Career Day Quandry Subconsciously Streamed

maybe I'll be a choclatier-puppetier

an interrupter of dastardly schemes

not a scream queen, not the whipped cream

on the strawberries, nor chicken fricasse

I want to be regal, not a recipe

not a bald Eagle

a prima ballerina or heard not seen, 

no rustic cavalier getting by from year to year

self indulgently; don't wanna go to sea

don't wanna turn a key, I wanna be free

but not from God

Jill with the magic beans but keeping the cow

I've grown fond of her somehow

I want to believe in magic but want to never

stop traffic

to live in a cottage and eat my pottage and

dream my dreams and leave the rest of the nonsense

alone I just want to be HOME.

mary angela douglas 31 january 2022

Then We Dreamed Of The Sea, Wounded With Shipwrecks

let us dream of the sea, wounded with shipwrecks

with sudden incursions

the mermaid froth on the jade wave

the topmost rigging sinking from the skies

or the ghost ships sailing with no surmise

dream of the curl of the last wave

etched in the wood block too late to save

dream of the jeweled coves

from which they never arose

the lost seamen

and of the indigo swells

dream of the galed noons

the drowning gold of the moons

dream of them late or soon

or too early to fortell;

oh my landlocked children,

dream of them well.

mary angela douglas 29 january 2022

POEM IN COMMEMORATION OF WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS WHO DIED ON JANUARY 28, 1939

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 more
and 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

Language Lessons

at first you don't notice the barriers to the language

the spikey little fences painted rose and green appear

cheerful from the distance and at the speed you are traveling

it feels like a holiday on the rickety train

as the expression goes, (fresh butter and rolls?)

better wouldn't melt in their mouths

the little houses are so cunning, just your size

and the marigolds made to order

you're just happy there are words at all

you're so sure of a welcome into fairy land

well, come in, just over the border.

lesson one, you stranger in a stranger land:

no one looks at the sky the way you do

try to explain the blue the way you feel it to be

that hue half blended with pearl and mystery

in a clear voice with no clouds

you'll see what is meant

by books that are lent not given

by the heart when it is riven.

you still won't notice the artful smiles

that shred your soul after all those miles

those late nights up studying. under a copper moon;

after so much earnestness...

though you're greeted with boxed candy and orange lilies

great bowls of tea with inordinate sugar

something is amiss; you feel it like this:

excusing yourself from the hostess and host

despite the folkloric shawl you're wrapped in;

turning all the meanings inside out

only to find the same insults after all.

mary angela douglas 28 january 2022

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Big Top

God shield you from having to make nice with the spangled backflips

in the conversations in which you were perhaps more maytime wounded

than wounding playing La Polichinelle on the glass piano

for a spell;

sprightly at first, with the first violets' now parched

from the pink lemonades gasping for art in the summer parades

for the word in edgewise

that used to chime, oh sad carillion

come Big Top Time and with

striped candy...

now in order to make vast allowances for the wounder

party of the first part

having to put on with a shattered heart oh

quite a show; in the taffy pull, the taffy every time

of, oh it was my fault anyway, I'm daffy

come what may

file under the games people play and the things you say

not to get clobbered again, my sawdust collapsing 

friend, my only soul, so punch and judy you know;

you have hit a wall

forgive me Lord if I seem small

who used to come this way

oh almost every day just for the pink and blue cotton candy

get me out of the whole scene PLEASE

or just help me walk limping away

into the diamond day

from the forced circus of it all.

the cinnamon dusted funnel cakes were hardly worth it.

mary angela douglas 28 january 2022

The Hunters

who is hunting the hunters hunting the bright words the newly coined

the poems of the starry wilds who is hunting

who is sharpening the wooden arrow to shoot the golden swan

in any ballet and to leave the stage happy in subterranean stealth

who is happy hunting the beautiful and holding sway

and haltingly trying to say how much they cherish

the written word while inwardly slaying it

softly they have murdered the ruby the emerald escapades

of those anointed for song I know that they do wrong;such

birds with beautiful plummage fell from the skies

of such a moot and muted universe said I.

who killed them?

mary angela douglas 28 january 2022

For Emily Dickinson, 2

perhaps she raised her small jeweled flags of words

in a stiff breeze so that the bees and flowers were confused at first

and the red clover

in the vast meadows she lived in, meaning her soul.

and the stars over New England sighed on being told

by distaff cherubs

she is beyond you now.

as for men on earth, who knew that she was scarcely here

an inhabitant at all

except as a gentle anomalie and almost as out of sight

as the ends of being barrett browning might have said.

if she could have,

now her self sown flags are planted in eternity and they stream on

transmogrified not a little

and sometimes in our minds while reading her

we almost hear, we think her sherry voice and clear and

a stiff breeze enters our room

and we who have not yet died

neither for truth nor beauty yet adjusted in our tombs

can still aver and aver with her 

toward which path for us, as well

the implacable mystic horses heads are turned.

mary angela douglas 28 january 2022

Snow In Jerusalem

snow in Jerusalem

yesterday, and Tel Aviv

what is one to make of such

a poem, all to itself

without interpretation

it speaks to ineffable beauty

to the unexpected

if it is possible to stand still in such a moment

to repeat to oneself, snow in Jerusalem

as if it were a prayer instigated by children

who think that by wishing it so

they can bring down the stars

then so be it

let snow in Jerusalem stand for its own mystery

beyond history:

the accumulation of dreams.

mary angela douglas 27 january 2022

In The End All You Want Is To Go Home

in the end all you want is to go home

reading the book you read to find 

you have arrived home on the last page

singing the song on the final note you feel

if I hold onto the last note for as long as I do that

on the arc of my breath, for that duration

I will be home

you do your best and the note lingers

it is prolonged, the wave of the music

will come again: yellow tangle of light shining bright at night

silkscreened,

the house like the moon's causeway...

everything forces you out in the beginning

if you could you would pack all the gardens

the bluebirds and the roots of trees

the lamp posts as they used to be

the little twilights when what was pink turned blue;

even the storm clouds

how did you do it you wonder later

did you tell yourself I'll be back soon

did you think the moon would go with you

so I'll be ok, the blossoming lime

so you go, you take the steps necessary

but you never leave

to leave home as it exists inside you

would be to have no soul left

at all

no place to meet God

the flower leaving the sod.

the stars leaving the sky.

the ship on land.

who could stand it.

mary angela douglas 26 january 2022

Punctuation Dream Scheme...

courting the ellipsis I draw down

condensed as cream what in memory's confounded

the hidden from view jade icebergs of dream

the rigging of: the scent of the rose compressed

in a  half parenthesis of snow.

mary angela douglas 25 january 2022

Bridge Of Air

I walked out on a bridge of air

thinking I was still on level ground

and when I crossed to the other side

all of it came crashing down

I looked out on the winter sun

cold silver in the ghost of dawn

as if it would linger on and on

but when I saw what God had done

the banished aprils all had come

what could I say to anyone.

time cannot measure

nor grief assist

it isn't possible to live by wits

I reasoned in abiding mists

but faith explains why a bridge of air

seemed solid enough from Here to There

and I don't argue with this.

mary angela douglas 25 january 2022

Matinee

you're not revealing all you feel

perhaps the epic novels made you think

the radio chats and things like that, little dramas

and glossy magazines, with their lipstick bright advice

on how to make home still sugar spice nice 

despite the rising price or cost, we'll call it:

the cost of living and forgiving and then forgiving again

or star struck columns whimsy filled

or ingenue models striking a pose

in front of Tiffany's who knows what it was

old vintage recipes twice baked to please

that made you declare in so many words beyond the Pale

imagining yourself on a sweeping staircase

a la Bette Davis

I too have felt many things;the grand spectacle of it all

the grand mal...

and played to the hilt my noble, self sacrificial role

though not officially, not in a floor length stole

and dripping with jewels...

but then the enforcing scorner rolls up his sleeves

intent on your unease

and all that you've pretended to get by 

falls by the wayside when he lets fly

like chandeliers shattered

on the high note;

like a nightmare's cake when the oven door's smote

or the moment suspended like a teardrop diamond fell  

all in the dish clothed, butter dished morning or at the grimy sill

looking out on the milk bottle dawn

to the hills from whence Help comes

and withal your impearled imagination

quelled: and gone,

smashed to hell well

in a cheerful apron

over a floral dress to whom should you confess

or give your last address

while the tear ducts swelled God knows

and there was no matinee musical score

no je vous adore lifting you above the lilied clouds

to soften the blows.

mary angela douglas 24 january 2022;26 january 2022

Sad Song

And I dreamed that pieces of the sky

were falling falling down

and you said

don't step upon the ground

don't step upon the ground

it seems such

 a really simple thing

to make the rafters ring

but you said you don't know all your notes

not even how to float 

if it floods here

floods here

galoshes arent  in style

you said without a smile

then I said

I really want to go

I want to go.

mary angela douglas 23 january 2022

I Dreamed Narcissus Looked Into The Sun

(for mythologist and Greco-Roman scholar, Edith Hamilton

and for the Imagist poet, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

I dreamed Narcissus looked into the sun

and the sun was blinded;

the stars turning to silver nitrate

the bruised lidded sweethearts overcome

at the deafening, implacable stroke of one

and one alone of infinite self regard 

no one worldwide mirror ever shunned

and no bright shard.

so did the diamond regress to ashen coal

and he had murdered the Age of Gold and caused

the white iris to wither on the stalk;

the soul to spin backwards unraveling the lilied web;

the milkweed galaxies of the dead,

commanding all reflections to stoop down

mary angela douglas 23 january 2022

What Was Left Out Of The Story

and if the dress is made of light

and sewn with a thousand thousand crystals

of Scheherazade's and suitable for the promenade

with a soft pink velvet jacket

resembling a rose;

soft as snows, the slippers to match

will the fogs disperse over my heart

will the lark, again sing

trembling in sapphire;

shall I aspire to higher things

or sit in a corner with a lemon ice

you are too nice her godmother said

too preoccupied with the effects

leave all the rest to me

quite presently

you will pay for it all in tears.

mary angela douglas 22 january 2022

Lemony Lullaby

I want to smooth out the lemony moon

that hangs above the baby's room

the lemony moon that shines for her

bobbing in and out of her half formed baby dreams

little clouds too will warble there

edged in red violet crayon

looking the part

oh lullaby of all the colours

do not depart

before I have stitched you in

like a pineapple pocket of all the charms

and laid you close to my heart

that she may remember me.

mary angela douglas 22 january 2022

Green Field

far away in a green field

in someone else's century

in a time when the pillagers

had not yet organized

when the iris in the rainbow

was enduring

I set my mind to rest

beyond the facts of the case

in a stage set rose garden

with a real nightingale trilling

where the moon never rises

but once in all three acts

I sent my soul there

and was content to play

no part at all

alas my all too imaginary heart

I have sent you all over the map

of heedless Time

to geographies unknown

to towns off the track and quite charming

and I cannot call you back.

mary angela douglas 22 january 2022

ALREADY THE SNOW LIGHTS HAVE GATHERED IN THE SKIES

"iniquitous courts have banished the moonlight"

-Natalia Gorbanevskaya

(to Robert Louis Stevenson)

already the snow lights have gathered in the skies

opalescent shine the clouds from every side and corner 

of the map of our antiquities.

I dream of that, that the angels of the four corners blow

to tip my dreamship far over the tangerine horizon

and the dream artist's canvas drips

with all the water's  colours in full regalia so that

it is tyger bright winter by the time I cry:

depart from me, iniquitous courts

and I commence floating

to the place I don't know

that isn't on any map revealed by snow.

oh mapless soul, my swan,

whither will you wander now

I ask these dream shadows.

but they, like any candle going out

can only sing.

mary angela douglas 21 january 2022;9 march 2023

The Poem I Love Chime's Out Of Time

the poem I love chimes out of Time

impossible to be mistaken for something else

small brushstroke before the venerable mountain

in a silken wind, lifting toward Oz

or it is robin's egg blue,

The Wooden Shoe,

in the sheepfold skies

the child on the violet hill espies;

Giotto's last sigh.

my rose threaded everything 

of which I shall not be made

to feel ashamed by any Court on earth.

the conjugation of starriness, illusion justified

I shall love till I die.

a bright thimble in the Grandmother's basket

or life on Mars with a thunderstruck:  why,

it is the cloud's intention to snow

before anyone knows!

prescient music personified.

it is piecework done

a little unfinished but

with a marvelous unravel of gold.

it is being stranded without a ticket

and still, going Home.

mary angela douglas 21 january 2022

We Walk In Dreams

when the ground gives way

we walk in dreams

hopscotching over the earthquake seams

when the ground gives way

when the sun falls over in the dimming sky

we carry on with the light nearby

the light nearby.

when the larder is bare we eat the clouds,

cloudberries and singing aloud,

we have sweet music for dessert

sweet music.

and everything else, we live on a dare

that God is really everywhere

and whether we lack or whether we don't

we stick to Him like a warm winter coat

and rest when we're weary

and laugh when we're not

and thank God for anything else that we've got

the hard or the simple way.

mary angela douglas 20 january 2022

To The Post Modern Poets That They Turn Again, Back

Turn again, Whittington, Thrice Lord Mayor of London...

-from an Old English fairy tale: Dick Whittington And His Cat

how could you make of this language a desert track

and spurn the illumination of a distant age

I weep slow tears upon the page

knowing for certain rich gardens once blossomed there

now all is arid and spare

twigged is the landscape absent of birds 

and men have banished the golden words

the words the honeyed worlds had spun

remember Shakespeare, Keats and Donne

what have you done  o lachrimae pavane!

their words had dazzled the sun

and blinded prose

or Yeats had plucked his beleaguered Rose

out of the dire web of a faithless. degenerate Time

and given a voice to dreaming again

and called the ancient musical winds 

back to their Source

that you have forfeited for dubious hire

without a single shot being fired.

mary angela douglas 20 january 2022

Riddling Dream

for Walter De La Mare

they said Sail! but there was no sea

so I walked over the air to Thee

they cried Fly but I had no wings

still the moon kept bringing me silvery things

they cried Cherries and I cried Ripe

and then sighed Infinite, Infinite Light

they asked of me what I never give

except to Christ for as long as I live

Die said they but I chose to live

and weave my words out of crimson and cream

and gaze out the windows of everything.

mary angela douglas 19 january 2022;27 january 2022

Lost Above Ground I Carried On

lost above ground I carried on

listening for the far off songs

the angel choirs so out of view

listening hard till the morning dews

pushing aside the rose and the rue

the proffered hand

the crystal shoe

but God in the vivid afternoons

and hope in the closets I called my rooms.

mary angela douglas 19 january 2022

The Small Make Do

we'll lodge in the cracks in the ceiling overnight

when the earth shifts

being tiny has its benefits;God is not remiss

or lean against in the tallest grass

broken off pieces of angel statuary

I want the one with the bruised wing

I call dibs.

somehow we'll manage this way;we'll live

living off one wild strawberry a day

for dinner the two peas in a pod

they'll find us odd in town

but they did anyway

we'll still live on

under the bluebird's song

weaving the cornflowers

into blue crowns.

mary angela douglas 19 january 2022

The Gold Among The Ruins

in ourselves the golden ore stands sifted

through winter's trees the ghosts of bird calls thrum

as in our hearts recess from battle, respite

like some worn guest upon the threshold, comes.

time for a moment glistens in the winter air

snow for a moment lingers there

the snows of the heart from the worst of the fires spared

and what remains in us

God knows: and calls His own;

when with the brightening sun

the gold among the ruins flares.

mary angela douglas 19 january 2022

Palomino Gold

(to my grandfather (with our dear grandmother) and guardian Mr. Milton B. Young

in fond and eternal memory)

when the gold of palominos pans out in the skies

and the dream horses come to drink the sunrise

then I remember how my sister and I so very young

along with our Grandfather loved Zane Grey

the code of the west, the mystic arrowheads we found

across the street in the vacant lot half full of pines

and how we understood when our Grandfather part Cherokee

and ours by adoption

called to the birds in our backyard

as if from the four winds in the Fairy Tales.

he bought us moccasins at Cherokee Village

and we walked soft in our living room's woods

sneaking up on him in his armchair and he would

say in mock surprise I never heard you coming;

you make good Indians

and we would laugh and congratulate ourselves

on carrying off the great attack of cherishing.

when I look back he was our Chief

cook and bottle washer, watcher of the night skies

who taught us to recognize Orion and the Big Dipper;

and full up with American enterprise

the lore of God and the journeys of St. Paul

to us he was as tall  and genial as the trees and kinder than kind.

I miss him so

intent on the cattle rustlers on TV

and because he was, why, so were we.

mary angela douglas 17 january 2022

High Above The Dreams of Men, Softly, Now The Snow Sets In

high above the dreams of men

softly, now the snow sets in

ridged with diamonds light as light

sheer music on a staff of white

who could will your deep descent

hush, in you, the world's lament

keep the secrets of all  years

making them just disappear

so clairvoyant, angels' peer...

leaving quiet in your wake

every imprint we could make

in your fortitude erased

filling all the earth and Space

filling all the worlds tonight

blotting out a world of strife

high above the dreams of men

softly now, the snow begins.

mary angela douglas 13 january 2022

The Lost Language Of Dolls

especially when I see them a little crowded

in doll museum vignettes

I can't forget some frozen history in their eyes

their taffeta belies

some half attempted gesture that fails each moment

as if it were made of snow

the something they would tell if they knew how

of what befell, of what may befall us yet

beribboned or in vague straw hats with silk roses

in their Victorian poses or

in gowns of tulle with parasols intact

posed beside the dolly steamer trunks

in gauze of blue, French furs

as if you had the key or knew the clue

or heard: the one thing

that is missing from their summer profiles

left at the dock: dry handkerchief of lace

for years and years upheld

stitch of the marigold: for some belle epoch

out of sight and past curing.

in a while I will pack them all away

past all conjecture

or maybe in a dream one day

they'll start to speak

slowly at first warming to the sun

of being paid attention to at last, soul to Soul

and everlastingly

and then I will understand everything.

mary angela douglas 13 january 2022

The Queen's Platinum Pudding Poem

(for Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II from an American well wisher who can only make poems, not puddings, with great esteem and truly Etc.)

pudding pink and pudding white

pudding made with heart's delight

for a Queen so fair and fine

such a pudding made in time

blent of rose and freshest cream

straight out of a Princess' dream

Phillip tasted it in Heaven

said it needed no more leaven

raspberry sweet and hint of lime

chocolate toffee so sublime

coated with a jellied sauce

Christmas treacle

at great cost

here a plum

and there a cherry

let us all be very merry

on the birthday of the Queen

may she hold it in esteem

pudding pink and pudding white

pudding made for heart's delight.

mary angela douglas 11 january 2022

Uh Oh

I always laugh at the maps of "here be dragons".

sometimes at 3 a.m., I think this might come back to bite me

then I switch on the light:

if dragons were there and they're still there

perhaps they also have ESP and  can hear when I'm laughing

one thing does not seem more impossible than the other;

hope it's not Grendel's mother

mary angela douglas 11 january 2022

With Exorbitant Praise For the Sentimental, Y'all

(in elegant, predestined hilarity, to my Mama)

I want to write in pink icing I am for the sentimental y'all

on a many layered cake that someone else can bake

I don't understand the lack of understanding about

the absolutely infinite splendidness of sentiment

whether in old novels, valentines, posies wrapped in

cones of silver fluted paper,movies Late and Later shown

on the TV, on my own

I am simply in favor of the tra la la la la of it all

what ails you neighbor that you turn up your nose

at every single rose, rosette, rococo amulet

I want to know you bet

what's wrong with you

a sentimental tune or two wouldn't more than cure

but you grit your teeth and endure my optimism

and shudder at rainbow prisms and love to dwell in schisms

how would you have us be then

bespectacled and full of ourselves

like sputtering wells of the artifacts

of facts and facts and facts of Information Please

oh pleeeease.

I will dream a little dream

and  throw a cream pie in your direction

for your grievous imperfection.

a sugar pie sugar pie sugar pie,

Sugar Pie.

mary angela douglas 10 january 2022

Book Exchange

when you look at the window that's streaked with rain

and the ache in your heart feels just the same

you could almost be twins with that windowpane

I think, looking back to some childhood days

often at school, when the class was hard

and the teacher too

and math was the last thing you wanted to do

the x's and y's and the fractioning parts

and Christmas was gone and the days stretched thin

and life seemed sad and you couldn't tell when

it was ever - going -  to -  end.

suddenly out of the gloom and rain

a cherry red book on the library cart!

you read in that book of a hillside green

a little stream and a cottage nearby

where all were merry under the sky

and the book in your heart grew invisible wings

and ever since it just sings and sings

on a branch in your heart now so many days

so sweet and so helpful on every page.

mary angela douglas 8 january 2022

We Lived Behind The Wall In The World

The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. (Proverbs 18:10)

we lived behind the wall in the world,

the one that snakes invisibly through

keeping us from the rain and dew

oh how can that possibly ever be true

said someone  officially snide and rude

you had no roof!

so say you was my reply!

out of the deep and thunderous skies

God was our roof, He stretched one arm

keeping us free of official harm.

mary angela douglas 8 january 2022

Sometimes In Moments Of Fitful Repose

sometimes in moments of fitful repose

I hear a hidden music and it seems to flow

from another place entirely that I do not know

I cannot see; but within it as it grows in ever persistent measures

and flowers endlessly in cristal lily and rose

in curious and mysterious configuration

my heart is consoled and strangely, moved  despite all

cries of doom resounding and resounding 

and in my nightfelled room

I know the earth is safe

we are in His hands

that infinite beauty is in command.

mary angela douglas 7 january 2022

To Forge A New Solitude

maybe it is necessary to forge  a new solitude

to stop becoming the news and then when you turn it off

to stop being anything at all, to then slump like a ragdoll

maybe it is necessary to just go back to the way it was before

there was any news at all

not to be in perpetual motion, not to keep

putting the towers back in the skies

not to keep up with world wide gossip not to rave about world wide

pride

not to keep testing yourself for the Plague 24 hours a day

to go back to the beginning as far  as you can make it

and on foot.

for a long time, watching the leaves turn in the wind

the gathering of rain in small pools

the runoff of streams; to eat your breakfast quietly

to breathe the stars and apple trees.

to pray to God on living sod.

not to be weighted with what is expected of you

from social self righteousness

from all that is vying for your shattered attention

from people who have dubious intentions

we are not weather vanes turning in the wind

we are not meant to live this way

so that the soul is sobbing like a small child

who has lost her parents in the marketplace

of the seashell reticence of Time

mary angela douglas 7 january 2022