To the Russian poets and all poets;the shimmering, undefeated "cloud of witnesses" who conveyed at great cost the connecting idea between Heaven and earth. And most of all, to the poet from the former Soviet Union who, dying, in prison, wrote his final poem in his own blood on the wall: the single word, "Hope". Whole-hearted To the Triune God in memory of Mary Adalyn Young- Douglas. Copyright 2006-2023, U.S. and International Copyright all rights reserved by Mary Angela Douglas
Monday, August 31, 2020
SPEAKING ENGLISH
Saturday, August 29, 2020
Some Notes For The Ballet
for George Balanchine
what if the dancer lept over the moon
so that her skirts of violet tulle
caught on the early stars to leave her spinning there
and left you wondering where you are;
is this still the ballet are we en pointe?
I feel that way in these post modern times
what has happened to music
does water flow the same way;or is it all uphill now
are there still fountains
courtyards, moments of peacock display i
Juliet, pensive in rose on the balconies
any cause at all that is not political
have people played so many games smoting the beautiful
for its aeathetic side so that it is
Forever now that is waving goodbye to you
you glimpse in every mirror,storefrnt as she floats by.
mary angela douglas 29 august 2020
Friday, August 28, 2020
To Kaye, Lost Among The Ice Puzzles
{(Gerda’s lament, from a song cycle for The Snow Queen and with a bouquet of mignonette)}
(and To Hans Christian Andersen for his fable, The Snow Queen)
==============================================================
how will you weep
then
in such a glacial
land
or will you wait
for the thaw when
you will take the
census of their tears
you whom I knew
for years
and no longer
recognize because
you do not
recognize me!
though in dreams
I hold the sun in my hands
till it burns
quite through
beseeching you oh
K.
remember when we
played
the world would
be always green?
and we would be
king and queen
and oh the
cracked mirror in your eyes
has wounded all
flowers forever
K will you never
never look upon summer again
without your
compass with the surveyor’s kit
she gave you last
Christmas breathing on the glass
of your
paralysis.
I look for roses
but they are spent
For the little
balcony with the geraniums
where we
were but all all has whirled away
losing the laughing the brightening names and the shine on the
waters in a kingdom calculating everything down
to the last son and daughter
down to the
bitter weeds of all regret.
mary angeladouglas 28 august 2020
Thursday, August 27, 2020
The Lantern Bearer
when everything seems washed out by the floods
and all the colours of all things feel washed out too
and you stand watch with flickering lantern
over the bridge that is no more the ghost bridge
and see lost soldiers over the ridge
into the mists of where they were before plunging
and with their wild and stricken horses plunging
into the wars before world without end
dont you pray some angel comes with a radiant message
closing the door forever on all sorrows.
between right now and all tomorrows.
mary angela douglas 27 august 2020
I Don't Have To Be Cinderella To Dream
I don't have to be Cinderella to dream
that I am sitting by the pond near the willows
when the ripples come up to my feet and I am standing
awash in the pearl waters of my sleep
and happy in a way I cannot describe even if it's not
like fireworks over the castle
even if it's not the coach and four all in gold
the brocade gown glimmering in all the colours
God ever made if it's not so lemonade in the shade
still it's my dream. it's quiet there.
and a sky of rose sings over me as the larks go.
mary angela douglas 27 august 2020
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Waving Goodbye To Ray Bradbury Again
[waving goodbye to Ray Bradbury again;remembering my own work too:HYMN TO GOD MY GOD IN MY RETREATS;THE LITTLE SETBACKS
Asking A Little Favor
PSALM 3:3
to all those choosing a job and not a life
I have a favor to ask of you alright
wuhen those of us who chose the other way
and risked it all so that the green in us would not fade
or the green in the world
when we dont succeed your way
can you at least have the decency to say
should we pass your way
nothing about how your taxes supported us
because they really don't
money isn't God.
mary angela douglas 25 august 2020
The Child That Waters the Rose Tree With Her Tears
the child that waters the rose tree with her tears
is standing with her watering can at the gate
so those who come to see her in the belle epoch painting
can't know they are a century too late
to take her small hand by the shrubbery
when a small cloud comes to hide the radiant sun
to tell her do not cry oh Cinderella
a magic garden waits for little ones
for little ones who cannot understand
the reasons they are scolded out of hand
put in their Sunday frocks and given cakes at times
and other times, forsaken forsaken forsaken
mary angela douglas 25 august 2020
Monday, August 24, 2020
To Jack Who Was Most Fortunate
to Jack Johnson, the grandfather i never met
who would have ever thought that day
you traded the Jersey cow for a handful of beans
that you would ever have come out
on the golden side of THAT bargain
who knew, who knew or did anyone say
you may, Jack, if you may
recover the way to all the lost harps and
Song.
mary angela douglas 24 august 2020
Forever Turning The Dire Into The Beautiful
forever turning the dire into the beautiful
finding the diamond stars in the mire
what can we say to you that is not cloud language,
the heavy snows on the way
and we beholding Christmas
for you opening the heavy curtains on the splendor of the day
where we lived among dust motes, and scattered sheet music
I will stand at the screen door beholding everything green
and the Angelus bells will play; it will be April.
I will stand at the opal beginning and begin to pray
you who are beyond Time, please make me that way.
mary angela douglas 24 august 2020
Saturday, August 22, 2020
What Ray Might Say Today If He Came Back for His 100th Birthday
for Ray Bradbury on his 100th birthday and all those who love him and his stories...forever
to live in the beauty of the story as it is unfolding is granted to only some
to fix the moment like a star, like a red leaf falling
to remember the air crisp as apples
the shadow on the stair to recreate
the sudden shaft of sunlight through the emerald trees
the snow crowning everything the wilderness rains
I tried I tried to see and be this simultaneously
to freeze all the fragile disappearing
through a lens of rose or one of amber October shearing
not only to compose the music but to live within it
singing and singing
I am alive in all the cherry red dimensions
as far as the reach of white blue space
and heaven and earth besides
right now in the honeyed cornucopia of all my days and ways
and you are alive too. darling reader
darling and ever christened ever living reader
beyond the margins of all the stories that are
that were, that ever will be.
as far as the marigold eye can see.
mary angela douglas 22 august 2020
Friday, August 21, 2020
Pink Flowers Yellow Starred
maybe you will say pink flowers starred yellow in the grass
are so small a thing that there are too many poems about flowers already
and what is the point but they were my pink flowers when I was little
and I loved them
and when I remember them I also remember the sidewalk leading up to our brick house they bordered
and I remembered them later when I thought about that poem from Tennyson
my mother loved about the flower in the crannied wall
and these things are linked in my mind and heart even as I fade slowly from earth myself
and remember my Grandmother's inscription in my ivory Bible with the gold edged pages
where in her fine penmanship my Grandmother wrote to me in the house with the little pink flowers
"The grass withers, the flower fades. But the Word of our God shall stand forever."
mary angela douglas 21 august 2020
A LIST OFSOME OF MY FAVORITE POEMS ON THIS BLOG THAT I HAVE AUTHORED
I SAW THE GHOST OF WALTER DE LA MARE
THERE WILL BE A SNOWFALL OF POEMS
LET POETRY BE CROWNED AGAIN WITH FLOWERS
FOR HAROLD BLOOM A VALEDICTION OF SORTS
THE ISLANDS OFF THE LOST COAST OF MONET
THE CHILDHOOD OF MARCEL PROUST
I GATHERED FRESH GARDENIAS;YOU WERE MISSING
THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752-1770)
IT ISN’T SO MUCH MAGIC AS IT IS BEAUTY
TO THE MOONBYRD, WANDERING
RAIN REFLECTS INCIDENT LIGHT
THE TINMAN’S CHRISTMAS DREAM
PIANO RECITAL WITH PINK CARNATIONS, RED GLADIOLI
LISTENING FOR THE BEGINNING OF SNOWS, WHITE FLOWERS, CELESTA
I LOST THE COLORS OF GIOTTO
OH GIOTTO! ALL YOUR COLOURS ARE
SHE ALSO WAS TRUE
MARISOL IN WINTER SUNLIGHT
SNOW DREAMED
WHATEVER SONG I KNOW
TOLL SOFTLY FOR CHRISTIANE SHEER ROSEPETALED SONG
SCARECROW NOT QUITE DISSOLVING BY ORANGE LOLLIPOP LAMPLIGHT
AS IF IT COULD BE THAT WAY
LAMENT OF LEONARDO ON A LOST NOTEBOOK
SHED NO TEARS, FOND UNICORN
CINDERELLA. CENDRILLON
VIVID
JANE EYRE
FOR THE MOMENT, A SANSKRIT ILLUMINATION
I WAS WEARING A DRESS OF IMPEACHABLE HUE
GALILEO GALILEO
IMPRESSSIONS OF THE DEATH OF GARCIA=LORCA: ON A PALE GREEN VELVET PIANO
SONG FOR THE LAST INTERVIEW
SPEAKING ENGLISH
HER LAST LETTER TO LYTTON
PLAY SOMETHING ON THE VIOLIN FOR RILKE
OSIP MANDELSTAM
MY SOUL IS A TRACELESS WOUND
WHAT MUSIC THERE IS
CANTICLE FOR ROBIN WILLIAMS
TO THE BEAUTIFUL KINGDOM OF NORWAY
DRESS CODE
BILLY THE KID IN A SKY BLUE KERCHIEF
THE SCARECROW MIXED HIS TENSES, BUT HE SMILED
LET US RETURN TO THE COUNTRY OF CLOUDS
AFTER THE GAELIC
SNOW SHOULD FALL LIKE AN EYELASH FROM THE MOON
PAVANE
WHEN WILL WE BE MELTING
IN THE COUNTRY
CHACONNE FOR FEDERICO
IN THE PALACE OF INCREDIBLE ROSES
OOPS, I FELL DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
DELLA ROBBIA AND OTHER THINGS
I WENT BACK TO FIND THE GOLDEN
THIS, AND THE THIMBLES SCATTERED
MEMENTO VIVERE
HAS ANYONE SEEN MY ROSE VELVETEEN FLATS
AZUL
THINGS HAVE FALLEN
AND EVERY NIGHT WE LEAVE IN DREAMS
THE KITCHEN MAID REMEMBERS THE EMPEROR’S NIGHTINGALE
AROUND THE FAIRY TALE’S GEM-STONED PAGE
PARTICOLOURED TEARS WERE FALLING THROUGH THE EVENING BLIND
THE ROSE-RED SEALING WAX ON THE LETTER’S DRY NOW
DROWNING HAPPY
HAMELIN
JAQUES BREL
GREEN VIOLIN
A CHERRY LEMONADE FOR THE MAN ON THE VELOCIPEDE PLEASE
IN THE DEEP SHADE OF LUSCIOUS CHERRY LANGUAGE
SPELLING
SO JEWELED IN THE STIRRUPS FLASH THE OUTRIDERS
WHERE IS THE BEAUTIFUL KINGDOM WHERE YOU WERE
LAST MINUTE CHRISTMAS EVE, 1964
TOURING ANGELS
VAN GOGH TO HIS BROTHER, UNDATED LETTER, SUMMER 1891
EMILY, IT IS GETTING LATE
THEN THE PROSCENIUM LIKE A VIVID ROSE
THEY ALWAYS LIVED
COMING FROM THE CINEMA I MET MY SOUL
I LOST THAT SUMMER WALKING ON
ALICE THE SMALL AND BRAVE BEFORE THE FANTASTIC
EPIPHANY OF THE WHITE APPLES
ONCE DARING THAT INTEMPERATE FLIGHT
THE WRIGHT BROTHERS
SUNDAY BEST WORDS
PINK CHALK MOON RISING BEHIND A BLUE
KING MIDAS, LAST SPRING
ON LOOKING INTO A HIGH SCHOOL CHEMISTRY BOOK
THE FUTURE OF SNOW
LION, TINMAN AND SCARECROW
I DREAMED OF THE SEA, OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR
PHILLIPE PETIT BALANCED ON HIS BEST DAY
THE DEPARTING AVIATOR
CANDLEMAS
JUMBLED SEWING BASKET, GREEN AND WHITE WICKER
THE DOCUMENTS THE QUEEN MUST NEVER SEE
PEACH SWUNG IN THE VERNACULAR DAY AFTER MAYA DIED
CRACKING THE MOLD THEY MADE FOR YOU
ANYONE’S HEART BREAKING OVER THE WORLD IS
YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN PAINTED IN A LILAC MIST
A SILVER BRANCH IS
ENTRETAT
EPHEMERAL
HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE YOUR BAZAARS OH LORD
LETTER TO ST. CATHERINE OF SIENNA
MANASSAS, i REMEMBER
ASHPUTTEL
MAYBE ONE DAY WE’LL ALL RETURN TO OZ
ASLAN
ALL HIS INFINITE LABOURING AT BRIGHT COINCIDENCE
MYSTICAL EVENINGS AT THE PTA
THE SINGULAR DREAM OF THE ELEPHANT MAN
PALM SUNDAYS
THE SNOW SLEDGE DRIVES THROUGH LACQUERED LANDS
WHITE JADE
TESSERAE
WE WERE IN BLUE SHADE NOT THE DEEPER SHADE, THE DELPHINIUM
PURPLE MARTINS IN THE SHADOWS OF TREES I HAVE NEVER SEEN
CAN A WORD BE MAPPED
MONOGRAPH FOR JULIET IN ROSE
THE ROSE BOOKS OF ANATOLY KONENKO
CARNATION, LILY, LILY, ROSE
FOR SNOW THAT FELL ON TULIP TREES
BLUEBIRD
ARVO PART AND HIS DEPARTURES
TEARS OF SLEEPING BIRDS
GOING NORTH
AND NOW THE COMMEDIA DEL ARTE IS LEAVING
MY LOST UNICORN WANDERED FAR
RECENTLY, THIS LETTER TO SHALLOT
AMERICAN CLEARING
VERSES OF AN EARLY SPRING
THE GREEN WANING
THE RISING
LE BELLE E LA BETE
VAN GOGH SEEN SIDEWAYS OR FROM GREAT DISTANCES ABSTRACTED, INFLUENCED BY KABAKOV
Thursday, August 20, 2020
Picture Books And All Of That
now I think with their larkspur clinging fences
rose trees row by row
hardly a drop of rain that wouldnt be deflected
by cheerful umbrellas in every crayola shade
bursting open like blossoms on the storybook page
for all the people on the idyllic pavements
this is the world the child thought
this is the bright blue and yellow of it
and I am in it
as long as the story is read
as long as the rose is red
and the peony pink
and lemons in a blue bowl near the sink
and breakfast cereal loops in all the colours
and you will go outside and smell the yellow rose
like the little girl in the picture by the poem
sinking your toes into the mud and singing
oye small sandbox pail and yellow rosebud I can see you are a small sun
and Im in my sun suit and Grandmother will give me
small bits of toffee, vanilla caramels and then I will run and run...
it really was that way more often than not
enough to rival any picture book when we went out
to play in the sprinklers and the scent of newly cut grass
was enough to wake the dead and let them spring up
all merry again, dew sprung home for Christmas, back
and i thank you Lord those days were as they were
full of birdsong and lullabies only little things to cry about
and then be done until its Sally go round the roses again
til Kingdom come or the dusk is blue or
birthdays bloom in pink wrapping
so that I wish this for you now
and for all the children that have ever been
and blow out all the candles or was it the wind
last night streaking the panes with rain
as if the tears of angels had splashed up there
and then they had flown over our roof.
mary angela douglas 20 august 2020
Oh Dark Horse Nebulae
oh Dark Horse nebulae
I'll come riding in on my stick horse with its sequined reins
its mysterious felt eye
its bridle of mother of pearl
or wearing the mint green tiny brooch of Pegasus
just like my sister's we'll both visit Gemini
or just stand under the crystal snowfalls again
predicting the nearness of Christmas
the blue blue icicles on the holly bush
the Christmas star finding our house again.
mary angela douglas 20 august 2020
'
Sometimes I Look Too Hard To Find Things
sometimes I look too hard to find things
while keys leap up like trout from stream
out of an unexpected dream
lost homework spirals through the air
and lands just somewhere on the stair
but I have already packed my bags like Hannibal
and gone on far expeditions to reclaim
the name of the song in wind and flame
the right made wrong from all disdain
the colours of the evening star
just about over the topaz bar of Heaven
and dusk and the shade of it, wisteria.
in my backyard.
mary angela douglas 20 august 2020
mary angela douglas 20 august 2020
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Thy Children Cry For Bread And Angels;Cherry Boughs to Bend Down
who are we, blown by the winds
ah lacrimosa, the furtive tear in your eye
lucky enough to be alive within view of the
green proximity of trees
to have ready made for us a ceiling inlaid with stars
with clouds the colour of tearose, peacock blue,
the glazing golds the skies of mother of pearl arced over us
young or old
their echoing waters music music of fountains
and hidden trumpets language falling into us counterwise
and meteor showers snows
we to whom the Lord God had brought the perfume of all flowers
the county of everything living the moon in shade
who are we.
with our own own orbiting sometimes elliptical
practical, falling into sinkholes or poetic states of mind
learning to read the cliffs of stone and time, and time spelled backwards
the way that canyons make us feel; Christmas tinsel, orange peel
who are we, neither fern or silt nor free of guilt, bits of mica
and yet all, all of these , the mirrors of all we see we are
born but from where to parachute from our mothers on this thin globe and torn
descended into our luminous lifetimes, subject to anything unforeseen
and nimbus dark realities
clouded over with business concerns the hurts of small children
all we have not earned we have not earned the glint of learning
off in the distance far and silver all we aspire to
paper airplane thrown or flowing
or just in a pear bright moment lucid under the sun
at festival and funeral feeling in the way
wondering wondering how many days left here
the clock of our lives you are turning winding here.
O Lord God. our little kaleidoscopes our myriad fears
oh please. for many more aprils, years
allow us, please, to remain.
mary angela douglas 18 august 2020
Sunday, August 16, 2020
Oh Yes It Is Written
How Festive It Is Not To Be Rich and Famous
you can do anything really. take up painting
dance a jig make up a play in your head
and be the star
and then change roles midstream
you can dream anything
and you dont have to pay taxes on it
feel free to go anywhere
maybe you wont get the best table
or even the best chair
but you'll get to finish your meal
you can wear bunny slippers on oscar night
and wrinkly clothes
be in your bare toes
next week you wont have to cancel the soiree
where you wont be on display
or be on a plane to L.A.
you wont have to have anything ready to say
or dust off any shelf in the house
for maybe a trophy
you can watch all the movies you want
with dill popcorn and never feel bad
you almost got that role. or sigh:
you wish you had.
mary angela douglas 16 august 2020
Leaving the Mysteries Behind
we'll ring down the curtains sometimes we murmur to ourselves in dreams
and find another place with stars hanging above us like icicles and yet
never falling down, no silver falling down except as light
we'll find flowers too and better roses but how could there be
we sigh turn into clouds we drift away
the early morning light still filters through the blinds and streetlights
and we wake up to what we already know
leaving the mysteries behind
mary angela douglas 16 august 2020
Queen Mab In Her Latter Day Memoirettes
I Thought I Saw The Glens Of Night
(For Carolyn Hooper)
I thought I saw the glens of night
and all former loyalties had melted away
only the blood of Christ became starlight
and shone over fitful Caledonia
but oh the scene shifted
and the angels took flight
where are the glens I cried
in more than song
and what was all this for
if Scotland forgets her King.
ranged on no altar now
I see again those who bled and died
who pledged their honor and lost everything
I thought I saw the glens of night
and all was quiet where once there were scars
what was won in enduring love
can never be destroyed
I heard the noise of waters then
the many waters gathered of the saints
who said this is true in the glens of night
and when the mists are rising after all.
mary angela douglas 16 august 2020
Saturday, August 15, 2020
Small Things Hide
small things hide in You;the things that are not revered
though they were created some of them at least
on the First Day.
creeping things get in the way even of the ferns.
but I discern on any random summer evening
snail tracks on the moon all made of silver.
wings of a fine rust.
on earth they must they take shelter how they can under a broadleaf in a rain puddle.
and have wistful dreams of one day living in another phyla,
kingdom where the kind and storybook princess arrives
in her nutshell carriage striped gold
and gives them favour.
I weep for small things
in their desertions. for how they get swept down drain pipes
tin soldiers on their way with a tiny kind of valour
that flickers like the flame of a lost thing too all suddenly firefly
floating fleeting in a foreign neighborhood with no echo home
when I am lost in the woods myself so far
far from the stone cutter's cottage.
mary angela douglas `15 august 2020
To You, In The Clearing
so we are tested in dreams in waking dreams
in the way the heroes the heroines were tested
in the old fairy tales the long form versions
when someone wise comes to us in dreams
in the hidden corners of the forests and whispers to us
sadly not knowing if we will understand or pay any heed
at all to the dream warning: trust not in appearances
trust to something not yet revealed
and then the music fades;the last peal chimes;
the scent of which rose becomes past memory.
yet it was that particular rose and not the other
you were instructed to pluck
as if you would pluck upon strings the one elusive phrase
that would open forever the Pearl of the skies.
or how the fir trees looked in starlight and snows
to you: in the clearing.
mary angela douglas 15 august 2020
Or Lean Against A Wall
without God we would have perished so many times before this;