirrorback, the night has lost its stars!
so children have to wander very far
from where they started from.
I strike the drum or listen for the chime
that God and I know floats as only mine
upon a wind as crystal as it's clear
your shadow's growing brighter
year to year when measured
on a birthday yardstick morning.
stop. the music's decrescendo here
and let the river Poetry go on
beyond the hills that stared at you so long
in every single place you ever knew
so that you loved the colour blue heedlessly,
until it wasn't there at all.
mary angela douglas 30 july 2019
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Monday, July 29, 2019
Though The Snow Melts At The Poles
we search for what is fallen apart even at the very start
to bring the snow child back to life
is to endure perpetual winter
who could pay that price
and so when spring with her lilacs
sings we mourn
against the grain of things.
forlorn it is and always was
to seek from others hidden Cause
the heart must know what it knows, alone
though the snow melts at the poles
and floods it all.
mary angela douglas 29 july 2019
to bring the snow child back to life
is to endure perpetual winter
who could pay that price
and so when spring with her lilacs
sings we mourn
against the grain of things.
forlorn it is and always was
to seek from others hidden Cause
the heart must know what it knows, alone
though the snow melts at the poles
and floods it all.
mary angela douglas 29 july 2019
Publish It To The Air
with blue or is it the red pencil this time
do they really tell you where to breathe
in your own poem
fantastical I said but under my breath
when I understood this was true.
no editors then
but publish it to the air
that those who bore the poem
from that world into this
should edit themselves and remain free
even without recompense
and let my words die on the wind
if I must send to another
in this wilderness
to know my own child.
mary angela douglas 29 july 2019
do they really tell you where to breathe
in your own poem
fantastical I said but under my breath
when I understood this was true.
no editors then
but publish it to the air
that those who bore the poem
from that world into this
should edit themselves and remain free
even without recompense
and let my words die on the wind
if I must send to another
in this wilderness
to know my own child.
mary angela douglas 29 july 2019
Sunday, July 28, 2019
It Is No Marvel After All These Wars
'...Irish poets, learn your trade...'William Butler Yeats
it is no marvel after all these wars
that we should tune the harp once moreand find in every leaf and fin
a gold that limns it all.
Yeats came not to vanish here.
become the sound of distant spheres
disclose the waning, yearning years
and bring to light their sullen eclipse.
let jewels still fall from poet's lips
who know the mysteries are real
who dare to form from what they feel
a music keened, a boat well keeled
and let the winds of God drive on
in every trembling, rose like song but
rooted in a firmer zeal
in beauty founded, found again
beyond the weal of human sin
let heart be tested in the fire
and find in words the worlds expired
that lived on in the banished soul.
let language be the bell that tolls.
and not the slogan that pretends.
mary angela douglas 28 july 2019
The Moon At My Window For Free
sent on a mission to mars and afraid of heights
would I conquer my fear if not the Martians
mending my parachute year to year
having barely mastered sewing on buttons
of a silver, a milky hue like light streaming through
whatever place I was dreaming in at the time.
I practiced gliding in my room in my bright shoes
while reading the news and counting down the days.
but no one was buying it.
who am I to sell moonlight in a jar
red rocks from a distant star
but keep in mind
others went out to the gold mines on a whim
and found nothing then
but empty pockets nights of no diamond sleeping.
I hope to write no resume someday
to live on a planet where this is not required
to define why I should be paid by the hour
when I have Mystery, the moon at my window
for free and all the pearl glorias
singing inside me.
mary angela douglas 28 july 2019
would I conquer my fear if not the Martians
mending my parachute year to year
having barely mastered sewing on buttons
of a silver, a milky hue like light streaming through
whatever place I was dreaming in at the time.
I practiced gliding in my room in my bright shoes
while reading the news and counting down the days.
but no one was buying it.
who am I to sell moonlight in a jar
red rocks from a distant star
but keep in mind
others went out to the gold mines on a whim
and found nothing then
but empty pockets nights of no diamond sleeping.
I hope to write no resume someday
to live on a planet where this is not required
to define why I should be paid by the hour
when I have Mystery, the moon at my window
for free and all the pearl glorias
singing inside me.
mary angela douglas 28 july 2019
Saturday, July 27, 2019
The Dream Of The Apples She Will Not Forsake
for Marie Foster Douglas Smith
I have seen clouded apple trees in dreams
in idealized paintings pale under moonlight
scene by scene
pink in the flush of the milk skeined skies
not wanting to depart.
my heart my heart its madrigal
of staying weeps and clings to the branches
as if I were those native birds
because I know I am bourne up by those mists
that cloudiness in the marble that is pure azure.
what good can you do to tell me in so many words
I am making this up when I sense they are
beckoning me in orchards of the Unseen
I am meant to pluck, by and by such largesse
you say I waste time dreaming, I should confess
my waywardness
but you lie.
everything is there on the underside of the leaves
and their breathing and all that green
blossoming into white, or cast into a pink shade
is Heaven to me
and whether I sleep or wake
you cannot take it from me.
mary angela dougla 27 july 2019
I have seen clouded apple trees in dreams
in idealized paintings pale under moonlight
scene by scene
pink in the flush of the milk skeined skies
not wanting to depart.
my heart my heart its madrigal
of staying weeps and clings to the branches
as if I were those native birds
because I know I am bourne up by those mists
that cloudiness in the marble that is pure azure.
what good can you do to tell me in so many words
I am making this up when I sense they are
beckoning me in orchards of the Unseen
I am meant to pluck, by and by such largesse
you say I waste time dreaming, I should confess
my waywardness
but you lie.
everything is there on the underside of the leaves
and their breathing and all that green
blossoming into white, or cast into a pink shade
is Heaven to me
and whether I sleep or wake
you cannot take it from me.
mary angela dougla 27 july 2019
As If The Trees Could Not Help;or Dystopia In Its Meager Hour; Or The Brightest Light Bulbs In The Room
As If The Trees Could Not Help;Or Dystopia In Its Meager Hour;Or The Brightest Light Bulbs In The Room...
as if the trees could not help but burst into flowers
nor the stars swirl into galaxies without them
or streams run under the summer sun
they have decreed all things to grow
in depressing mandates issued by the score
and as they see it, are charged
with telling us so. even how to breathe.
this is the nightmare role
they have conceived
who take notes on the less fortunate
they suppose are unelightened or just plain lazy.
the lightest reading ot the old forgotten tales
would enlighten them
that men perceived to be in ill fortune
are often the most blessed.
but you can't tell them anything
they don't think
they already know unless they can think
that you know less o so much less
though you are schooled in great distress
they imagine they were the first
to come to all knowledge.
and have degrees from every college,
earned or not.
lead the horses to water as you will
they will not drink
no matter what their thirst
unless you think they thought of it first.
mary angela douglas 27 july 2019
as if the trees could not help but burst into flowers
nor the stars swirl into galaxies without them
or streams run under the summer sun
they have decreed all things to grow
in depressing mandates issued by the score
and as they see it, are charged
with telling us so. even how to breathe.
this is the nightmare role
they have conceived
who take notes on the less fortunate
they suppose are unelightened or just plain lazy.
the lightest reading ot the old forgotten tales
would enlighten them
that men perceived to be in ill fortune
are often the most blessed.
but you can't tell them anything
they don't think
they already know unless they can think
that you know less o so much less
though you are schooled in great distress
they imagine they were the first
to come to all knowledge.
and have degrees from every college,
earned or not.
lead the horses to water as you will
they will not drink
no matter what their thirst
unless you think they thought of it first.
mary angela douglas 27 july 2019
Corner Of The Sky
that's your corner of the sky
I whispered to no one standing by
to those who had gone before me unexpectedly
so that the day forever was divided into two parts
the part when I thought they were still on earth
and the part where it seemed to break down
why is there such a veil between heaven and earth
I asked the rains when they swept like the harp glissandos
music, over pain
oh our Sustaining cannot be measured
like a star for magnitude
that's your corner of the sky I sang and sang
and prayed that it was true.
mary angela douglas 27 july 2019
I whispered to no one standing by
to those who had gone before me unexpectedly
so that the day forever was divided into two parts
the part when I thought they were still on earth
and the part where it seemed to break down
why is there such a veil between heaven and earth
I asked the rains when they swept like the harp glissandos
music, over pain
oh our Sustaining cannot be measured
like a star for magnitude
that's your corner of the sky I sang and sang
and prayed that it was true.
mary angela douglas 27 july 2019
Friday, July 26, 2019
How Much They Had To Bear
how much they had to bear merely for spice and silk,
for teas all those mariners, explorers
putting out to sea
to regions, routes unknown
how much more those torn
from home never to see again
their own blue mountains
and the savannahs, only in dreams
mid scream, in silence, tears the horror filled reckoning
of where they had to be, slowly, settling in.
how can we pay them back the years, the centuries
they lost, their God given time on earth dispersed
in slavery
only the blood of Christ can mend.
I think back then when we were young
imagining pirates and the treasure they found
we didn't know that men were bound and gagged
thrown over board on land
while preachers preached as preachers can
obedience as in the Greek
there were slave and free
as if that were how it's supposed to be
my God. forgive the double edged tongue
the shady groves of Kingdom Come
the riches from vile sorrows wrung
the child in exile from the mother's love.
the sweet, the sweet and ravished doves.
dear God dear God what have we done oh
let clear liberty ring again
for all of those whom our God called men
someday to say that we were all friends in Eden
before we let the Serpent in.
and only in God
may we be, again.
mary angela douglas 26 july 2019
for teas all those mariners, explorers
putting out to sea
to regions, routes unknown
how much more those torn
from home never to see again
their own blue mountains
and the savannahs, only in dreams
mid scream, in silence, tears the horror filled reckoning
of where they had to be, slowly, settling in.
how can we pay them back the years, the centuries
they lost, their God given time on earth dispersed
in slavery
only the blood of Christ can mend.
I think back then when we were young
imagining pirates and the treasure they found
we didn't know that men were bound and gagged
thrown over board on land
while preachers preached as preachers can
obedience as in the Greek
there were slave and free
as if that were how it's supposed to be
my God. forgive the double edged tongue
the shady groves of Kingdom Come
the riches from vile sorrows wrung
the child in exile from the mother's love.
the sweet, the sweet and ravished doves.
dear God dear God what have we done oh
let clear liberty ring again
for all of those whom our God called men
someday to say that we were all friends in Eden
before we let the Serpent in.
and only in God
may we be, again.
mary angela douglas 26 july 2019
On The Veracity Of Fairy Tales (Final Draft)
I was thinking about the fairy tale lore
how often it speaks to distinguishing
the false from the true
and yet it is condemned as being
out of reality by sniffy people
looking straight through you,
you, who persist in cherishing them,
the old tales,
whatever else you do,
are deemed fools.
but this is the vein of gold
running through the marble immutable
not to be bought or sold
but earned.
and the heartfelt bird
sings more true
than the mechanical one breaking down.
look, look what I found
I ran to tell my mother,
my grandparents too, though they were gone
who schooled me in them.
all those ardent stories
though now they are disabused
(the children), from reading them
and given sand in a tea cup
by the witches turning them
into political fables
disabling beauty and the good
as if they could
in a turgid, not, an embellished Wood
yet, in the original, what else could we use
when the Soul is falling, falling down or bruised
or pushed from behind.
time out of mind.
the best that can be found,
all, all I know:
the dog with its jeweled bone;
peculiar moonlight when the breadcrumbs are all gone;
the road lined in opals is leading straight home.
mary angela douglas 26 july 2019
how often it speaks to distinguishing
the false from the true
and yet it is condemned as being
out of reality by sniffy people
looking straight through you,
you, who persist in cherishing them,
the old tales,
whatever else you do,
are deemed fools.
but this is the vein of gold
running through the marble immutable
not to be bought or sold
but earned.
and the heartfelt bird
sings more true
than the mechanical one breaking down.
look, look what I found
I ran to tell my mother,
my grandparents too, though they were gone
who schooled me in them.
all those ardent stories
though now they are disabused
(the children), from reading them
and given sand in a tea cup
by the witches turning them
into political fables
disabling beauty and the good
as if they could
in a turgid, not, an embellished Wood
yet, in the original, what else could we use
when the Soul is falling, falling down or bruised
or pushed from behind.
time out of mind.
the best that can be found,
all, all I know:
the dog with its jeweled bone;
peculiar moonlight when the breadcrumbs are all gone;
the road lined in opals is leading straight home.
mary angela douglas 26 july 2019
On The Veracity of Fairy Tales
I was thinking about fairy tale lore
how often it speaks to distinguishing
the false from the true
and yet it is condemned as being
out of reality by sniffy people
looking straight through you,
you, who persist in cherishing them
the old tales,
whatever else you do,
are deemed fools.
but this is the vein of gold
running through the marble immutable
not to be bought or sold
but earned.
and the plain bird
sings more true
than the jeweled one breaking down.
look what I found
I ran to tell my mother,
my grandparents too, though they were gone
who schooled me in them
all those ardent stories
though now they are disabused
(the children), from reading them
and given sand in a tea cup
by the witches turning them
into politcal fables
disabling beauty.
yet, in the original, what else can we use
when the soul is falling, falling down
or pushed from behind.
time out of mind.
the best that can be found,
all, all I know:
the road lined in opals is leading straight home.
mary angela douglas 26 july 2019
how often it speaks to distinguishing
the false from the true
and yet it is condemned as being
out of reality by sniffy people
looking straight through you,
you, who persist in cherishing them
the old tales,
whatever else you do,
are deemed fools.
but this is the vein of gold
running through the marble immutable
not to be bought or sold
but earned.
and the plain bird
sings more true
than the jeweled one breaking down.
look what I found
I ran to tell my mother,
my grandparents too, though they were gone
who schooled me in them
all those ardent stories
though now they are disabused
(the children), from reading them
and given sand in a tea cup
by the witches turning them
into politcal fables
disabling beauty.
yet, in the original, what else can we use
when the soul is falling, falling down
or pushed from behind.
time out of mind.
the best that can be found,
all, all I know:
the road lined in opals is leading straight home.
mary angela douglas 26 july 2019
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Were We Crossing The Dream Meridians
[our souls are love and a continual farewell
Ephemera, William Butler Yeats]
...Ephemera, William Butler Yeats]
going back were we crossing the dream meridians
or did our better angels hold the key
and were they turning it as on His Nativity
the moment and the hour pure splendor owned the skies
and were we weeping stars or centuries,
so that everything, suddenly, was Light
after interminable darkness.
home is the name we shuttered by ourselves
and kept alive through infinite travesties
remembering that we owned the sunrise there
lunar uncertainties
the murmur of the pines.
I have cast everything aside now
going forth at a latter age
birdsong seems so far away
but He made everything
every place we knew
or thought we did.
the poets say
I know they do, in all their starry traces
everything is a continual farewell
and though, we cannot conclude
the farther journies by ourselves
something in us knows,
beyond Oz and the city of emeralds
the landscape of the moon
Time will not trespass anymore
and we will be reborn
in the Heaven we were intended for.
mary angela douglas 25 july 2019
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
On Signs That Point The Way, Or Signing The Unsigned
I watch the signs from year to year
the semaphores that make it clear, sometimes,
when there's little fog and some peace;
"deer crossing""
or in sundry yards:
"beware the dog."
and I have taken the driving tests and passed
at least the ones that test your theoretical knowledge.
so that I recognize the colours and the shapes.
from state to state.
yes looking back across the tracks
I did not cross, and with good reason,
thank God for that in every season, still-
it seems to me a little has been lost
not only in translation,
in making all signs clear.
some of you know the feeling
when they are reeling you in
you know, job interviews that
appear, then disappear , or friends
or you are crossing a room that has no end
finding out the unwritten laws you can't assume
the way a blind person makes their way
through an unaccustomed day with
its sharp edged furnishings
and "watching" the faces change or the atmospheres
or reading your poem aloud from an indifferent stage
and seeing some brows cloud over
with not a little rage
you recognize my God
it's not all clover. red rover, red rover, send...
who can you ask then, to point the way
already you know there's some kind of undertow here
but who can say if you're drowning or save you
or fill you in what's on the menu
is it safe to continue?
perhaps no one human can break the spell.
that's when you ask God when it goes pell mell
if he's still holding up the sod underneath your feet
and he says, Yes. You go right ahead.
don't even lose your place in what you previously said.
greenlight greenlight thunders from the throne
so quietly no one else could have known or discerned it at all.
but you feel small:
if you go on you feel they will throw you out.
from off of the earth's highest cliff
what if, what if
but your least angel says, paraphrasing
if you go on you'll only land in a better place
and keep your standing in the human race.
"don't be afraid of their faces"
the Good Book says
"though their looks be as scorpions";
though all the signs be rooted up in hell
they'll still be pointing Upwards.
mary angela douglas 24 july 2019
the semaphores that make it clear, sometimes,
when there's little fog and some peace;
"deer crossing""
or in sundry yards:
"beware the dog."
and I have taken the driving tests and passed
at least the ones that test your theoretical knowledge.
so that I recognize the colours and the shapes.
from state to state.
yes looking back across the tracks
I did not cross, and with good reason,
thank God for that in every season, still-
it seems to me a little has been lost
not only in translation,
in making all signs clear.
some of you know the feeling
when they are reeling you in
you know, job interviews that
appear, then disappear , or friends
or you are crossing a room that has no end
finding out the unwritten laws you can't assume
the way a blind person makes their way
through an unaccustomed day with
its sharp edged furnishings
and "watching" the faces change or the atmospheres
or reading your poem aloud from an indifferent stage
and seeing some brows cloud over
with not a little rage
you recognize my God
it's not all clover. red rover, red rover, send...
who can you ask then, to point the way
already you know there's some kind of undertow here
but who can say if you're drowning or save you
or fill you in what's on the menu
is it safe to continue?
perhaps no one human can break the spell.
that's when you ask God when it goes pell mell
if he's still holding up the sod underneath your feet
and he says, Yes. You go right ahead.
don't even lose your place in what you previously said.
greenlight greenlight thunders from the throne
so quietly no one else could have known or discerned it at all.
but you feel small:
if you go on you feel they will throw you out.
from off of the earth's highest cliff
what if, what if
but your least angel says, paraphrasing
if you go on you'll only land in a better place
and keep your standing in the human race.
"don't be afraid of their faces"
the Good Book says
"though their looks be as scorpions";
though all the signs be rooted up in hell
they'll still be pointing Upwards.
mary angela douglas 24 july 2019
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Conflations
there should be golden apples
a glass mountain
the force of gravity
a diffident princess
and Time to solve the riddle
so that the shoes don't wear out
and embarrass the owner
on the way to the bookshop
that wasn't there yesterday
a pink cube
with an aqua roof, slanting elliptically
the feeling of starting all over again
on a fresh sheet of paper
a freshly sharpened pencil:
go where the snow queen goes the problem's stated:
a swathe of snow
just opened cream
for the coffee.
two trains with variable speeds
in a toffee afternoon
that's the colour of the leaves
as they depart
and I'm reminding myself
art is art;fiction is fiction or
of when the fairy tales were a
brand new diction.
but there is something about this solitude
so that all riddles merge;
certain elements in a room contemplated
as if I were on a star where
there should always be these color forms mingled
even if it never gets solved
the golden apples, the crystal clause
the mountain crystal. plunging into it
like a sea
surpassing the mermaid soliloquies
it's own liebestraum and on and on
the floral accents of the harbour breeze.
mary angela douglas 23 july 2019
a glass mountain
the force of gravity
a diffident princess
and Time to solve the riddle
so that the shoes don't wear out
and embarrass the owner
on the way to the bookshop
that wasn't there yesterday
a pink cube
with an aqua roof, slanting elliptically
the feeling of starting all over again
on a fresh sheet of paper
a freshly sharpened pencil:
go where the snow queen goes the problem's stated:
a swathe of snow
just opened cream
for the coffee.
two trains with variable speeds
in a toffee afternoon
that's the colour of the leaves
as they depart
and I'm reminding myself
art is art;fiction is fiction or
of when the fairy tales were a
brand new diction.
but there is something about this solitude
so that all riddles merge;
certain elements in a room contemplated
as if I were on a star where
there should always be these color forms mingled
even if it never gets solved
the golden apples, the crystal clause
the mountain crystal. plunging into it
like a sea
surpassing the mermaid soliloquies
it's own liebestraum and on and on
the floral accents of the harbour breeze.
mary angela douglas 23 july 2019
Transparent
something in the fairy tale has made me transparent
or I have become the root system of the stars
not all of them
just a few on the right hand side of the mural
where the children sit in rows
and try to figure out the codes on the blackboards
in the early language of algebra.
I pretend to know them: both children and codes
the cosigns but I am resigned to the fact
that it doesn't go that well.
i can't understand why there are equations
and I can't keep up without a reason
my mind just balks.
I think of the castle again, a rose one
the blue velvet shadows of trees
when it begins to rain and the rains sweeps in
ruining the medieval furniture
and I am more transparent now
than I have ever been so that small birds do not fear me.
they fly straight through
and their music you could not imagine.
o crystalline you
even if the world turned to chalk dust
and staying after school forever,
you became the last one freed.
mary angela douglas 23 july 2019
or I have become the root system of the stars
not all of them
just a few on the right hand side of the mural
where the children sit in rows
and try to figure out the codes on the blackboards
in the early language of algebra.
I pretend to know them: both children and codes
the cosigns but I am resigned to the fact
that it doesn't go that well.
i can't understand why there are equations
and I can't keep up without a reason
my mind just balks.
I think of the castle again, a rose one
the blue velvet shadows of trees
when it begins to rain and the rains sweeps in
ruining the medieval furniture
and I am more transparent now
than I have ever been so that small birds do not fear me.
they fly straight through
and their music you could not imagine.
o crystalline you
even if the world turned to chalk dust
and staying after school forever,
you became the last one freed.
mary angela douglas 23 july 2019
Buttercup Station
I dream of buttercup station.
with a children's railway nearby.
and all dressed up with striped candy
they will ride and ride;
as if in a third grade reader
with lilacs and sweet peas beside
a fence painted mint, all Heaven-sent
and it never rains, unexpectedly, outside.
at buttercup, the sun resides.
pink flowers, a small house
for each one, sugar spun and
custom made.
and in the shade,
doll houses for the dolls
with Victorian furniture
rose patterned walls
a grand piano with a tiny hinge.
and we have concerts with the wrens
all the spring time
just for them.
though they can't applaud
(the dolls)
in buttercup station.
all the ice cream's free
in whatever flavors
you want it to be.
you'll look for your mother
at the end of the line
and bring her loads of valentines
from buttercup station;
where every song's a lark's
and supper's, whenever,
long past dark and the taffy pulls,
the homeward gulls-
whenever you finish playing
and we all plan on staying,
at buttercup station.
mary angela douglas 21 july 2019;rev. 23 july 2019
with a children's railway nearby.
and all dressed up with striped candy
they will ride and ride;
as if in a third grade reader
with lilacs and sweet peas beside
a fence painted mint, all Heaven-sent
and it never rains, unexpectedly, outside.
at buttercup, the sun resides.
pink flowers, a small house
for each one, sugar spun and
custom made.
and in the shade,
doll houses for the dolls
with Victorian furniture
rose patterned walls
a grand piano with a tiny hinge.
and we have concerts with the wrens
all the spring time
just for them.
though they can't applaud
(the dolls)
in buttercup station.
all the ice cream's free
in whatever flavors
you want it to be.
you'll look for your mother
at the end of the line
and bring her loads of valentines
from buttercup station;
where every song's a lark's
and supper's, whenever,
long past dark and the taffy pulls,
the homeward gulls-
whenever you finish playing
and we all plan on staying,
at buttercup station.
mary angela douglas 21 july 2019;rev. 23 july 2019
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Outliers
for Emily Dickinson
we owe a lot to the outliers
I said to myself in a somewhat dingy hour
while scouring the pots
and thinking of other things.
like why dont they ring me up
as they say in the UK
why dont they come for a visit
even if not to stay
when I am amenable. cheerful too.
setting the table for just myself
and God, I thought.
it's not so odd
living this way.
the sun comes in through the shade.
the bugs with their welcoming committees
sit on my counter and look pretty.
the books still gleam
revealing subtextual dreams and there is music,
even, sometimes, with illustrations.
and there are trees.
the sea beyond me, somewhere
memoires; ateliers...
and I still care (living on rations)
about what I do for the nation;
I'm an outlier too.
with nothing to do with you.
or you
since that's what you choose;
perhaps, whoever you may be,
you're all set up to flee
those who live out of hand.
there seems to be some decree about it.
but I'm still alive.
like a bee in a hive
making my own honey-
for love- and not, for money.
mary angela douglas 21 july 2019
we owe a lot to the outliers
I said to myself in a somewhat dingy hour
while scouring the pots
and thinking of other things.
like why dont they ring me up
as they say in the UK
why dont they come for a visit
even if not to stay
when I am amenable. cheerful too.
setting the table for just myself
and God, I thought.
it's not so odd
living this way.
the sun comes in through the shade.
the bugs with their welcoming committees
sit on my counter and look pretty.
the books still gleam
revealing subtextual dreams and there is music,
even, sometimes, with illustrations.
and there are trees.
the sea beyond me, somewhere
memoires; ateliers...
and I still care (living on rations)
about what I do for the nation;
I'm an outlier too.
with nothing to do with you.
or you
since that's what you choose;
perhaps, whoever you may be,
you're all set up to flee
those who live out of hand.
there seems to be some decree about it.
but I'm still alive.
like a bee in a hive
making my own honey-
for love- and not, for money.
mary angela douglas 21 july 2019
Valediction To My Mother, Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas
God be with you now, my mama
every step of the starry way
though the world we had not, mama;
be the Greater World
one day.
time with sundry trials still passes
some have died
for what they prayed
I will endure for all you taught me
through the crooked
fairy tale way.
scorn and daily crushing set us
like two jewels in God's own band
though the world has more to notice
still I press on, while I can
one day to see clear again
the purpose both of us kept close
though the earth with all its gardens
lock its gates with bars of snow.
farther on I would be going
farther on through glacial night
till we find the brighter Kingdoms
all the poems of His delight.
mary angela douglas july 21 2019
every step of the starry way
though the world we had not, mama;
be the Greater World
one day.
time with sundry trials still passes
some have died
for what they prayed
I will endure for all you taught me
through the crooked
fairy tale way.
scorn and daily crushing set us
like two jewels in God's own band
though the world has more to notice
still I press on, while I can
one day to see clear again
the purpose both of us kept close
though the earth with all its gardens
lock its gates with bars of snow.
farther on I would be going
farther on through glacial night
till we find the brighter Kingdoms
all the poems of His delight.
mary angela douglas july 21 2019
Saturday, July 20, 2019
My Moon My Dream My Silver Ship
my moon my dream my silver ship
my galleon on the clouds that drift
my sign from childhood in the sky
my silver mast until I die
my mirror cast up in the air
you seem to float without despair
so far from us who miss you here
and watch your changes through the year
vanishing to a pie crust sliver
one arrow left in God's own quiver
returning bit by bit again
miraculous, waning, waxing
friend.
I love you.
mary angela douglas 20 july 2019
my galleon on the clouds that drift
my sign from childhood in the sky
my silver mast until I die
my mirror cast up in the air
you seem to float without despair
so far from us who miss you here
and watch your changes through the year
vanishing to a pie crust sliver
one arrow left in God's own quiver
returning bit by bit again
miraculous, waning, waxing
friend.
I love you.
mary angela douglas 20 july 2019
Friday, July 19, 2019
To Those Who Are Quiet
to those who are quiet when the plane is going down
who watch it like a movie as if they were on a set
I would like to say something but history has already said it.
to those who witness and then turn away
as if it were another blue skied day: (it is for them.)
what can be said.
weep as you will in public view
they'll never, never comfort you.
they're used to rolling over
someone else's pain.
so Christ knew,
in the end.
it's Icarus again.
what's one more
perhaps he heard them roar through the anguish
so many he thought friends
cried, no. not him, Barabas!
shall be freed.
that's just what we decree.
did he bleed for you?
you who take so light a view
of tragedy anytime you find it near.
who never shed one tear.
perhaps you'll say:
because you know so well;
he, she, it
brought it all on themselves.
mary angela dougla 19 july 2019
who watch it like a movie as if they were on a set
I would like to say something but history has already said it.
to those who witness and then turn away
as if it were another blue skied day: (it is for them.)
what can be said.
weep as you will in public view
they'll never, never comfort you.
they're used to rolling over
someone else's pain.
so Christ knew,
in the end.
it's Icarus again.
what's one more
perhaps he heard them roar through the anguish
so many he thought friends
cried, no. not him, Barabas!
shall be freed.
that's just what we decree.
did he bleed for you?
you who take so light a view
of tragedy anytime you find it near.
who never shed one tear.
perhaps you'll say:
because you know so well;
he, she, it
brought it all on themselves.
mary angela dougla 19 july 2019
It's Startling To You
it's startling to you
though you may not say anything about it
that suddenly
as you were standing in a twilight patch
the pumpkin grew
into a coach lined with green silk
the stars grow milky above your head
was it something you said, at breakfast,
you wonder
that caused it all at once to thunder
and the clouds to become cerise.
you think about this as you can
concocting something out of it
stitched together with a particoloured thread
and you ask the micelike shadows.
was this real?
people will wag their heads.no matter what you feel.
everyone has their own perspective.
but you'll apprehend
a confettied particular wind
from some Divine directive
and the moon emerges from its hiding place
your face has the far away look
of the paintings, with the Madonnas
and the frocks in your closet from an Age before
glimmer without the candle being lit.
mary angela douglas 19 july 2019
though you may not say anything about it
that suddenly
as you were standing in a twilight patch
the pumpkin grew
into a coach lined with green silk
the stars grow milky above your head
was it something you said, at breakfast,
you wonder
that caused it all at once to thunder
and the clouds to become cerise.
you think about this as you can
concocting something out of it
stitched together with a particoloured thread
and you ask the micelike shadows.
was this real?
people will wag their heads.no matter what you feel.
everyone has their own perspective.
but you'll apprehend
a confettied particular wind
from some Divine directive
and the moon emerges from its hiding place
your face has the far away look
of the paintings, with the Madonnas
and the frocks in your closet from an Age before
glimmer without the candle being lit.
mary angela douglas 19 july 2019
Thursday, July 18, 2019
I'm Stitching Down The Words You Gave Me Lord
I'm stitching down the words you gave me, Lord
from earliest dictionaries of sun and rain
the rose garden reverie, the Plains
the crescendos of the wind
snow under glass and shaken
into Christmases,
I pray
let them not abscond with them again
as the magic carpet I have traveled on since
You know when
since earliest days could be
yanked from me, leaving me to shift
it all to inwardness and start again but when
leaving me only the free fall
into eternities where
how can I do anything
but cloudlike, speak your name through starless air
once they have taken then
the particular language
you gave only me and filched
the golden apples from the page, the orchards
brimmed with snow in winter or Spring
gone completely gone
and the new worlds
that vowels formed in just Our way
the glow of consonants like comets
signaling the end
and still, my Joy! the forgeries won't win
the beginning Alpha
where bright words begin.
mary angela douglas 18 july 2019
from earliest dictionaries of sun and rain
the rose garden reverie, the Plains
the crescendos of the wind
snow under glass and shaken
into Christmases,
I pray
let them not abscond with them again
as the magic carpet I have traveled on since
You know when
since earliest days could be
yanked from me, leaving me to shift
it all to inwardness and start again but when
leaving me only the free fall
into eternities where
how can I do anything
but cloudlike, speak your name through starless air
once they have taken then
the particular language
you gave only me and filched
the golden apples from the page, the orchards
brimmed with snow in winter or Spring
gone completely gone
and the new worlds
that vowels formed in just Our way
the glow of consonants like comets
signaling the end
and still, my Joy! the forgeries won't win
the beginning Alpha
where bright words begin.
mary angela douglas 18 july 2019
Monday, July 15, 2019
That Point In Time, When We Were Part OF The Milky Way And Knew It
you will write on highway wide and pale blue lines
and learn to love the Thorndike-Barnhardt dictionary
its earnest illustrations;
its faded red colour
having been used by another previously in the Arkansas School system
as it was back then.
learn the Mexican Hat Dance for assembly
and how to play a child sized popsicle coloured xylophone
thinking of notes as red and green, with orange thrown in;
wear dresses picked out by your Grandmother
sash tied at the back
in gingham plaids, and glorious pastels
and float on the playground as if you were a cloud
hovering near the honeysuckle bushes
swing on the swings
and ride the buses with the older children
carrying their flutophones
in serious cases.
and jump rope every way you can think of
till the dust flies up
in the early Spring bordering on summers
to be helped with homework, flash cards, the Bard
and on to the evening meal, so many chicken pies
under eternal starlight
in Little Rock.
mary angela douglas july 15 2019
and learn to love the Thorndike-Barnhardt dictionary
its earnest illustrations;
its faded red colour
having been used by another previously in the Arkansas School system
as it was back then.
learn the Mexican Hat Dance for assembly
and how to play a child sized popsicle coloured xylophone
thinking of notes as red and green, with orange thrown in;
wear dresses picked out by your Grandmother
sash tied at the back
in gingham plaids, and glorious pastels
and float on the playground as if you were a cloud
hovering near the honeysuckle bushes
swing on the swings
and ride the buses with the older children
carrying their flutophones
in serious cases.
and jump rope every way you can think of
till the dust flies up
in the early Spring bordering on summers
to be helped with homework, flash cards, the Bard
and on to the evening meal, so many chicken pies
under eternal starlight
in Little Rock.
mary angela douglas july 15 2019
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Returns
as you retund to us the light years the locusts had taken
may we recall the fragrance of cut grass
childlike, our breath in clouds on the glass
on school mornings.
the guardian pines.
the sense of time measured till Christmas
the newborn winds in the garden
and what there was then, of peace.
oh Lord mend as only you can
the years of stricture;
the heart in a vise
compelled to go on.
all song sifted at the ash heap.
even the memory of music
gone gone
the gates locked on inner space.
the clanging of discordant bells throughout
the small hells we lived in
and the daily burn
the flickering of our half lives
counting on your return.
mary angela douglas 14 july 2019
may we recall the fragrance of cut grass
childlike, our breath in clouds on the glass
on school mornings.
the guardian pines.
the sense of time measured till Christmas
the newborn winds in the garden
and what there was then, of peace.
oh Lord mend as only you can
the years of stricture;
the heart in a vise
compelled to go on.
all song sifted at the ash heap.
even the memory of music
gone gone
the gates locked on inner space.
the clanging of discordant bells throughout
the small hells we lived in
and the daily burn
the flickering of our half lives
counting on your return.
mary angela douglas 14 july 2019
I Have Been Looking At Flowers (Final Version)
[for Carol Ward for her beautiful photograph of, as she said,
'a lotus resembling a swan"]
she said "this lotus resembles a swan"
and we peered closely in the looking glass pond named for
Lily Pons through
an actual photograph
out of a dream;then it seemed to me perhaps
I have been looking at flowers all wrong
and all my life
never seeing that they were gliding
and that the air around them made a kind of watermark
in wedding golds and whites
and that they flowed there with great significance and imprint
that perhaps in each flower soul there was concealed a
birdlike core prone to soaring also
if only it could be so;
an element like a moon whose phases were petals of pearl
and they could imagine themselves also snowing, whirling
above the stars and the treelines falling and falling
from great heights on little children
into the errant and the silver meteors,
their own parachutes forming;
shimmering down on us encoded in starlight'
time exposed above their former gardens
or full of pink and green momentousness
over the castle splendid
forever and ever.
mary angela douglas 14 july 2019
I Have Been Looking At Flowers
[for Carol Ward for her beautiful photograph of, as she said,
'a lotus resembling a swan"]
she said "this lotus resembles a swan"
and we peered closely in the looking glass pond named for
Lily Pons through
an actual photograph
out of a dream;then it seemed to me perhaps
I have been looking at flowers all wrong
and all my life
never seeing that they were gliding
and that the air around them made a kind of watermark
in wedding golds and whites
and that they flowed there with great significance and imprint
that perhaps in each flower soul there was concealed a
birdlike core prone to soaring also
if only it could be so;
an element like a moon whose phases were petals of pearl
and they could imagine themselves also snowing, whirling
above the stars and the treelines falling and falling
from great heights on little children
into the errant and the silver meteors,
their own parachutes forming;
shimmering down on us encoded in starlight'
time exposed above their former gardens
or full of pink and green momentousness
over the castle splendid
forever and ever.
mary angela douglas 14 july 2019
'a lotus resembling a swan"]
she said "this lotus resembles a swan"
and we peered closely in the looking glass pond named for
Lily Pons through
an actual photograph
out of a dream;then it seemed to me perhaps
I have been looking at flowers all wrong
and all my life
never seeing that they were gliding
and that the air around them made a kind of watermark
in wedding golds and whites
and that they flowed there with great significance and imprint
that perhaps in each flower soul there was concealed a
birdlike core prone to soaring also
if only it could be so;
an element like a moon whose phases were petals of pearl
and they could imagine themselves also snowing, whirling
above the stars and the treelines falling and falling
from great heights on little children
into the errant and the silver meteors,
their own parachutes forming;
shimmering down on us encoded in starlight'
time exposed above their former gardens
or full of pink and green momentousness
over the castle splendid
forever and ever.
mary angela douglas 14 july 2019
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