living in la fortaleza, fortitude by English measure
tensile dream and cardinal red
through the darksome woods we sped
not a force a heart instead
braving winter, driving the snows before it.
day by day the quest grows brighter
and the burden so much lighter,
fortaleza.
drop the Pilgrim's staff and then
find the Heart of Christ again
far beyond the battle ranged
and winning.
mary angela douglas 30 august 2023
gold leaf lined sky
as a child I asked you why
or in dreams I asked you where
could I climb a golden stair
could I live among the clouds
and not ever come back down
or only on Saturdays and Sundays.
residue of dark and light
mixing colours every night
and in the morning too
and beautiful, late afternoon.
gold leaf lined sky
soon to evenng aquiesce
you're the postcard
I love best
when looking up
from this green ground
but I still want
to stick around
where the path to home is found
where the stars may crown my roof
and the rains forever.
mary angela douglas 28 august 2023
PSALM 139, verses 7 through 13...
regarding populations, sociology at an end, or how I felt living in public housing for the elderly these fifteen years
============================================================
living in the bright impairment of the world
still our wrecked ships deem they are wrecked
on the shores of dream and so, survive
half struck by lightning
half struck by the Divine
and so we seem to sail
above the endless prisons that the world entails
who read the constellations
when all else fails, impoverished magi
and bear the imprint of so much beauty;
and o Christ, not the nails
though beggared beyond belief cast out
nearly in the streets
sorted into a population by over educated thieves
depending on income, age or lack of situation.
the soul rings on in vivid imagination
a bell once God has struck
can never be unsung
can never in those half cobbled categories subservient
ever, my friends be struck dumb
buried in the categories
some would say the catacombs
to which we never belonged.
nor the Living God assigned us
bearing as we did, so much Light.
mary angela douglas 27 august 2023
flour can't be resifted once it's in the cake
but gifts may be repurposed
or thrown into a lake
when going for the spark joy look
decluttering all the faded
things you wanted
a long long time ago
just give them to the goodwill
no one needs to know
and rezen all your spaces
in winter's great resnows.
regifting see old Rudolph
resneezing winter colds.
have the best Christmas ever
your presents all rebowed.
be happy it's not summer
when grass must be remowed.
mary angela douglas 27 august 2023
so some random clowns were quiet quitting the circus
juggling just one food insecure orange on one changemaking
finger tip
when some random thought leaders yeah
came over to advocate for really random thinking and
then the influencers were carefully curating themselves
but shouldn't have bothered because really the doomsday clock
was ticking and the glaciers were quietly quitting really
quitting
and melting and the penguins started making the urban habitat
their own
and animal control went missing
and oh thank God my phone just went off and you wouldnt
believe
what a game changing dream U just had
my collectively collective
it was SO SURREAl
I slipped on an orange peel crashing into the randoms
and had to do
community service for clownslaughter.
don't want us to die of unnatural causes
but let's say goodbye in BEAUTIFUL clauses.
mary angela douglas 26 august 2023
I was listening to the music in my head
I said
when I filled out your application.
thank you for letting me take it home
and here it is.
then. they looked at me with dread
and as if I did things in a tizzy
all the clerical staff
but all I said, I said
I'm listening to the music in my head.
my head.
I have a musical memory.
isn't that fine
there was no reply
from the clerical staff
I have in mind
and I went home again
and said this prayer: oh God
my friend:
you are everywhere
in the office or out.
Im praying here on my knees.
oh please
dont let me be dead before Im dead
Ill just keep listening for
from ship to shore
the wild seashore's roar
for the music in my head.
I said.
mary angela douglas 25 august 2023
perhaps it is better
when tribulation's done
to shed the snakeskin hours
and rest in what is won
find stillness at the center
find beauty at the core
let all the sorrows slip away
behind an Unseen door.
mary angela douglas 24 august 2023
let those without laurels Father, still be heard
with each reverberating stone
on the via dolorosa that must cry out
they must cry out
you will crown each word beyond anguish
barred from the flimsy door of accolades on earth
let beauty reign immortal importunate
before the anonymous singers who did not stint.
the latter day abandoned, the strangely slighted
in their own Time
by the sleight of hand, out on manuevers.
they sung to the world , through all the earth
no song without honour,
as they went down to dirt.
mary angela douglas 21 august 2023
for Osip Mandelstam, of blessed memory
and to the present age
===============================================
In Petersburg we'll meet again
and it will be as though
we buried the Sun...Osip Mandelstam
=================================================
the clock of the sun is buried today
I said to myself in a star drenched way
and gone forever the tit for the tat
but I was clearly wrong about that
and light came in as though it were dark
fine with the masquerades knowing the part
and split the rainbow over the ark
and split the atom and then the heart.
and vanquished the beautiful calling this Art
thus vinegar only for his wounds
did Christ consume
did Christ consume.
mary angela douglas 21 august 2023
dreams when they fall from the dream tree...
are they ripe like figs, golden inside the plums
purple and blue and violet on the outside or
you can't be sure in the twilight if the twilight colours
are what they really are so you paint them in several
different aspects or sing to them in your sleep
dreams when they fall
even in the hurricane season
go out on the dream lawn
and capture them lest they fly
or be retrieved by angels
thinking they made a mistake
to drop them there for you
in the blue green bluegrass wet with dew.
mary angela douglas 21 august 2023
while you are still here
in the shambling Spring of the year
they are carting the cherry orchard away
you won't call it stagecraft anymore
but something else to yourself indoors,
under lock and key
the mystery of why in your soul
the cherry orchard razed to the ground
is still in blossom.
mary angela douglas 20 august 2023
have beautiful days forever
I would whisper to everyone
if I were going away
but I am not going away
love mirages and kingdom comes
but I am not going away
how can I go when earth bids me to stay
through each bird and leaf
in a glorious way
how can I go when each morning star
reminds me of all I've neglected so far
and yet if I go remember me then
as you would remember the autumn wind.
mary angela douglas 20 august 2023
so prince charming in the rose garden seemed
the saviours of that country
mythological on the globe
the children kept turning in the piano studio
in pastel pink or green
against the blue tides
with the cream coloured borders
near the photo of Mt. Aetna.
now all is gone, sundered after a mere clap of thunder,
gone under
rude floods have washed almost every bridge out;
the neighbors emerge with lanterns held high
but the sky has disappeared.
inclement as the years
that once, were gracious.
mary angela douglas 20 august 2023
tinker toy toys and beautiful tomorrows
junior high songs, where have you gone
leaves rustling still from every lost september
old agate heart, make a fresh start
I won't believe it's all been just a fable
we'll live again reading till when
the stars navigate their seasonal horizons
time is a myth think about this
paper airplane spin
then we live again
then we live again.
mary angela douglas 20 august 2023
perhaps for some things it is better to have no words
nothing approximate even in any other language
to let it remain no catchphrase
that it may not become worn out, cliche
yesterday's news and too late
sending no telegram in code
from a now faint destination
inside you know
you recognize the colour that it is
a colour unmatchable in any paint store
even among the tinctures in Paradise
the secret stock
compose it of rose or gunmetal or who knows
perhaps it is written in the stars
and has already disappeared
or been thrown over as Rilke might put it
the cliffs of the heart.
mary angela douglas 19 august 2023
sometimes walking, dreaming I'm walking
on pavements dark with rain
I turn into a dream passage
and I say I pray to you oh God
where are we this time
and what is time
slow the metronome
that the notes on the piano
may break through into some timeless
avenue of shining
where nothing is due
nothing can be approved
but what you have always decreed
let time slip from me
that I may not anguish know
on these dark pavements
that I do not even know
as no locale now beckons me home
no locale but You.
mary angela douglas 19 august 2023
let's all go watch or be an extra in another quirky southern
style movie
where everyone is bohemian only they dont call it that
and lives half the summer on a purple porch
and makes a planter out of a pink spinning wheel
that no one in the family ever no matter how far back you look
ever used
let's tell stories on handmade stools
and all have exaggerated hand gestures
so that the children squeal with laughter
no matter how they really feel
lets have pies all made from scratch
let's whip up a batch on commercials
and come back to peach harvesting scenes
and yum arent they good
think Ill make some jam
and jam some with these southern musicians
who learned bluegrass in their sleep
and just cant keep those southern toes
from tippity tapping
kicking up substantial dust from the faux
rag rug covered floors.and the malcontent cat.
mary angela douglas 19 august 2023
somebody's got to be the barker
letting the Fair folks through
to say whenever the need arises
pink crystal snow cones waiting for you
mustardy hot dogs and relish galore
homes at the seaside forevermore
ring the triangle
toss for the doll
carry it home with a lime galway shawl
manage the necklaces
court all the rings
give it all up for the zinger of zings
magic's investment
this way if you please
hold down the chatter for the
elephant's sneeze
this way and that way on bric a brac Sunday
ride on the ferris till its pale blue Monday
swing on the swings till youre launched in the sky
take home as dusk falls
a strawberry pie.
mary angela douglas 19 august 2023
I dreamed that the feelings of people in dreams
were evident as stained glass colours shimmering
the warmth of heart returning to hearth in the afterlife
barrows
and that one got there by walking steadfastly over the moors
or at least, you did, and by free will
or indeterminate plains where the mist unrolled
and walking firmly, alone and breathing naturally
bent on a purpose you could not say, but that you knew
anyway, seeking no company content to be yourself
looking as you did in May
but strong again
and you walked on unperturbed and deep in thought
needing no guide
and you walked on whether it was day or night the mist
covered it all, covered the sun, the moon
you were solitary walking there as solitary as ever Wordsworth
was
in his tranquil recollections
not as blind as Milton
not blind at all
happy when you reached the waystation.
but infinitely calm
it was made of aged grey stone alternatively
a great, grave mansion
but filled with light inside
with the stained glassed refractions
with people you knew long ago
offering small rich gifts which surprised you
and yet did not surprise as if you already knew
all this would happen and
quiet happiness.
but you knew you were not yet home.
at a traveler's inn, let's say
one so familiar somehow
resting along the Way.
mary angela douglas 19 august 2023
for my sister on her 71st birthday, August 19, 2023
for Sharon Foster Douglas, the most beautiful pianist I ever
heard in my life...
==========================================================
let mirrors and clocks be melting
as in a film by Jean Cocteau
and chandeliers gleam by way of reflection
indirectly shine and yours and mine
the fireworks over the castle
I am not finished yet with the glass records
with Debussy's preludes
or is it Ravel's
the petal closing spell cast over the roses
with hearing them in my Grandmother's studio
where the piano is always reechoing somehow
especially at sunset
at sunset when I am listening
to the glasslike preludes
and I know I am melting into this music
and they will come to look for me
like characters out of Maeterlinck
the dear departed
who wake up when they are remembered
and say Grandchild, Grandchildren
for it is my sister and I
on the violet bluebird trail again
I know, moving again, shadows from the magic lanterns
of that long ago scene
more real than anything
more than these current
rabbiting shadows
shifting on the pale lemon walls.
mary angela douglas 18 august 2023
who dreamed of the repatriation of the stars
of the cloud sheep in apricot
softly harried in
of the quilted earth from space
in the midst of angelic snows
I did said the rose
or the rosebud, for a little while
child go back to sleep chirruped the sparrows
we have all left somewhere
the breadcrumb trail still shines
over the moonlight bridges
and the Christmas chimes
we have all left somewhere
and folded the maps so carelessly
into our best dream pockets
lined with green silk.
mary angela douglas 18 august 2023
art has become the clockwork nightingale
she whispered to all in a gale
in a dream
in between seam and seem
the Princess of everything
old is new again
we ll break no mirrors to bring bad luck
to those unloading us off of the trucks
where we exist in olden scenes
banned with the nightingale
I heard the click and the clack of the trains
telling myself we wont be there again
or here at all except in dreams
gilding the nightngale
on and on in a waltz so sombre
and all the skies
are burnished like umber
its hard to trace the fault lines here
oh how did they make everything disappear
the wind subsides
the seas are stilled
I look for the past
and I always will
when what was beautiful
mattered the most
and now it's all been consigned to ghosts
and I still can hear all by myself
the winding of art by mechanical elves
when I know that once
the world was new
and everything glistened
the morning dew and myself, my soul
was always glad
to think of the beautiful earth we had
my soul my soul my soul.
mary angela douglas 17 august 2023
this setting. this scene. this dialogue.
mise en scene.
tablet of stone.
or flyover grace.
what am I doing.
in this place.
this theatre. this spoke.
off a Cinderella wheel.
off a pumpkin broke.
no stardust.
get along.
no piecrust.
made of song.
cherries jubilee.
I would say.
if I were.
in a different play,
mary angela douglas 17 august 2023
the wonderful year could be this year
when the grass grows even taller
though an apple core or an orange peel
could make you grow much smaller
it could be waiting beside the door
to a place you've never chartered before
it could be under lock and key
and suddenly spring, by angels set free
it could be when there's a buttermilk sun
and personal letters and lots of fun
and sweeping the floor of the gold dust fine
and all of your castles as suddenly rise
the wonderful year could come any day
so don't throw the calendar ever away
just circle the date till it all comes true
in gummed stars of gold or of ocean blue
and make it a holiday when it is not
and think there's a treasure ship coming to dock
and dance without slippers and breathe without air
and live out your life on a diamond back dare
that if you expect it you'll notice it soon
whatever it is that is so festooned
and flying to meet you if you're prepared
if you've tried to be good and prayed all your prayers
to laugh in its branches and slide down its stairs
when the day comes loaded with circus pink clouds
and no one suspects that you're dreamed it out loud.
mary angela douglas 17 august 2023
under the words of silver
into the gold of song
I have cast my weighted griefs
and very long have longed
longed to be home in all of that
the worlds beyond the world
the story's martyrdom refused
ever since I was a girl
all else expire in wind and wave
but let the harp be saved and saved
reprieved from wind and war and flood
and strung alone for the sake of Love
for the sake of love let these words be
one leaf on the tree of Poetry.
mary angela douglas 15 august 2023
they have grown proud of breaking the beautiful things
this is their forte now
while the courtiers are asleep
and no one guards the seven castles of my soul
I weep for the breakage
how hard is the ground
I set my head upon stone
and cannot dream
surely Christ will come again
if only these lost things to mend
they are so numerous now
like shards in the palms of my hands
who may help us understand
all that has come to pass
to see from the corners of our eyes
the traffic of angels sigh
as if the stars were glass
and trembled like bells in the smallest rains.
mary angela douglas 14 august 2023
those who cannot accept the spun honey gold of light
filtering as it is
through loved trees
must have no peace in themselves
who must leave critical reviews of Light itself
most certainly, of God Himself;
of water, the very shale of earth
why must you be so sere
depriving us of mirth, officious copy in hand
I say to all reviewers out of hand
from a quiet moment of grief
that all the imagination may be
if only you would let it go to seed
and to wildflowers
why must you quibble over leaf and leaf
and then the leaves falling and the hunching down of winds
and then the eternal raking settles in
of your opinions on it all.
leave song be!
stop putting it through the tribulations
and roaring at it in its need to be distant
and the North Star to whoever wants it to be.
in
quiet perusal of starlight, shadows;
we shall breathe in beautiful annunciations
unencumbered without you, deliciously
appled the poetry tree; what poets feel:
the hum that settles in the soul
going about other things
when a poem begins to dream itself
into roots and branches
is not and shall never be
your provenance
except in tears;
the mirages of former years.
and though you may disbelieve in it, still
the undimmed music of the spheres.
mary angela douglas 13 august 2023
not all the kings and queens
with their glitter showers coming down upon them
could I treasure more
then the sight
of one cream sky
made by the Lord God.
what coloured beads, what pocketbook mirrors indeed
could I trade in, with the trading stamps:
all the gaudy parade
to hear one mockingbird in the shade
that I heard then.
to hear you say, so blase, my mockingbird is a cliche
makes me laugh to top spinning giddiness
you do not know my mockingbird obviously
the one who madrigaled all day amid the magnolias
in our backyard
when we were little
and every star was wrapped with tinsel
we thought my sister and I to hide even greater Glory
of the lemon and blue dwarf stars we knew
from the picture books
and we danced around in the summer grass
swing-a-statue
praising the cream sky, the ones who loved us
the frozen chicken pies of home and piano resonance
the fresh recitals of the rains
the rapidly falling petals of the roses
and the Father nearby
where Heaven is, we said
Straight Up
the orange and crimson zinnias
from last year;
forsythia blooming
with the tearose Easters and the sugar eggs
mary angela douglas 12 august 2023
you're thinking its just another bread and butter day
when Santa crashes down and all his reindeer, sleigh
right on top of city hall when there's no one there at all
and you've got a cough no syrup can mend,
and the mind bends start,
in the middle of the day
it's getting dark
and the Martians come to stay
and your out of bread
the dog's not fed
and the wash is on the line
it happens every time
and the deluge is about to start
take heart
go team
and the bus has broken down
an ice storm hits the town
and the grocery store is closed
there's a tickling in your nose
and you think you're gonna sneeze
like a hurricane breeze
that blows us all away
and I think it's time to pray
then the cat comes in
and paws at your chin
and then you're wide awake
and it's all been a mistake
and you suddenly feel so grateful.
mary angela douglas 12 august 2023
shall we discuss the relevance of cream puffs, eclairs
what is relevance
how relevant is relevance
which is itself a cream puff all too often
from the vantage point of Time and Eternity
and the usual all things considered
relevant to what
to God?
in the face of Death?
to the life eternal?
to being steadfast as Keat's star
relevant to you right now where you are
waiting for the bus
praying the bus isnt late
relevant to you at picnics
or staring at your empty plate
relevance is a frivolity
masquerading as a cause
nothing to measure by
a thing like oh oh my
look who's going to whose party
a trick of the imagination or of being a smarty
to truth or to a lie not necessarily bound
the wrong question at the wrong time sometimes
what is eternal is the question
what will last
what has God died to bring me or,
all the poets of the past through Divine Inspiration
should I cast it all away
so I can say: it's not relevant and be liked
by those I think its relevant to be liked by
here's a cream pie in your eye
though cream puffs matter if they're your last
sustenance, and eclairs are also yummy in the tummy.
there are other things more important oh by far.
no matter how in love with Now you are.
and with being relevant.
mary angela douglas 11 august 2023
why does it feel like they all disappeared
all those we knew for years and for years
where are we going
where have they gone
the ones so vivid
the ones so strong
the ones too frail
to carry on
why is the mystery
locked to us why
I asked the blue winter
I asked the pearl sky
I seek for them sometimes
and sometimes I cry
surely there must be
a key to it all
why won't God give to us
are we too small?
are there too many things
we just won't get
surely in this he would not forget
to tell us what happens
and when we will go
to find on the other bright side of the snows
the Spring that's eternal
the lasting rose.
He loves us to dream it
I guess and suppose.
so that in reunion
the joy so immense
will melt earthly sorrows
specific laments
and solve earthly hints
like a rose windowed kaleidoscope
we were always turning ourselves.
mary angela douglas 10 august 2023
for Alfred Lord Tennyson
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
in some sonorous summer
with the blackbirds full in the trees
they will address old grievances
the waves and the shore
I don't know how we will hear then then
when even now we seem blind to music
will moonlight intervene
will the waves dash suddenly against the sun
icarian waves I thought
absentmindedly
will they dry up
leaving the sea of imagination
overcome
leaving us to look frantically for the old poems
like Tennyson's with the sea wall of grief
so early breached
spring's heart turned to winter's; numbed.
mary angela douglas 9 august 2023;10 august 2023
not all trees lend magic
if you break a branch from a golden tree
and it isnt your tree at all
it will not grow for you
however you remember the spell
and articulate it exactly
or as, In Mary Poppins
well the barley sugar fingers will not grow back
if you've snatched at them.
you think you can sift another's flour
but o alack
no cake will come from it
and when you go to serve it
the birds from faery realms
will come through the casements
and pick at it.
cherry and all.
mary angela douglas 9 august 2023
if I should speak in a fanciful way
pardon me, pardon me
I'll have better manners, tomorrow
if I should speak in a magical way
magical way
vermillion sparkles fly over the bay
have no dismay
Ill have better rainbows, tomorrow
mother of pearl, roses unfurled
milky way turn and then
start all over again.
on a strawberry wind.
mary angela douglas 9 august 2023
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