Prayer In Extremity

to those who would steal the film off the tear swept eye

who on this Planet live to perfect the Lie

who from the rose scented wind thieve every sigh

Christ have mercy!

let them thrive far from me.

mary angela douglas 28 november 2020

To Christ The Lord

(in the manner of the medieval lyric;the English folk ballad)

there is a garden where the Lord abides

new sprung, three lilies from His side

three lilies.

and rose and myrtle bloom afresh

down where he laid himself to rest

to rest.

three marys mourned all in the morn

their tears new sprung had watered then

each rose and iris, leaf and stem

o leaf and stem and the rose trees three

and he the root, all flowers be

sprung in an Easter

on the lea

and on the lea.

mary angela douglas 28 november 2020

Remembrance

for Vladimir Konstantonovich Bukovsky and all, all the others..

under a wolfish moon perhaps some think they were dispersed

and darkness triumphed or mere negligence and the sweet earth sank down

in grief

and later to forgetfulness, embraced by a false Spring.

I am speaking of the dissidents of Russia that have become somehow

as though they had not been

but God, and I-

remember them.

mary angela douglas 25 november 2020

Did You See Alice

 and did you see Alice

in an underground of tears

and every tear

a small red heart

who's littering here

cried the Duchess;

then, the Queen,

sad paper doll

never changing her own blue dress

I confess to nothing said Alice.

bread and honey and the

king counting money

said A.A. Milne

and nothing is funny

when they tell jokes at table

the Cat eats prickly pears.

You can take the back stairs

swelled the Duchess

for not minding the baby well;

said the Duchess squalling,isn't it apalling:

you don't keep Christmas well, either

Seize her, GUARDS!

is it so hard

said Alice softly;

is there no way then

observed Alice

people here can be happy;

no way at all?

mary angela douglas 23 february 2017;rev. 25 november 2020

On Vladimir Bukovsky

perhaps there were embattled angels in his features

some saw from the corners of their eyes at that first press conference telling no lies

the angel delivered from a hell more furious than Dante's

I dont know at only 34

a suprahuman messenger or a bent wing with a searing eye

unaccountable humor; a cat. forget all that.

basically at 76 called home wherever people like that go

when the trump sounds.

the one that comes for all as Donne noted.

emperor and king.

our best men.

our best men

do with Thee go.

obituaries said so little.

of the man seeking judgement in Moscow

the man some said who loved rose trees

friends. what he meant by friendship some know.

Jesus of Nazareth...better love than this...

building castles in all that spare time.

spare time.in between tortures and reports.

multiple inanities. East and West alike.

how far the human heart can drag itself

the lips slaked from no thirst still speaking across hemispheres

when everyone else in the room has fallen silent

to the snow blind tone deaf carnival deities and elites

so little time to understand what is in man. bitter and sweet

love and fear

to be defamed deformed as a saint. incorrigible broken remended remanded

never commanded how we will miss your intransigence denoting

how to fling yourself in the fire again when you have no limbs left

to speak of; psychologically, emotionally speaking

how a being like that ever got here in the first place. crossing all the zones;

was sent here.

survived. beyond survival itself. with topaz focus from a fixed station

bore witness. prevailed. kept hammering the nail. on the Catherine wheel of his own making

you explain if you can all those prating of the Russian dissident movement. this unusual orphan of moral rectitude the Idée fixe

how an avenging angel fell to earth whimsical; quizzical,unequivocally human. puncturing the Wound

a continual crystalline self willed falling on the sword of Truth

an anguish, awkwardness of gold and incorruptible weeping, a hemorrhaging as of ancient icons or

of everything seen and Unseen sorting the messages from the

Isle of the Dead even as he bled tears and did what he did irrevocably.

with nothing left unsaid.

mary angela douglas 17 november 2020;rev. 23 november 2020

Only When We Dream Is Life What It Once Was

only when we dream is life what it once was

with people writing books like how to look at pictures

what to listen for in music

encouraging you to improve yourself thereby

I will look at the sky the dream sky

whether it is snowing flowers or not

and my heart will be caught there when a star floats by

in the middle of the day

how has it escaped

and will it float down to me like a snowflake on a mitten of pearl

I wore once

when everything was evergreen.

startling the thrushes-

remains to be seen.

mary angela douglas 23 november 2020

Roots And Flowers

well all the artists steal dont they from each other

this is said a lot here and there now

I see it everywhere

wouldnt be surprised that is, if I could drive along some

unchartered interstate to see a billboard looming every

few miles like Stuckey's used to:

proclaiming the lie that

all artists steal from each other.

this one doesn't .

this one hasn't.

you are not an artist I can hear some people sniff.

you have a right to think so.

but I know I'm not a thief.

the roots of words in my poem are anchored in me.

over long decades

my own set of images ordered a certain way

appearing and reappearing in poem after poem

so that if I speak of oranges I am speaking of

my own experience of the orange my own imagination of the

orange of how cold it was half frozen from the fridge and refreshing

to sip it through a porous peppermint stick at Christmas

there are some, or there is one

Im not naming names as I dont believe in shaming people

who regularly skims the surface of my pond of poetry

and lazily while halfway occupying his brilliant mind makes up his poem's

grocery list from what he sees in my most recent cart, so that I recognize

when I read his poems what he has done with little heart stealing the egg

words barely hatched from my nests

you will not win the poetry carnival that way my friend though you may impress

taking the panda bear home for your girlfriends

my poems are my own. and my internal rhyme that chimes

remembers its way home.

and the roots are still in my garden.

and the music is still my own.

lilac and star together in the sky alone

God gave me to see and to perceive since I first started out on

this road of malediction and yet, beauty.

scatter my grifted petals on your topsoil

they will drift back to me. and the stars drift backwards too

ground of my being,

as they are.

as they were meant to be seen from my peculiar window.

they'll never grow in your climate.

mary angela douglas 22 november 2020

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My Heart As A Kite

what shall I do with my heart made of pink paper

pink wrapping paper over a kite frame it flies

as if it wanted to drift with pink clouds toward Heaven

as if its pinkness qualified it to be in that flock

the clouds know better and the rose billed egrets 

they are more unfettered

goodbye clouds my pink kite heart sighs coming down

in the rosebeds or

in a pale green meadow because that is the way we

wanted to make our poem like a picture book story

it lands softly, my heart. it misses the clouds already

the might have been of the egrets

but we have to buy groceries now so I reeled it in

I being in this case, my mind or is it my will

or something else that likes gravy and mashed potatoes

but chooses sweet potatoes frozen instead.

ah well that's enough said.

one birthday morning we will rise

my heart and I on quite the rosy day

flinging the string to the ground

able at least to reach the ozone

and at last, God.

who has watched our progress with interest

past the seed pearls of the stars

he has scattered graciously

to light our way.

mary angela douglas 20 november 2020

Small Etude For Vladimir Bukovsky On The One Year Anniversary Of His Being Laid To Rest At Highgate

 SMALL ETUDE FOR VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY ON THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BEING LAID TO REST AT HIGHGATE

perhaps he invented a new country.

the country of his friends.

together they would lift the heavy skies

as many times as necessary

the miasma like concrete smashing the heart

freezing the small bud ovenight.

their laughter would dissolve the solidity of truncheons

together they would recover the sun

grass would spring up as if in Eden the blossoms pasted

back on the trees as in children's artwork. they would sing.

toasts would be made over light conversation

over the soughing of the wind through guardian trees

I dont know. Im makng it up myself out of my imagination.

I met him once at a conference

he seemed ill at ease. how could he not be I guess.

I read the book about the castle. It became a kind of map for me at

the time. a talisman.

It was a golden thread in a labyrinth I needed to get out of.

I would recommend it even for people in non political personally

oppressive situations.not of their own making. in the end there is

no politics;there is only the personal;the soul with a straw under clay.

you too can go out into the garden. perhaps you wont have to make as

many speeches as he did. to throw yourself your whole life

under the wheels of being rearrested, a million times in your head

truly he must have been tired of all those conferences.

what would he have done otherwise. tend the flowers

listen to Rachmaninoff. I dont know. I wasnt one of the friends.

just a reader. a person needing a different key to unlock

a door I didnt know was already open.

you have a dream. In the dream there is an earthquake.

you wake up or you sleep walk out and discover its true.

it really happened. that happened to him.

it happened to me in a different context.

I did not dissent. But I did not lie.

this got me removed from many situations. kicked out, in fact.

people generally dont like those who never lie.

even in peacetime. this is what I found out.

you have to build a castle in your mind.

otherwise, the world being as it is

you have no other place to live.

mary angela douglas 19 november 2020

Small Fugue On A Phrase From The National Geographic

"the dreamlike fungi" the caption read in the National Geographic

snow has fallen on the asphodel mused Conrad Aiken and I find

in the swell of enchanted words no difference in the article

from a certain slant in the poem on asphodel

a quaint light a yearning toward the nightshade phrase

poetry has not disappeared from the world, not as I thought

but in the unexpected, flares out in the common day to the uncommon

reader

there is hope in the pick up sticks of words strewn upon the nursery 

floor

in the patterns we thought accidental while the angels smiled mise en

scene

tuning their synchronicity

as I remember them unsought phrases will emerge from unexpected 

spaces

as the silver moon from clouds with the stamp of fancy renewed the 

mind of Keats,

the wings of Shelley

and light from old cathedrals burns as we turn the tin kaleidoscopes 

the dreaming page again

where moss bright kingdoms shine not for one instant only

and let us know, there is no time but the May blossoms shining under 

the moon

the child in the dew struck grasses, examining.

these facts that anywhere, unaccountably bloom...

mary angela douglas 19 november 2020

On Vladimir Bukovsky

 ON VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY

perhaps there were embattled angels in his features

some saw from the corners of their eyes at that first press conference

the angel delivered from a hell more furious than Dante's

I dont know

a suprahuman messenger or a bent wing with a searing eye

unaccountable humor; a cat. forget all that.

basically at 76 called home wherever people like that go

when the trump sounds.

the one that comes for all as Donne noted.

emperor and king.

our best men.

our best men.

do with Thee go.

obituaries said so little.

of the man seeking judgement in Moscow

the man some said who loved rose trees

friends. what he meant by friendship some know.

Jesus of Nazareth...better love than this...

building castles in all that spare time.

spare time.in between tortures and reports.

multiple inanities. East and West alike.

how far the human heart can drag itself

the lips slaked from no thirst still speaking

to the snow blind tone deaf carnival elites

so little time to understand what is in man.

to be defamed as a saint.

how to fling yourself in the fire again when you have no limbs left

to speak of; psychologically, spiritually speaking

how a being like that ever got here in the first place.

was sent here.

survived. beyond survival itself.

bore witness. prevailed. kept hammering the nail.

you explain if you can all those prating of the Russian dissident movement. this unusual orphan of moral rectitude the Idée fixe

how an avenging angel fell to earth whimsical; quizzical,

all too human. puncturing the Wound

a continual crystalline self willed falling on the sword of Truth

an anguish of gold and incorruptible weeping, hemorrhaging

and did what he did irrevocably.

with nothing left unsaid.

mary angela douglas 17 november 2020

Once In Starlight Prospero's Miranda Said

there was more than science in the stars

we knew that then even when

we were children

there was a feeling of wanting to stretch the heart

toward them as beyond the tops of the trees

leaning to trace in a spice filled wind

the odysseys of clouds

there was a feeling of strange kinship as though

they were winking back at us somehow, the regal stars

is it better now are we better at them now that we have reduced them

to numbers, velocities vibrations passing out of sight heaps of ash

and explained their shining away

once they were poetry what can I say where nothing seems to last

when even poetry now is no longer itself but only a remnant

now they can be mined for data my perishing stars

I would weep for them

if I could remember their real names.

mary angela douglas 16 november 2020;2 november 2021