bow down to me or else squeaked the dolly on the shelf
now I've seen it all I will not be your thrall
dolly stamped her feet
and caused the shelf to creak
the shelf fell down the stairs
along with all the bears
and zipped across the lawn
things beginning to go wrong
they all slid down the hill
and crashed into the mill
the mill stopped grinding wheat
pretty soon there's naught to eat
but only a few crumbs
and that's what always comes from being naughty.
mary angela douglas 1 march 2023
on this dreaming, forgetful earth
let telegrams go out
from the missing
in words formed from mist
to say only this
I have not forgotten
I am not forgotten
let the lakes widen on other planets
becoming more luminous and blue
wave on wave without rue
rippled from the stone
of far away wishing
I have not forgotten
I am not forgotten
let the children suddenly stop crying
for a pair of wings
sung to sleep by the silver birds
the birds of dream
in their returning
and under a moon of cream
spilt on the floors of the Unseen
and the Beautiful, still.
that has not forgotten
that is not forgotten.
mary angela douglas 22 august 2022;28 february 2023
how far into the failing mists
the poet Keats was bound to go
only autumnal trees would know
the frost upon the vines
the branching of the moonlit lanes
the faltering rose among the eglantine
a road of gold and time too brief
and words had lost their sweetest sweet
and words had lost.
much more, had grief
since grief had lost her voice.
goodbye to you we whisper still
still mists will fail
it's so uphill
and knights lapse home
and all their works seem made of foam
but in the heart, retained.
poor phoenix badly tended here
over conscious of the sere
to melancholy not immune
we cherish cherish every rune
you left for us; we weep for Adonis
so Shelley cried
not far from demise, himself.
mary angela douglas 28 february 2023
weaving the fabric made of clouds
and of the retreating armies-
I whisper to myself, again-
maybe it's not too late
for the new-spun colours in my head-
the cherry velvet ravels swept aside;
a silver tack of wondering again,
never setting sail-
who lost the Age of Rose?
I count the last gold
in the corners
and count again, sweet
polished cotton dresses with no seams:
the sprigged details
for the diffident day
on a simple field of honour.
not knowing the pearl of minutiae
as You do, oh God-
I'm turning this inside out to find You-
and twining the dreamy-treadled thread
that keeps on breaking yet still shines
in tiny roseate crystals stitched on snows.
piano music's sateen on the wind
and seems to disappear, pure lemon verbena.
but sparkles do not dwindle, lily-of-the-valley mine
though I'm so small and slide off of the bench
never reaching the pedals by the chiffoniere
where it's always almost spring;
you won't disturb
the shawl of dappled roses on the doll crib-
the childhood fortitude so pear wept
twig by twig, the same;
remember me, and, if not-
the pale green earrings-
my geranium gown...
I turn the diamond spackled key
of an antique conversation:
who lost the pockets of the
children filled, the little sashes made of
white violet velvet
isles?
mary angela douglas 6-8 november 2011
ENTER PIERROT, LAUGHING
dusk falls in sepia tones
as it always does in the vintage photographs
but pierrot is a complex subject even so
is he laughing or crying
will you ever know the pinwheel effusions of his summer epochs
his heart that sows white rosebuds
seen from the distance you are sure his smile is real
on closer inspection, what does he really feel
no daguerreotype will ever reveal
is it the sun after rain or the other way round
a hopscotch falling to the ground
a lamentarion of coloured chalks or in pastels
is he feeling very well
he’s out for a walk in infinity
with the beau geste
and his silken shoes on the moon’s crest
or a quaking wire…
what was it you aspired to
a long time ago I played La Polichinelle on the piano
no one would believe it now
how I paint in imagination, memory’s gallery
his mauve bright tears
the small smile of redacted years
his penny bright forays…
perceptive angels, do what you must
guard his tremors, cherish his dust
I cannot find him.
mary angela douglas 1 april 2021;2 april 2021;23 june 2022;24 august 2022
Singer of Scottish ballads par excellence.
shadowing the pear trees in the fairy story
and here they leave you (all your songs)
ARCADIA, THE WORD IS LIKE A CHERRY LOZENGE
Arcadia, the word is like a cherry lozenge on the tongue
or butter rum candies my sister proposed
looking up from the swing sitting idle
in the sunlight
peripatetic golden child of music.
and now we're seeking the names of clouds,
off on our pastel expeditions
on picnic grounds, our own backyard
did we bring the coconut cake?
and we are far from trouble in the blue isles
sprouting wings and laughing sporadically
in cumulo nimbus, cumulo stratus, cirrus
cirrus, circuses in green and the tightrope lady
in pink sequined skirts
and this is our just desserts
we say, scooping into the fudge sundaes
or playing in the sprinkler on
hot Arkansas days
when the roses boil and grandfather
concocts historic rootbeer floats
the old fashioned way
when we make a wish on the Milky Way
that summer lasts at least until Christmas.
we have his word for it, smiles Grandfather.
mary angela douglas 28 june 2016;26 august 2022;28 february 2023
for the English poets, for holy poetry
I dreamed of England returned to herself
and the bitter knights' reconciliations;
Albion, coming clear in the mists
and the cherry carol branching
and ah, the Dream of the Rood
in jeweled bloom.
I will leap up to God my God
and see the angels rustling in the trees
where once the poet William Blake
fell to his knees and understood
that poetry is certain good
illuminating praise.
the sea of faith is verging in the dark
the ghost poet soldiers mark their place
and turn again homeward in His grace
to the place they loved
the lanes all larkspur filled
the lovely strand...
and all their words
are like a field revued
renewed by High Command
with madrigals strewn..
and not excised
la vita nuova, enterprise
from which we dare not turn our eyea
in this high noon in this high noon
where the ancient wounds
burst into birdsong, flower
into the bridal tunes
irrevocably-seeking the Falconer and his gyre
where all had slept as the dew on the briar
forgetting Beauty, neglecting the heart's communion
mary angela douglas 17 june 2017;28 august 2022;28 february 2023
so what if they scatter our flotillas of light
with their little pink birthday candles
on aome other shore they will alight
beyond the masquerades, the predictable awnings
we will find the unshaped gardens again
the wild rose music and our pure hearted friends
the beautiful fields of what has been;
who owns the light
serenade it to the lunch time crowds
when you haven't even a quarter for eclairs
whisper to God what they won't permit or bear
to heck with their glares
the night bird sings
the moon in rings is haloed still
call it what you will, a retrograde star
the need to seek the very Far From Here
since childhood. really
to disappear in a Christmas mood
where there isn't any other news
only raspberries and fresh cream...
nor ever of dreaming be disabused.
mary angela douglas 29 august 2022;28 february 2023
can these lilies be transposed
I asked my grandmother in a waking dream
in between the seams of childhood in a twilight light
light purple it is or later we called it lavender
once we knew the word, the words and the colour of
lavender blue and that little song
I wished I had asked her about that music
the way she looked at it how it lodged in her soul
about music for the pianoforte she seemed to know everything
everything is music I could say I would have said then
or sung in a roundelay
and I did feel without saying it the lilies could be transposed
why not as flowers should have that capability
drifting on the waters of Monet or Debussy perhaps
memorial
leaning toward the sun or under the moon looking different
perfuming the air with silver for as long as the dream time runs.
her Liebestraum.
her hands, christening the keys.
making my Grandfather weep.
mary angela douglas 29 august 2022;28 february 2023
old coins I have found beneath the ruins
old coins not to save perhaps to spend
on finding the memory of God again
old coins like tears I could not shed
for the living or the dead
though each one shines a sunset tear
a single century or a year
near the aqueduct half washed in the seas
the sea of Time that's ebbing from me.
they shine with a familiar shine
they bear an inscription half Divine
oh where will I spend them
what will they buy
now that the night is drawing nigh
old coins I have found and wept to see
an odd inscription of love for me
a song half flung from Calvary
a patina formed by the years from home
a rose gold sigh on a foreign wind.
mary angela douglas 30 august 2022
dedicated with great respect and admiration and in all their generations to Maxim D. and Karen Lasser Shrayer...
beautiful, on the lake of my dreams float the swans
innumerably
in a light that is hushed and jeweled:
crystal precipitate!
in a prelude that indicates the whole ballet
I too that is my soul each night would alight
or on enameled afternoons, flashpoints of Beauty,
to thread through death the ferrier warnings in even one
shimmering thread;
to perfect such floating seclusion
whatever epoch we are stranded in.
how can there be sin
in a world where the swan appears, the swans
as from Tuonela or Hans Andersen, Pavlova,
mythically, waiting for the great bells to ring
out of their legends into our entranced hearing,
seeing, feeling.
I too have sounded my griefs in the foreign ballets
awash in wonder beyond all fearing,
beyond any country known or unknown
and where will I come home
to say whatever it means
this fine iridescence, this pearled thunder
mirage forever pealing wherever seen
in the hall of memories or of dreams, in the public garden
for a day tripped Space
or in all of Art if only to pray
in the merest trace upon strange waters:
now you will drift
after long tribulations. sifting the mysterious.
and in the plumage of the freed.
mary angela douglas 30 august 2022
I wonder if we'll be on the other side of music one day
ushered in with pink programmes
or you will swing on the gate of it
as you did before, roller skating
in preludes, wading through scales., Scarlatti
geranium coloured.
will the notes sound like crystals
falling;will we still admire the azaleas?
will Grandmother spell out tone poems
while we listen to small records
of the great composers;
remember, when we're away
the reticence of Beethoven
how he was charged with Light
after the rains, the wind shaking the leaves free of raindrops.
will the sheet music be scattered through the rose garden
because we left the windows open
or glimpsed in the pink nightlight
short songs on the page, arranged.
our faces in cameo infant profile;the toy pianos at rest
and then, the nocturnes.the almond trees somewhere,
blossoming.
on the other side of the world.
it seems so distant now
the way we dreamed it then:
both hands on the keys
the gardenias, scented through the back screen door
now we are carried each on such a wave
through portals on a ship that wasn't there before
we never booked passage on.
you said in your sleep a baby corsage!
I know you must have in your rabbiting dreams
with the guardian angels and the metronome;
this is Heaven
this is home where
music goes on and Mama sings our birthdays
rose light through the curtains in the afternoons.
may it always be.and near the pines.
after a dry season
you will lift the piano lid
like a sunrise.
and small bouquets will arrive
for the recital.
mary angela douglas 14 january 2020
why should we live waiting for the days to end
why not pretend you are already immortal
well, your soul is.
it takes the strain off
suddenly you are feather light
you could be snow
you could even be the skies
the rustle of angels
going by
the birds from early lullabies
the ensign of the Rose perennial
and divine.
mary angela douglas 31 august 2022;28 february 2023
sometimes the point on the pencil breaks off
in the middle of the exam and the clock's light ticking
begins to boom this is a summer nightmare you tell yourself
we're not in school now and I wake up in my room
certain I must have mislaid some papers and oh no,
where are they?
and realize I'm still dreaming and when will this end
or I think what if the lead point breaks at the same time
triggering the final war that takes us all out of here
and everywhere there are sirens even as the coffee just
begins to percolate, or you're at the bakery choosing plum
danish over apricot
and the sun like an enlarged heart
just stops beating
then thank God I wake up and the squirrels have plopped
down on the balcony railing bright and fluffing their bushy
tails as if kindly pushed by St. Francis
into miraculous sunlight and I learn a new fact about
squirrels.
they are very good at interrupting nightmares.
and making me laugh.
mary angela douglas 28 february 2023
breathing like Triton, into the shell
I hear the winds rising, the sea winds rising
though I am inland and inhabit no shore
and never have
and yet I hear as plain as can be
the green wave turning, the pivotal wave
and then,
the waves upon waves surging
and I dread some prophecy is behind this
I have watched on a movie screen
happy when the show was over
to see such a dramatic thing
without drowning and while eating candy bars
and is it the shell of the world I ask myself
gazing at all the blue parts of the globe
while I still can
oh God, if so oh
help my soul reach land.
mary angela douglas 27 february 2023
can we show you something in laptops? the friendly Amazon gmail read.
isn't that what they used to say in the fancy dress shops?
Can we show you something in your size, madam?
so I imagine a throw back kind of time
and I am indeed among the Diors, the costumes worn
for the grade school plays, of course, the fairytales
which shall it be, the chiffons for the princess
the swiss batiste for the goosegirl?
or I am transported back in time
to a hat shop where all the hats oh JOY
are trimmed with roses, little veils.
no, no laptops today.
thanks anyway.
but I would like a full bouquet
of what my grandmother called
"posies."
mary angela douglas 27 february 2023
(to my Grandfather, Milton B. Young)
there is a planetarium in my head
where stars in their tinfoil whirr overhead
and I am a tiny queen of the stage props
devised to emulate the sun and the moon;
if I blur my eyes to a state of dream
all the star wheels can be seen
for Spring and Summer and
the Winter Constellations
the subtle maps of Autumn I withhold from this poem
so that I may remain on earth a little more gold and secretly
and all this is a kind of birth recurring
like the paper revolving charts
our Grandfather brought home for us one day
to my sister and I as though he were handing us
the universe one summer
with his mysterious smile
his fervent adoration of the Space Program
so I turn my inner skies
so many years later
in charge somewhat
of my own theater and surmise
or know outright, if I am patient for awhile
as God was patient in His "Let There Be Light"
as compared with my subordinate clause of
"let there be twinkliness"
all the stars will come clear
and all the light years.
mary angela douglas 1 september 2022;27 february 2023
and to Hans Christian Andersen...
