Friday, December 31, 2021

Elegy For A Cloud Well Painted

to the last puffy cloud on the schoolroom wall

the one outlined in blue with a very large brush

held by a very small hand

I send my skyrocket regards

they won't make much noise

just my shadow through the grass

a brisk March wind

on P.T.A. nights when the stars glittering

made even the chalkboards seem enchanted

the parents and teachers, magical beings.

how will I remember you childhood

at the last moment

will I tilt the pink sand through the tiny hourglass again

or will I fall back asleep into the chocolate earth

knowing that in the morning

it will have to be Christmas Day

mary angela douglas 31 december 2021

A SPECIAL NEW YEAR'S MESSAGE 2022 TO ANYONE READING MY POEMS HERE

 I just want to wish everyone, each one reading this A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2022. I know that looking at the headlines, listening to the news can make you feel like what is going to happen in 2022? And to feel worried or afraid. I feel this way too. But then something inside me says: This is what will happen in 2022: The same God in Heaven who has been with you all the years of your life will still be with you in 2022. He is still Your Friend and He still cares. And you can still ask Him for help, even every single second if you need to and even if you don't. He WILL hear you. He WILL help you, no matter what problem you are facing, big or small but you have to be quiet and calm to hear him and talk to Him as you would a real Friend. BECAUSE HE IS A REALFRIEND.

Nobody can control what happens. It doesn't help to worry. BUT WE DO HAVE THE ABILITY TO READ GOD'S WORD IN THE BIBLE, TO ENCOURAGE OURSELVES AND OTHERS WITH GOD'S WORD AND TO PRAY VERY SPECIFICALLY FOR WHAT WE NEED, TO FOLLOW GOD'S DIRECTION INSIDE OF US (ITS LIKE A GPS ONLY SPIRITUAL) AND MOST OF ALL DEAR FRIENDS, KEEP HOPE ALWAYS IN YOUR HEART. THIS LIFE ON EARTH IS NOT THE END. EVEN IF THE WHOLE EARTH WOULD END, WE WILL NOT. WE ARE ETERNAL BEINGS. WE WERE MADE BY ETERNAL GOD IN HIS INFINITE AND UNCHANGING LOVE TO BE HAPPY IN HIM AND TO HELP EACH OTHER. HE WILL KEEP US. WE WILL LIVE FOREVER IN HIS ETERNITY AND WE DO NOT HAVE TO BE PERECT FOR THIS TO BE TRUE. BELIEVE ON HIS SON JESUS. READ THE GOSPELS TO FIND OUT ABOUT JESUS AND THE NEW TESTAMENT. JESUS IS REAL, JESUS IS NOW WITH YOU. HE OVERCAME EVERYTHING HARD IN THIS WORLD, EVEN DEATH. HIS LOVE IS REAL. WE DO NOT HAVE TO BE AFRAID OF ANYTHING. WE CAN LIVE WITH JOY.

WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES. NO MATTER HOW MANY MISTAKES WE MAKE GOD IS WITH US JESUS IS WITH US. WE CAN SAY WE ARE SORRY AND START OVER.

WE CAN START OVER AS MANY TIMES AS WE NEED TO. HE LOVES US. THAT IS THE ONLYTHING THAT TRULY MATTERS INTHIS WORLD.

You may find, as I have a lot of inspiration also at this website: bbnradio.org. Which has beautiful music and sermons and encouragement 24/7 and in many languages. I love it very much and listen to it on the radio all the time. You can too. It helps a lot to keep receiving into your heart the only news that matters. GOD IS LOVE. GOD IS WITH US. GOD WILL HELP US IF WE ASK HIM TO AND HE ALWAYS HEARS US.

PLEASE HAVE HOPE. DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED MY DEAR FRIENDS. WE WILL LIVE

IN ETERNAL JOY IN HEAVEN AND HIS JOY IS WITH US EVERY STEP OF THE WAY ON EARTH.


HAPPY NEW YEAR


Your friend,


Mary Angela Douglas







Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Landscapes In Dreams

landscapes in dreams have no ladders

how will I ever get down

perched in the tower at midpoint

onto the solid ground

ground of my being, my God is

I know He will help me mid air

and I will awake all a sudden

free from the dream's light despair.

landscapes in dreams have no shuttles

buses are hard to come by

bus fares a little bit cloudy

unhelpful, the passers by

there in a town that is nameless

I look for old bookshops again

noting how quickly the sun sets

starting all over again

ground of my being my God is

turnstile to let me pass through

I rush down the corners in pages

and write my address in the dew.

mary angela douglas 28 december 2021

Monday, December 27, 2021

Dream Of A Not So Ridiculous Man

(for Mikhail Bulgakov)


pavlovian bells swing out over Moscow

how good to drink apricot juice in a tomb

resuming work on an ill starred manuscript

blind as the shadows

in the darkness at noon

I am tired, wept the princess

of living onstage

of lemon forsythia endless bouquets

I know that it's Jesus, not Pilate, who saves

except that the soul gets a little raw

pretending deep winter is just a Spring thaw.

mary angela douglas 27 december 2021

Saturday, December 25, 2021

I'm Not Going To Do It

the flowering of stars lately in the skies

somehow I must disguise, suppress

to be thought wise I guess in my poem

and more or less never mention 

their serial and sequined recurrences in dreams

even though well

in every cell

I hear them singing crystalline belled

across the vast and Christmas distances

to me

mary angela douglas 25 december 2021

Friday, December 24, 2021

Candy Apple Red In The Dead Of Winter

candy apple red in the dead of winter

the Christmas ribbons froze on the evergreen wreaths

on almost forgotten doors in half remembered streets

the snow comes up to the roof only in childhood dreams

dreaming to be reprieved from school

until the Spring.

what can I bring you, new Christmas

richer than memory

even if I bring you the five golden rings

it still couldn't measure up.

I will sip coffee from a foreign cup

still happy that the Star over Bethlehem shone

remembering the scents of oranges and cloves

but deeper now than snow at the poles

the knowledge that earth

is no longer my home.

mary angela douglas 24 december 2021


Monday, December 20, 2021

Sparkle

deep inside the crystal moment

there's a sparkle that remains

something fragile yet so stalwart

nothing nothing can explain

can defile or set at naught

firefly, star shine Heaven bought

now at Christmas, all the year

keep it, keep it , ever near.

like a wish you cannot lose

in your pocket still brand new

like a single crystal shoe

only always, just for you

till a splendor in the skies

defies defies the taunting dark

keep the sparkle in your heart

though men think you not so wise

clueless in your enterprise,

listen not to their sad lies

Love will live and never die.

mary angela douglas 20 december 2021

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

You Give Short Shrift To The Swan Decked Page

(in sorrow, for the Romantic poets of the past;in hope,

they will return after their banishment by the minimalists)


you give short shrift to the swan decked page,

no quarter at all

to the glittering once upons

and sell your souls for political rage

I cannot love you post modern age

yet can I weep because your sleep is dreamless

and you like it that way.

past music bores you

that shook the stars

and if you go to Mars

you worship the trajectory

the machines that got you there

and not the God who placed in Space

the floating mysteries of so many torches

to light, tenderly, your oblivious way.

what have you got to say for yourselves

for decimating the majesty of poetry

and turning it into one long whine

at the cleverness of all mankind

or at how you were left behind, despondent.

isn't that the greatest crime

of rampant celebrity. darlings,

moonlight seems wasted on you

the song of birds on the bed of pain

how much more could you disdain;

the beaded curtains of the rain

God save you from the paradise you'll make,

have made before

relegating beauty to a foreign post, and shoreless-

breaking  the heart of the Holy Ghost.

Shekinah! the glory of God.

mary angela douglas 15 december 2021;29 january 2022




Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Plea

Father in Heaven keep from me

the dark sugar voices in ill conceived dreams

the bandits of all sanity

let them be banished from the world indeed

who seek to profit from another's need

who seek the means and twist the knife

and cause unease.

oh banish these.

mary angela douglas 14 december 2021


All Coming True

climbing out of the pit on toy ladders

we waved gaily to the neighbors

to the cream fresh picket fences

and the gladioli.

how glad we are to be out of there we laughed

and the sun laughed with us

the violet shadows on the rose beds.

what a bad dream we had

till the toys woke us up,

the insistent bears.

look everywhere they said.

their paws expressing over enthusiasm

which was of course their norm:

it's always Spring. we're always born.

the sky is ridiculously blue

the pictures in our school readers

all coming true.

mary angela douglas 14 december 2021

Friday, December 10, 2021

And We Are Rooted In A Certain Rosiness Then

when we are young

and we are rooted in a certain rosiness then

that colors all our speaking and thinking

we do not realize what we are living through

with its daily chicken pies and homework

in later years will seem like a mirage

and wonder why we thought it would last.

that all would remain like a stowed train

on later tracks looking back and presently too:

the same rosiness in the sky

the passersby, the same, the storefronts

the same grocery greetings, the oranges stacked just so

at the markets where we say hello to those

we will always say hello to, especially at Christmas;

this is all we know we knew of Time back then

like the Timex watch that just keeps ticking

even when it takes a liking, the tv said

the man in the white coat fishing it out of the 

fishless aquarium;

the way our Grandmother pins her hair before the dresser mirror

and then her hat so her hair, her hat isn't caught

by the Arkansas ever present breeze

and we never think at least not then

of how the wind of death will blow

leaving us behind and all contents to never

settle again in the pink brick house with the piano studio

setting my Grandmother down

and with the Heavenly crown 

she dreamed of here on earth 

before the vast mirrors in Heaven of her rebirth

pinning a new hat, with its small blazing veil

its elegance as if she had now

all the time in the world

which she only had back there in music.

mary angela douglas 10 december 2021;1 february 2022

Thursday, December 09, 2021

To The Snow Child Almost Melting From Her Fable

always to be the initial snows coming down, delicate,

pristine of the april snows, most rare and crowning the pale

pale green

confusing the earth by resembling the Springtide's petals

newly budded forth in the apricot winds

oh the synchronicity that never ends

the ephemerality...softly she said, loving the snow words

first starlight, be woven in and out of sleep

and the ballet blanc

and dreams accounted for and all the songs you weep

holding your breath lest you give too much evidence

away

in the clouding of mirrors, when the trees sway

to indicate

that you are even in this realm

mary angela douglas 9 december 2021;1 february 2022

Doll Dress And the Doll's Approbation

a dress of pink rayon with a milk pearl sheen
with tiny stitches tiny seams, gold trim.
for a winter cotillion.
a 19th century air
cloud drifting on an inward stair
chiffon, a trailing sash of blue.
and she'll half raise her hand
as if to upbraid the snow
under a glass dome
then with a rosebud smile
indicate that she's at home
hearing my sister, Christmas good
play Tales from the Vienna Woods
on a toy piano.

mary angela douglas 9 december 2021

Friday, December 03, 2021

Monologue On Cezanne

\I said there is a lemon wind in a painting by Cezanne

also an azure one, they are crosscurrents in the same wind actually,
I feel that this is so and so it must be
but going at different speeds on different tracks
you said (I think), I can't pinpoint your disease
it's time you were heading back...
so I walked a little way farther on
and said to myself
I will sing to myself by myself about the painting of Cezanne
about the azure then the lemon wind
I will find my way to the yellow house behind the trees
with a scarlet roof dappled a blue green mountain daubed
farther off
as if on a Chinese tapestry, the mountain I mean and in a dream with its requisite laurel
and you will never come to hear my heartfelt lectures on art and
the artist
ill at ease who wanted to live in a yellow house with an azure
breeze
and the trees far off when you see them in the painting even when
you are close as you can be so close you think you may fly off into
the lemon wind
and there at least God will listen to you.
I mean, to me.
mary angela douglas 3 december 2021

I Do Not Want To Acknowledge

I do not want to acknowledge

the world as a military outpost

the bruises forming under the sun

the telepathy of clouds in their aftermirage

all sorrow hinging on the word "because"

I want to be still

more still than starlight on the waves

more quiet than words on a page that no one reads

more faithful than anything around

the soul becoming beautiful without a sound

I do not want to acknowledge

the banishment from the fairy tale

of the singing, soaring lark;

the dominance of the dark

the soul as a doormat, caught in all drafts

I want to live like flowers in a foreign field

flourishing God knows only how

I will not bow to iniquity.

mary angela douglas 3 december 2021;2 february 2022



Thursday, December 02, 2021

In My Native Tongue

maybe we were written there in all the forgotten languages

by the ardor of God and etched in clay

before the half moon translations set in

with the second or third snows on snow

of the soul's Rosetta Stone.

where did the moonlight all go wept the child;

when God breathed life into the ferns my ferns?

or just after...

encryption isn't everything,nor tree ring disasters

filed away

one leaden symbol following another

in the realm of things overexplained

registering, no feeling;

the codes defined.and all lined up with the stars,

the ancient sediments.

we had wings then, circumventing time;

pink linen napkins at the table;

nursery rhymes.

then later, story times embroidered with the Sun;

the garden gardenia clear in the water glass shining.

I have seen the runes strung like pearls on every rung:

what wish will you grant me in a cryptic aside

I wasn't lavished with enchantingly

in days of gold, at home,

you have run every test there is to run!

and in a dream language all my own.and in

my native tongue.

mary angela douglas 2 february 2022;9 february 2022


Wednesday, December 01, 2021

Thoughts On Listening To Beethoven Again

lately you dreamed: the soul is becoming a nova or only
that petal of a moon emerging from long standing clouds
over the lone ridge of what planet who can say
or you enter into the dream and it's this way:
where almost everything is familiar
except you were reading the music sideways
and understood nothing.
now we come to music where all is infinite I mean of course the
great composers no longer in vogue
and how they stood supplicant before immensity
and these are the codas of birds that were heaven sent
after long standing trials' pear shaped the tears tearing
the retina
and only Christ as a witness in this place; the music
that falls like a grace on the lone ridge of what planet
who can say
the music stitching star and nova together-

star and nerve,
the play of lightning at the end of the world
and then not, your arms full of lilies
from a distant era and everything that you forgot
it's the white enameled skies arising, the hint of angels,
of a pale green surmising.why,
it's springtime arriving and you in a light coat laughing
at how Time has passed.
mary angela douglas 1 december 2021;16 january 2022

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