THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM

things are not always what they seem

golden gleam, emerald stream

things are not always what they seem

better take care in a dream..

clouds fill the sky when they say it’s clear

with good cheer Isn’t it drear

wrapped in a fog it’s crystal clear

things are not all they seem

signs aren’t posted

then you’re ghosted

suddenly on your own

be wary of all the chary

and keep to the road you’ve known o

things are not always apropos

watch how you go

don’t be the last to know

look for the telltale signs and beware

whenever you walk on air.

mary angela douglas 30 november 2023

THE SOMETHING IN THE POEM I CANNOT EXPLAIN (REPOSTED)

 

The something in the poem I cannot explain

like a fissure of gold in a heart of stone, molten and alive like a blue crystaled opening on the surface of another planet, door

through which you pass not even knowing that you do

over the border of an unseen country, the place called beautiful

no matter what language you use

is this the something of the poem we have lost, are losing. will lose again if found like children too easily distracted

or some had never found the headwaters of the music there

In its plunging onwards through dry gulches

As in Shakespeare, angels rushing in the wind of those words

Angels rushing to future generations about to lose even the word

for Soul or as in Hopkins not to be

Trodden down, but to uplift with gold red images and spirographic

exultant, currencies

Of the wind caught, unbound, and soaring and the majestical

artifacts of God relayed and the sound of it, the sense of it

the current is lapping against your soul

and your soul cannot be eroded, but soothed, made still

In the drifts of God of Christ of lighted windows

Into a finer understanding, or like someone adrift

finally you see something in the distance drawing near,

though you can’t make it out yet and feelings long disused cry out

to a sudden guest, yes. Finally, my consciousness, dream transliterated

there is land. Even a small place, green, consoling above the churning of it all,

to stand, to breathe. Not to be commanded unduly.

mary angela douglas 21 november 2023

IF I FORGET TO READ (FORMERLY TITLED LOST BOOKS LOST ON PURPOSE)

 

If I forget to read

between the lines of the butterfly crumbling lovely pages

in the dust-laden magisterial corners of the Ages

faintly may the violets of future Springs

reprimand; the baby stars leave off

shining in the land of ploughed under kingdoms.

if I refuse the gleaning of the wild apple borders

of the suddenly untold retold intertwined with gold, with silver,

cerise

I will entreat my Soul:

oh do not cease to know

knowing that they are mine to know,

so fervently passed down.

but, if so,

may the string quartets quartered, confined in

the Attic attics repining,

break my heart.

far far is the world from bliss, contemplating

all this banishment and fallen foul

of this, of these faded valentines with the clasped hands

the pale blue ribbons streaming

meaning upon meaning, weeping

the fin de siecle of feeling, Beauty,

sentiment

from the mouths of doves so wreathed

then may the small birds fly away

from the rainbow scuttling rills deceiving

and may no one till from the Ground of being anymore

failing to impart IMMORTALITY

from the secret this so sacred Ark,for

the least of these spent languages,

the currencies of dreams.

mary angela douglas 12 march 2015;29 november 2023

IN RETROSPECT, THE CHOCOLATE ECLAIRS

In retrospect, the chocolate eclairs

or lady fingers I declare

as brought so elegantly into the room

fresh picked from the bakery none too soon

with my Grandmother’s elegant festive mood

seemed such a treat though now such sweets

I cannot eat their memory fair

I consume with such crème filled happiness.

mary angela douglas 29 november 2023

  

OUR RAMPARTS OF ROSES FALL APART (FINAL VERSION)

 

To my sister, Sharon

==========================

STREW on her roses, roses,

  And never a spray of yew.

Matthew Arnold, Requiescat

------------------------------------------------

our ramparts of roses fall apart 

the dystopian worlds would say

loose stitching holds the petals in

for another day but I say

it was of gold and gold is it still

when we were new

entirely of gold

that we played in the afternoons

that our Kingdom was roses, roses

watered by the green garden hose

by our Grandfather's kindness and

we were his rosy posies

our Grandmother's cherished, few-

our Mama's full bouquet

not soon we will fall away 

and then only driftingly

roses still imbued the rose of our souls, renewed

but such a long time from now

with the shades of our roses roses

happily ghosts for awhile

when God plays His own hidden tune

in His own Time illuminating

our stories' forever and evers

in a Heaven of roses where

we will always bloom

with rose petaled certitude.

mary angela douglas 23 march 2015; 29 november 2023

IN HARD TIMES, WITH ONLY THE DIMESTORE JEWELRY LEFT (FINAL VERSION)

could I sell my dimestore jewelry

down by the springs? 

at least I could wash my face

in the rippling waters

thought the vagrant Princess Elise

who hadn't packed her mirrors.

what are mirrors when no

one recognizes you anyway

she had thought, at the last minute

taking only an extra summer jumper

a basket for berries, the

clip earrings, the faux pink pearls

someday there will be bread

she dreamed she said

and that will seem

like a Wedding.

mary angela douglas 24 march 2015;28 november 2023

THIS IS A DREAM OF STARS HE MAY HAVE SAID IN A DREAM

 (to the memory of my Grandfather handing to us on a summer's day,

star wheels, star maps you could turn to see the summer constellations...or winter, or spring, or fall...)

this is a dream of stars he may have said in a dream

I had recently that I forgot when I woke up

the dream of stars the way they used to be seen

from our backyard?

when someone had that dream before you

and couldn't get out of their head the music of

the spheres, remember?

or was that earlier.

new mists have come to be and they

cloud everything now.

even in the National Geographic

but this is your dream of stars you won't remember

this is what they say to you in fairytales when

you see something rare before you're meant to:

you won't remember this when you awake.

go back to sleep. you're in the house

you used to know my Grandfather smiled

a far away smile when

my Grandmother lullabied and they were

eating ice cream in a midnight kitchen

and we were all laughing.

mary angela douglas 15 march 2015

APPLE BRIGHT

Apple bright

Snow bedight

Rhymes on rhymes

The silver chimes

Are what I love

Above above

The dreary reasons

In all seasons

We must be staid

In the grand parade

Of words, oh golden words.

mary angela douglas 28 november 2023

A FAIRYTALE RIVER RIBBONED THROUGH THE WORLD

a fairy tale river ribboned through the world

visible to some, shining in odd places, shimmering chimera

to little children.

some floated boats on it, some cast necklaces of flowers,

the rainbow broidered merely smiled (mysteriously).

it grew, the fairy tale river, past all we knew

even past all we would never understand

about the unenchanted lands,

past trees in their summer bowers

and where an unseen music carried us

through livid hours, through walkie talkie ravages of time

still bordered with eglantine, with airy castles

and with cherried towers late  afternoons hours

edged sky to sky in Romany and while

the world decried: "Anomalie!"

etched deep beyond the mire of day-to-day

in living gold I prayed

and told at times beside no hearths at all

where hope was an amethyst scrawl where

the fires burned low

and when that failed

and all our harps wept winterly 

still they ticked their tocks the tales of old

on days at home with the doors and windows closed,

when the little sod crevices let in the blast

we still held onto them through the looking glass

and when it rained we remembered the

beautiful refrains

and when authorities complained

still ours to keep

a rose red rose white flame

asleep, awake I send to Thee

oh Thou, most Steadfast

we dreamed of.

and grew into at the last.

mary angela douglas 15 march 2015;27 november 2023

ALL DAY LONG AT THE TRANSIENT WINDOW

all day long at the transient window

I see ghost houses floating

little ghost gardens

with transparencies of roses

sheer azaleas

and a green awning flapping

cheerily in brisk March winds 

dreaming to be a kite; a grass green garden

chair where we were told stories beyond compare;

icebox kitchens everywhere with lemon 

yellow curtains; attics with creaking tiptoed stairs to

Christmas toys of former joys;

and in the yards and meadows between

the vintage valentines knock sweetly on the screen doors

remember me?

out on a field day and then, colliding

with postcard tinted clouds

not to be outdone at this distance from the sun:

cardboardy paper hearts come sailing back on

unexpected reversals of breeze;

piano scale reveries,

cut out, construction paper sprees

still inscribed in lopsided crayon writing

to someone's Mama,

forever

mary angela douglas 22 march 2015;27 november 2023

I HAD A DREAM OF THE SUN

 

I had a dream of the sun

and an orange crayon

an orange so bright it was almost subtropical

an orange to outorange whole groves

that colour I painted it

and I know

no eclipse will ever encroach

Its honeycomb hivedness

its liveliness

and in a shoebox with magenta tissue

I kept it all winter long

and here it is dispelling darkness

in my song.

mary angela douglas 26 november 2023

A DIFFERENT KIND OF READING I TRIED TO FETCH

A different kind of reading I tried to fetch

no fool’s gold from the remnants but the beloved passages

in old books

charactry of the stars or the least of the showers of meteors so

easily projected on the screen of the mind

when pin pricks there where the silver foil shows through

in my dream project for school simulate in partial eclipses always

those sweet disruptions in Heaven

lost o lost the magic lanterns now

what is now

the books hold still the maps from ramen noodle here to transcendent there

if you can trace the sepia of it all on your tracing paper

stuck in the hobbies you had so gloriously

when you were twelve years old

what is all this I hear the Giant fume

creaking down his crooked ladder from the folktale sky

while I in the vestiges of afternoon

from the heirloom rose garden I would live in

or I would try

In a pink dress with a parasol from my sister, I

come up with no replies

but he resumes like zig zag lightning

in old cartoons surprising me at my rest

you don’t know poetry

at all he jests

I look at him and sigh it all away

who can put it into words today

must know as has been noted before

the language of the birds, forgotten lore

and mother of pearl,

the pearl swans lifting, leaving home;

what seemed to be, illusory

below them in the truculent seas.

mary angela douglas 25 november 2023

THE DIAMONDS IN THE GRASS

 

I pray God will carry on the four winds

more than any fairytale then or since

the wistfulness of

the tears I shed today into enduring beauty

remembering two small girls at the front window

staring out each day, my little sister and I who were so close

in age, in dreaming…

in the early mornings, small sentinels and entranced who

stared in childish wonder as the sun lit the dew on the grass

into prismatic brush fires on the front lawn;

into blazing diamonds and together as if we were two small flowers

on the same twig of a tree in spring we chimed together

with the same reverie, more than a story a something

received that there were diamonds on the grass

and if we went quickly before they passed before the fairies

made them disappear we could gather them and give them

to our grandparents by shining handfuls

and then they wouldn’t have to wear themselves out in work

but we could live in a castle and all be free and shining forever together

so I slipped out one day almost at the break of day with little sister

stationed inside

ready with excuses just in case

and touched with trembling hands lest the fairies fury I should awake

the dew on the grass; alas, dissolving diamonds

oh too late I thought I came too late.

back inside my sister cried excitedly oh did you get them did you get them

no. I said. next time we will go earlier

and this time

it will work!

and so we comforted ourselves.

with the thought that for the sake of those we loved

and who loved us, we were sure

we would outwit the fairies no matter how

many times it took in the looking glass world

and scoop diamonds beyond diamonds

and maybe even pearls

fulfilling the gospel true feeling that we had

that this was real more real than anything

ever said that

the dew turned to diamonds on the grass

and we would bring it to pass with extra

diamonds left over for our mama

with all the happy endings never ending.

mary angela douglas 24 november 2023

WHAT CAN I HAVE TO DO WITH BATTLE STATIONS

what can I have to do with battle stations

wearing the world on my sleeve like a heart

I used to do that

thinking it would matter

the world is the world

there is only one Saviour

I am not the Saviour

I am the same girl I was earlier

happy to stand in the wind on a hill at sunset

all by myself

and the wind feels only as if

God sent it

and it needs no translation

it is to me

the feeling of freedom

of purity, of light

a feeling like music

that carries your soul

but not too far

so that you are still somehow

anchored on earth

still here with the starlight overhead

sometimes disguised by late indigo clouds

and you want to write in their purple ink somehow

on a tablet of the evening sky

feelings too numerous to mention

thoughts like tears

or the birth of flowers

the presence of flowers

before this disappears

close enough to where you still

may go back and go home

like a child who wants no other place to be

and softly, firmly close the door.

mary angela douglas 21 november 2023

THE SOMETHING IN THE POEM YOU CANNOT EXPLAIN (REPOSTED)

The something in the poem you cannot explain

like a fissure of gold in a heart of stone, molten and alive like a blue crystaled opening on the surface of another planet, door

through which you pass not even knowing that you do

over the border of an unseen country, the place called beautiful

no matter what language you use

is this the something of the poem we have lost, are losing. will lose again if found like children too easily distracted

or some had never found the headwaters of the music there

In its plunging onwards through dry gulches

As in Shakespeare, angels rushing in the wind of those words

Angels rushing to future generations about to lose even the word

for Soul or as in Hopkins not to be

Trodden down, but to uplift with gold red images and spirographic

exultant, currencies

Of the wind caught, unbound, and soaring and the majestical

artifacts of God relayed and the sound of it, the sense of it

the current is lapping against your soul

and your soul cannot be eroded, but soothed, made still

In the drifts of God of Christ of lighted windows

Into a finer understanding, or like someone adrift

finally you see something in the distance drawing near,

though you can’t make it out yet and feelings long disused cry out

to a sudden guest, yes. Finally, my consciousness, dream transliterated

there is land. Even a small place, green, consoling above the churning of it all,

to stand, to breathe. Not to be commanded unduly.

mary angela douglas 21 november 2023

YOU'LL TRUDGE ON THROUGH THE FAIRY WOOD SLIGHTLY ALONE

 

you'll trudge on through the fairy wood all alone

the others having been taken by the hand, 

led back another way

to where there is bread

spread with honey butter.

prom invitations

formals in frothing pink or blue

shoes that match the occasion

of those who withhold approval

for sport

in Shangrila. oh la di da

and yet in your checkered blue

your ruby slippers will do.

when

small doors are shut tight

against the chill..

you wander at will

encouraged by other things.

piano sounds like Spring in any season

the masterpieces of literature.

four for a paperback dollar.

oh how unkind you cannot even think

in the finger freeze of the mittens dropped

along the roseate way.

where they think you don't have much to say.

you're on the brink of falling into

the well where no wishes are

until you see one star

floating on one scrap of cloud of lilac

above this sodden earth oh sprig of lilac

fragmentary poem

graduations ghosts try  snatching at you

looming from the schoolrooms

with their bleak gossip

no one to sigh over you then

they 'tsked' on afterwards

as if they knew.

how could they.

ah, but

only by you

as the wind whistled through

as though you were a looking glass

sent to warn them off

did the storybooks open

at the right page

implied the attending angel

after awhile

staring through the disappearing

with nothing like a smile; 

beautifully wry.

mary angela douglas 20 march 2015;19 november 2023

FOUR ANGELS STOOD AT A RUINED GATE

four angels stood at a ruined gate

one to weep and one to wait

when waiting was the only thing left

when all the world was feeling bereft

but the evening showed openly 

the unshaken stars

oh grief’s kaleidoscope, hard to forget

when turning the muted colors slowly

but I clung to one image only

of four angels at a ruined gate

one to sob and one to wait

and one to carry my soul away

If there should be no more daybreak.

one angel shall unmentioned be

and so retain the mystery.

and I shall stand in a whirling wind

and carry my songs back home to Him

who waits and bides and keeps the clock

and knows our thoughts

and what we’ve locked

away, away in the treasure stores

beyond the heart’s sad, trifling wars.

mary angela douglas 18 november 2023

IS THE SPEED OF THE LIGHT THE BEAUTY OF THE LIGHT

 

Is the speed of the light the beauty of the light

Or is light more than speed

Is curve less than angle and angle nothing

Is the sorrow of love more than need

Is the light of the speed the question

Then must we bear all things heavily

On earth and be circumscribed by logic only

by the mere measurements as if to say

The measurement holds superior sway

And for this men win prizes hold chairs at institutes valued

over anything that can be felt, as in far dimensions, discerned

dreamed, heralded by the angelic where what is learned

cannot proceed

oh look for life where there is no gravity if you please

it hardly matters to me if

the beauty of the speed or of the light agree

but I love

the light in the heaviness of darkness revealed

where the comfort of the light is singing even weighed down

in measureless flights fairytale ascending to those

counted as insignificant if registering at all there the light

is singing to me with tears streaming down

Into the equations which break apart

And cannot yield what is expected but miraculous

The miraculous enters in then a charged infinity like the art

Of Callas singing vissi d’arte

and how then can I break mere surf on the horizon into particles and waves

but something else

I cannot tell you I cannot describe cried the mermaid in Hans Andersen’s story

not my own glory but something else survives

not washed over by the tides in a sea of blue green negation but

where the light does not bind me

my heart to speed as if to an unfailing metronome, colorless ratio

the pert jeweled nightingale with its predictable inevitable music

or to do anything other

than to be in order to sing in reply to the beauty of the Light

however rudimentary I may be

that God decreed is home

unassailed by scientific precision

home and prisms and sunflowers, wherever shining is needed

the beauty of light the beauty of light the chlorophyll lightning of the trees, light lingering

on the child’s hair , reflected in the mirrors of the lakes

the dew on the grass of the isles once fair, returning

and concert song

surrounding the children with grace

causing the roses to bloom.

Christ, to rise in no disguise

as Very Light risen from death itself.

because Light proves unspokenly after all the sacrifice of Love and indissoluble.

mary angela douglas 17 november 2023

All reactions:

1Mary Angela Douglas

ROCKINGHORSE, ROCKINGHORSE

rockinghorse, broken horse

where will you ride

I have an answer if you won't hide

back in the corner with broken springs

so disconcerted and wishing for wings

here is my plan if you’ll turn back this way

I’ll feed you nectarines most every day

tell snow powdered stories

back from the plains

starry so overhead

starry your reins

just stop and dream awhile

close painted eyes

nuzzle the wind

and chomp the sunrise

You, at your youngest

and coral skies

pastures of diamonds and

carousel eyes

back in the games you are

back on your springs

saddle of flowers

and upwards we swing

galloping galloping

in a fine dream

 

eating gold apples

on each afternoon

rocking horse, rocking horse

bright as the moon

harken to me and you’ll learn to pretend

pretend and pretend until finally we’re in

kicking up dust till all the bells peal

rockinghorse, rockinghorse

can’t you just feel

everything broken’s now everything healed.

Isn’t it splendid!

mary angela douglas 16 november 2023

CARNATION, LILY, LILY, ROSE (FINAL VERSION, REFORMATTING)

[on the painting by John Singer Sargent]

we hold the lanterns in our gaze and they shall not go out

the lily, the rose, the lily rose shadows their carnation

coolnesses, the children will not ravel

the edge of this twilight ever, softly they blossom

in the borders near the clumps of the flowers familiar to them

and the lanterns sway in the painting as if it were a real garden

and only slightly it is, the wind of the carnation, the lily, 

the rosied lilies partake of Dream and dreaming

the light the light diminishing only lightly

we hold within our hearts within, within

equidistant from firefly as from star

there is nothing

like coloured paper lanterns swaying in the

purple, this cannot fade the purple shadows by

the painting kept alive

the lights go out or

the lanterns stir in the evening breeze when we depart

the carnation breeze be remembered, the beautiful the beautiful

weaving of lily and rose all before and after

shining, the weeping afterglow, the childish laughter

glow worm gloss and

mysterious mosses, 

the self-same lanterns in our gaze

the night that will never fade

the distant song forever distant

time and the flowers at a standstill

the children, murmuring

mary angela douglas 19 february 2015 rev.11 june 2015; 23 january 2018; 16 november 2023 

THE PARTY FAVORS IN THE OFFERING PLATE SEEM OUT OF PLACE (SECOND, FINAL VERSION)

the party favors in the offering plate seem out of place

though in my imagination I had flung them there

hoping to make God happier, things seemed grim

though we are singing beautiful hymns and Grandmother

plays Bach on the organ as if he were there smiling

I feel out of place I hear God sigh and the stained glass

shines in a different way though He likes my Grandmother's

playing

I'll meet you outside I say to Him as I go in

and then I do and Sunday begins after church

when I go home and find Him again

in my God given family

courtesy of my Grandmother, Grandfather

the genial Sunday chef for brunch

the bacon and scrambled eggs afterwards the

grape jelly like a jeweled glob on the plate

we separate into smaller globs to

spread on buttered toast

garnets I thought after I learned that word.

and now in his tiny rose garden Outside

no petals fall and it is afternoon and

now, I say to myself so happily

and my sister too or we just think it inside

there is no school my favorite dream, 

only the roses and this sweet etude of a

heartfelt most Divine Arkansas

sunday afternoon.

mary angela douglas 19 february 2015; 14 november 2023

THE BLAKEAN MODE

every word I try to form,

imprint on the crystal air

seems to fall a step behind

in a chord born otherwhere

though I, snowbanked, sigh and strive

once again the note to pluck

still, in silver it abides

far from all this mire and muck.

still I play invisible music

still I paint invisible songs

knowing that the Lord will lead them

to the green place they belong.

mary angela douglas 12 november 2023

GHOSTS OF MY MUSIC, OH WHEN WILL WE DEPART (FINAL VERSION)

 

oh ghosts of my music

when will we depart

I will not leave without you.

here on the old rolls the census of your notes

has been taken. they will not hold you

those who dislike your art

who think it some dead joke

this classical music

and sneer at the comfort with which

you comforted me 

the child that I am that I was

the starriness with which I regarded you when

the composers in plaster of paris molded

the days into a kind of snow in my Grandmother's studio.

sparkling and vast.

oh may these bright feelings last

perhaps I prayed

over the etudes 

and what I couldn't play or badly

I could listen to , all the great translations

of Infinity

I'm weeping into these transcriptions

as if they were your griefs, made manifest.

and I have heard your violins, your pianos

the flowering glissandos and the harp's

descrescendo in order to forestall all deaths

all deserts to outlast

under your invisible palms.

though you are delicate, kaleidoscopic, fraught

mirage-like you are not.

though knaves might wish it so

more solid than their schemes

who live to banish you.

as if they could and all my dreams

before I ever spoke or wrote upon the air

feelings like lightning lost despairs

who breathed Heaven into our exile

becoming  the fairytale wood and

as if you were a Heart and understood

childhoods flighty sorrows ephemeral

and strange 

and chartered the countries where we

joy, apart. then as now. 

and always.

mary angela douglas 26 january 2015;11 november 2023

IN EVERY WAR

 

courier half dreamed, behind the battle lines

I saw you stumble and fall

and still your drum’s tattoo

rang out from all of Time

a glory you sought, as if you were going to Sea

peach trees above wept petals, for it was late Spring

knowing how young you truly were;

in my mind the dust never lifts from the field

the winds have stopped breathing

in my mind the heart never stops breaking

how could you know which was real

which side was good

you were so young

camaflouged not in the shaking woods

you remained young

fatally wounded

this is my distant song for you.

in every war.

mary angela douglas 9 november 2023

FIORETTI OF THE HIDDEN STARS, WHO HAS (FINAL VERSION)

imagined  fresco of Giotto at Assisi:

--------------------------------------- 

fioretti of the hidden stars who has

washed you into my heart

that the blue and the gold of you

should not be turned away

from the fine fair fairytale doorstep

swept clean of sorrows.

for all the fairytales are truth

down to the least and finishing detail.

This I learned to say. 

let the debris of exile,

castaway, on a ship of no devising

be only the ghost ship sailing away from you, 

Beauty in exile,

swan after Christ!

flying through the picture book

picture window with utter transparency 

fioretti fioretti I murmured to

children sleeping

to the ghost of their tears 

in the curve of your canticle, moonlight;

Your broken silver candlestick still not quenched

though many have thought otherwise:

stringing their Mays like pink pearls

little crystals together and

forgetting the Jeweler.

mary angela douglas 16 february 2014;8 november 2023

AND I WAS ALIVE IN THE CHERRY SPRIGGED DAY

 

and I was alive in the cherry-sprigged day

she said to herself, smoothing her rose taffeta-

before the recitals dissolved and just when

the sprinklers were on and we went out

secretly into the side yard

plucking the sunset gardenias

my shadow and I

in our familiar glen.

and will it lengthen 

in the blue. blue grass

my soul's flounced dress

pink as the azalea shrubbery lasts

with God forever

taking out the hem.

will the dusk settle

like a summer snow

like a summer snow

on all you know

tinting the ice cream

and the moonlight that

was then and can I live there-

ever again

mary angela douglas 28 february 2014;8 november 2023

AND ALL THE ROSES THAT FADE FADE NOT

 

Except what is banished what banishes itself

Because from You we turn away

It’s all still there

the trees still dream their leaves

when the trees are bare

and we of memory in old age

would not divested be

when memory Is Him

and all the golden ways lit through Him

on our strangely meandering way

so have we come upon even in small ways

our own hints at alpha and omega

the starlight seen on childhood’s summer day

is still traveling to us by His grace conveyed

and all the roses that fade, fade not.

Mary angela douglas 7 november 2023