To The Keepers Of The True, The Good And the Beautiful In A Cynical Time

For Ray Bradbury

For Dr. Louis Markos

For Sam Weller

they will not believe your reports

on the ghosts of things seen and unseen

the apple tree traceries, lost to Eden

the Stone's Sword Wielded

the beautiful ghosts, the ones in every colour

that come while frying up bacon or knitting the

day that was raveled in two to the least of you back

together again in every mystical

shade of wool, you wool gatherer you, they mock

you are the mender of words said and unsaid the winder of the Clock of wonders:

the fragrance and the thunders

of beautiful intrepid , wept for fought for overwrought imagination

wrought of the Saints irrevocable way the light and dark of every May to December

Remember! the wild ghosts say;remembered! you whisper and file it away in the curio

cabinet of the far constellations

this cannot be the disbelievers will cry they will gainsay and lie 

and shut the golden book in every nation

and every snapshot  that you took in the summers of let's pretend, the Pandora box lid

but God will have something to say at last

of all your chronicles of His past, His futures, too 

and ring the final years in, the glorias extant

that cannot be dispelled.

by envious men.

mary angela douglas 30 september 2021

To My Mama

the beautiful music box is broken

and cannot play the same tune as before

and the gauze clouds in  its inveterate kingdom

have left the sun and are weeping evermore

they are weeping and I the child

that cannot turn the key in it anymore

have left the room and am wandering

where only angels can implore

I have left the room and the broken castles behind me

I would leave the world if that were granted too

I loved the beautiful music box too dearly

I hated the world that smashed it into two:

one forever half weeping, one  that kept looking for the glue

to glue the broken heart  to  Forever

so beautiful that was you.

mary angela douglas 29 september 2021

Crimson Angels

every time a child is derided in this town

I dream that the crimson angels from the topmost clouds

cast themselves down

every time.

every time a question finds no door

I dream the cherubim leave Him whom they adore

for just that space:

to bring a chiming grace

to you soaked through to the skin

without a home or a starlit inn.

mary angela douglas 29 september 2021

Thumbelina's Lament

its hard to be small when your thoughts are like the  whole sky

to be that insignificant and yet to live and die for the beauty of all things

rose and rose leaf both, a ripple in the wind

the water mirrors each winged thing

and then you sing and ponder your philosophies.

you who could drift away on the slightest evening breeze be carried 

never seen or heard from again in the harrying world that barely knows you're there

who would miss you who ever even saw you beneath the dock leaf sheltering from the rain

where one drop, a flood

could end your reign.

mary angela douglas 28 september 2021

Retrospective

how were we assigned the dreaded tasks:

ashes from lentils to separate at last

by the break of day

or the bird flutters the one on its way

with the regal message 

down and drowned into the icarian bay

how can I show you

the things that were marred that May

you were told in a dream to wander far away

when you fled the castle in the afternoon

and the music room

where all you learned to play

were the scales of memory

and at the end, to pray.

mary angela douglas 28 september 2021

Poetry, I Won't Complain

poetry, I won't complain

when it's beautiful as falling rain

when it sticks like snow and is gone again

and lives for years without renown

so long as I can understand

that language is the sweetest land

and seasons well the anguished years

and pays me well for all the tears

poetry, I won't complain

that's beautiful as falling rain

when word to silent Word I feel

that everything to God's revealed.

mary angela douglas 26 september 2021

Finals

not yet completing the coursework

for saying goodbye to clouds, to trees

to the unexpected breezes on the porch

the music of evening laid low

I hope for some reprieve still

some reason to keep taking the class

on whispering my secrets into the grass

that curls into winter and misses the ear

of the King

remembering

that fairy story and others of first reading

that sound as bells delicately still

ringing over the fields of first impressions

when will the last word come that I can say

to the Spring even in its uncertainty

its fitful green rains and the perfume of flowers now

is just the same as when I was a girl, a child

oh how how can I still feeling myself to be

forever a new bride on the earth say goodbye to thee

the white roses, the lilies curved in starlight

gardenias, full blown, does anyone know?

 and to thee,  forever pearl like, the early snows.

mary angela douglas 25 september 2021

Across the Potomac, Angelic Along The Fault Lines

multiple versions of data appeared on the horizon

The Good and the Bad and the Ugly, checked in on the soundtrack of 

your lives

choose just one said the aunt with the chocolates

making the rounds in the Christmas living room

sugarplum dreamy I kept on closing my eyes:

how shall I choose, behind which door

how shall I recognize the false bird from the true

or like Joan of Arc, pick out the Dauphin, you

hiding among the lesser courtiers.

let's flip a coin

or toss it across the Potomac

becoming legendary in our clime

where multiple versions of moonlight

just yearn to be famous, shine

or all you love turns on a dime

and I being I

just want to go back in Time.

mary angela douglas 25 september 2021

Big Top

I took my poem to the poetry circus.

We just wanted a break. It was Saturday, after all.

Neither of us were prepared for what happened.

Suddenly the Big Top wanted a piece of us.

The magician called us up, top hat and all

with extra rabbits.

We didn't like where this was going.

The editors wanted to saw us in half!

We just wanted to sit in the peanut gallery

maybe get a snow cone or so.

watch the lion tamers.

suddenly we were part of the act

we had to do as the ringmaster suggested

we didn't remember being paid

we didn't even remember putting in an application.

we were rather glad when we woke up

and found the rag rugs covered in sawdust

our little house. where

we watched cartoons for the rest of the day.

and never did our chores.

mary angela douglas 24 september 2021

Fitting Nowhere I Hang From A Star

fitting nowhere I hang from a star

and listen to Jiminy Cricket in my head

in a sweet voice rasp hang on

though i couldn't chin myself beyond the count of two

when I was in jr. high school

fitting nowhere I hung from a star

I'll publish myself in a blizzard

so no one will be any the wiser

all things being equal in the storm

(but not in the Sturm und Drang ad infinitum

of the new millennium)

the general glitter of the entire field revealing nothing, really;

but the cherishing of a private music loved.

visible to only God and the Dove.

to bend and not to yield Tennyson's Ulysses shone

and did not rust in age

I'm somewhat smaller on  the page

but I can glisten too.

mary angela douglas 24 september 2021

Outside The Diamond Wind Cuts Hard

then we wore paper crowns

and gipsy dresses

but we were clear as sunlight

or the honeycomb

and sang our carols restlessly

opening the gift of Song

I remember the pine cones painted gold

how happy the ruffles on the skirts made me

and the small vests that could have been embroidered with roses

when left to the imagination

what are you on about I hear the rumbling crowd

only reminiscing a little aloud, alone in the lemon room

God led me to

where it is possible to embroider one's life endlessly

and the laughing soul.

mary angela douglas 21 september 2021

Goodnight! I Hold One Star Aloft

Goodnight! I hold one star aloft

the one in tinfoil wrapped for the children's play

and you may think I'll have no where to stay

but I'll stay here

collecting the fallen blossoms year to year

in my museum of pinks and apricots

that's saying a lot you will not countenance

because you're frowning, grousing it's not on the map

what do I care.I find the chocolates wrapped in gold

and spend them everywhere

and tinker with the ant hills under the moon

and sing to so neglectful you

who think that information will save the world

goodnight goodnight

I'll say in silver to whomever's listening still

or pray  the angels take my songs to God, I will

and hush my ministering spirits hence

where language still is innocence.

mary angela douglas 21 september 2021

I Have Slipped The Marigold Stitch

I have slipped the marigold stitch

of heart murmuring autumn and

come to tell you this: that memory persists beyond words

the scent of chrysanthemum and leaf mold denoting

late afternoons, the caw of birds erupting over the firework

coloured trees; let the clouds lower in the serendipitous breeze

foretelling their slate colours of blue and orangeish rose

the wild apple tangle and the cider thoroughfares of my enclosure

and the moon pumpkin old gold drifting over the former prairies

stay my delights let them not vanish utterly

but the murmur of autumn presages everything

I weep for, all the garnet dusks and I would gather them

all, the rust flowers

tied fast with this worn ribbon of tremulous amber.

that signifies, perhaps, this is the last.

mary angela douglas 21 september 2021

It's A Fauve Mauve

it's a fauve mauve

or mint green, a fauve pink

or aquamarine

a sudden sunset wave of apricot 

dream on oh dreamer in the splash

of colours gleaming laughingly lavishly

bubbling over the pavements of

my winter mind

the tidal pools of the fauve mauve

lavender at its best,

the cream cream yellow.

at its crest I love you whispers the rainbow

slightly askew, the paints thickening isn't it wonderful

to the children, touring the Great Museum

who came a far distance to see them.

mary angela douglss 21 september 2021

Hymn To God My Father On The Subject Of Light

we are the lamp stand

You are the Light

when we forget this,

then it is night;

the night from which we can never awake

since, seizing Light, it is You we forsake.

mary angela douglas 20 september 2021

Alice In Chalk Pastels

to fall across the equators on the school maps

was common to Alice in occasional naps

to trip on  the roots of trees

to scrunch through the keyholes

scuffing her knees

to pin all hope on a summer breeze

and a light blue dress 

never meant to impress

with lace on the sleeves

and a jam tart, oh please.

mary angela douglas 19 september 2021

To the Sweet Dove From The Ark Of Language Flown

when seen from Space the forests seem ablaze

but here on earth I see right through the haze

though that won't show up on a resume

not a quality that much sought after

there where you must become

inured to laughter on a daily basis if you're to get by

in a country that doesn't pay to see you cry

because you stand out perhaps

in a premonitory way

you show up on time

in your best slant rhyme

and watch the ticker tape parades

for the faked out, staked out

poems they have laid waste to

while you pray for the remnant

and mourn for the sweet dove gone

or banished

who can say.

from the Ark of Language

in our day.

mary angela douglas 19 september 2021

Her Christmastide

who would not praise

the Kingdom advancing night

the Pearl furled still in snowy Light

conceal-ed was the Rose

until He rose

and broke the Eclipse of the Soul

oh plant this rose slip near my dears

the slightest porch of Heaven

I will carol the Carol of it forever

and enjewel-ed.

mary angela douglss 19 september 2021

Cry Into, Softly, The Memory Of Snows

the blue and the rose period I will keep

the soul decides when you're asleep

and cries into softly the memory of snows

the diadems of stars while wondering where to go

what to hold what to dispose of-

how should the heart dispose even after so much is dissolved

love lives on to preserve despite all admonition, being, Cause

my soul, all sudden rosebuds, haggles with attrition

and seeks ever to stir the waning light

relying on the colours of the mind to shine to shine through winter

blight. through calumny, and trivial wounding

never to yield the old poems sighed the impervious poems that

were noble

oh now,instead, they write impersonations of the dead

or senseless odes to dread by design

but the soul on its worst working day had better blueprints

bright is the fruit though not the rind

the soul wills not to be buried and dreams it is so

and still will keep as Keats cried all loveliness inside;

and unimpaired:

all that was , deeper than time and vaster than despair

to this, my angel, returning, chimes

and Christ knows it may be done and this is True

who was sprung like emerald April from the tomb.

mary angela douglas 19 september 2021

Still May The Unearthly Rainbow In The Shell

still may the unearthly rainbow in the shell

shine castaway on imagination's shore

so be it God that I adore

your handiwork forevermore

let the rains come and dash the boats

that floated on the smoothed waters happily

against thee only can we stay though all that's living float away

that brinked the bright and holy days; each tinged

vestige of your presence here when viewed through unremitting tears

the fleeting of such cardinal years

your handiwork on all lost shores

is in my heart and evermore.

is in my heart and evermore.

mary angela douglas 17 september 2021

Dark Cherry Thoughts While Chewing Dried Montmorency Cherries

once you were pink booming across the valleys in sweet sleep

so summoning the birds from the ruins of antique fairy tales

there couldn't have been any more bridal dower than was yours.

as you appeared: pink clouded flowered; closer to Heaven  than we

seemed.

this Sunday afternoon wears on;soon it will be evening I think

pensively:

I will have gotten to the bottom of the bag by then

when I will realize and come to myself and with  no slight chagrin

murmur in shock, dismay

Dear Lord forgive me Chekov forgive me too, won't you?

for all the orchards I ate today.

mary angela douglas 12 september 2021 

On Listening to the Album My Attention Span/Or Thereabouts

(for Tony Dagnall and Amanda Shute Sullivan)

words spin lost in a unicycle way

contriving to get past

what the wind wants, away-

what the wind wants

cannot stay

except in a fitful radiance

I hear it that way

when the music plays

its overcast weather

I like it that way

incidental, accidental

kind of, maybe

incremental

in a rain soaked garden

a branching of coolness

a parting of ways

momentarily

a lifted wing..

still the shadows are singing

the voices shaped to gold shhhhhhh

don't tell anyone 

it might not happen

the music shapes to sad

fighting against the glad, the surge toward light

suppressed is not what it feels like to be free

to define the terms the soul lays down

for sheer existence when the wind takes it away

what the wind wants, cannot stay

do not cue the light.

the music lifts another wing

sifts gold in the rain soaked garden

there is the slight murmur of chimes

bells ripples whirlpools 

a drifting of colors beyond the faint the fated screens

the faltering of words

the sudden emerald flash of song

is lifted and can do no wrong

love being what it is

in the end, that is no end

there is no end at all

to music like this to love

that turns into music so inevitably

mary angela douglas 11 september 2021

The Princess As I Envisioned Her

(to my Mother, in the land beyond christenings..)

in books, in music, and in dreams she lived

or tried to in between bouts of forgiveness for the uncherishing 

world

and sought to be in this way, free

to sing as birds sing, not for applause but because she couldnt help 

it

having a musical nature a heart like a tributary

overflowing into the river song

be kind her mother advised despite all cruelty.

this, we agreed, was reason enough for several kingdoms

let the earth impart what drudgery it will.

earth was an exile, we agreed on that point

for some, more than others it seemed

and prayer the only light

except in family Christmases, birthdays remembered.

when we are torn asunder I wish I would have said

I will pray for you in Heaven

in your rose silk with the dangling earrings

almost resembling diamonds.

I will tell the same stories over to myself

and wait for the dove in the branches of the silver tree

that she may bring word of you

from the far realms.

mary angela douglas 6 september 2021

Largesse/I Sing In Favor Of The Jam-Packed Poem

I sing of the jam-packed poem: toy chest, treasure chest at best

picnic basket filled to the brim with innumerable little pink cakes

thirst slaking lemonades, limeades, tangerineades,

lilac fans to fan with, costume jewelry and the rest

vintage costumes and gold fish coral reefs and the goldfish

themselves finning past their water logged pastel castles

out for a lark in the local park and everything that brings laughter

to the baby's rosebud lips is permissible, admisssible even when

the grownups

fall down laughing to impress I guess you could say you may as

well

I believe in wishing wells and never running out of wishes

and dressing in your Sunday best on Monday too

why wouldn't you

and holding up your end of joy

for the sake of all mankind and being kind and believing

in the sweet and not so secret

largesse of God who made so many stars.

mary angela douglas 4 september 2021

1Mary Angela Douglas

Glorious Improviso

glorious improviso

the air after Spring rains, or autumnal

or the fairy tale on the wing as my mama told it to me

in the north and diamond wind and

under the thousand myriad coloured coverlets

of the Princess, tested by the pea.

I will dream again of these things

though I have no darling but God

or only for that reason

of the leaves when they were newly green

when we could turn on a dime in Poetry

even in our sleep and in the blue shade of my sister's Chopin

rehearse our nostalgias in advance

even when the sugarplum dreams

stopped crowding in

so ornately. of when, of when

there were only heralding angels.

everywhere : the distant sound of chimes.

in Arkansas, the vast stars.

mary angela douglas 3 september 2021