His Paintings Mourn His Departure

[to Vincent Van Gogh]

cypress and star

and the wind soughs through the paintings.

a yellow wind;

the one of orphaned gold.

with heartache's  topaz hardly dried yet 

on the brushes, knife- the palette with its rare

hint of carmine,

of carmine that sobs like a rose in a gully washing rain

when the petals leave-
 as if, they are bruising the sky.

as if, they are bruising the sky

the milk glass galaxies strain against the blankest canvas

the executors have ever seen

and the hail of sorrow pelts in aquamarine's

distraught- summer-

and the crickets, who, because of you,

thought they were stars in the grasslands=

and that they sparkled-

simply-

cease to sing

mary angela douglas 1 july 2014;rev. 20 april 2015

Philippe Petit: Balanced On His Best Day

[for Elaine Fasula]

he will be balanced on a diamond thread

between two points: connecting the heart

to the Heart someday

around his head flowed the stars of Van Gogh,

the unfounded galaxies, the future snows,

the opalescent birds cut from their fairy tales at last,

escaped into ruby paned air.

oh how will he wound the doves from there with a mere gesture?

she sighed to his detractors

doffing his crown of breezes and if he slips it is not into

the abyss but into our wondering care

or wedged somewhere, so quietly

he thinks it is dreaming,

in a pale blue notebook,

cloud clotted lines

of the elegiac poem of a

little girl's old homework,

wind tossed (never lost),

returning.

she's from the everywhere,

collecting her bouquets,

her pocket creme sachets,

who rushes there-

as if to say:  oh, not too late papa-

with borrowed gemmy wings o!

just in case?

mary angela douglas 8 june 2014

Note on the Poem: the little girl in the poem is a reference

to his daughter, Gypsy who died at 9 years old of a brain hemorrhage.  This poem was written just after a very poetic interview (I mean Philippe Petit gave poetic answers to perfect questions) of Philippe Petit by Bob Edwards radio today on the subject of Mr. Petit's new book: Creativity: the Perfect Crime. Previously I had watched the lovely film Man on Wire, which also influenced the poem in a similar way.

By "unfounded galaxies" I mean: non-commercial space,

Space as dreamed of through centuries by children, poets, and astronomers...This is the man who walked on a wire between the World Trade Center Twin Towers while the were still with us on no one's say so but his own. A poet of the air, of space, of impossibilities suddenly, possible.

Van Gogh Mid-Afterlife In His Wild Rose Fields

I weep in gold dust fields over which his blackbirds fly

in the museum

and they cry: "ominous, ominous"

can't you see it in the skies?  truculent is the world

toward the artist who only loved the sun.

yet in his letters home

in three brilliantly lucid volumes.

closely read his colorist desire to

use all colours well and unforgettably

but, Dear Theo, colours cost money-

how much it cost him to go without

them making do with yellow and yellow

iterations 

only he knew.

somewhere beyond

the marigold's sigh,

couldn't you weep anew

said the angel by my side

(sheer sunflower glow)

in the hope of his Heavenly

fields, post murder and not, suicide- 

when, burst like a light upon him,

all he did not understand;

where wild rose fields are climbing toward a sun

that cannot dim, vermillion.

and in the skies a freshly minted green

is ornate as the heart could wish that loved that much;

emphatic as a heartbeat are the brushstrokes' impact

viewed from this side only, clear amber crystalized in

the thick honey of days unbelievably

made of poverty, disdain, 

of painting in the rain

while the neighbors spied on him and

cawed against his sanity; were they sane?

it's slow tears I am crying now

crystalized in the poem- 

all amber gone by now

for the misplaced poet hardly anyone read

closely or otherwise while he was alive; allegro or penseroso

as the golden scores were played unfinished-

as they had to be and second-guessed,

long years without the  sun;

oh then- as now-

sub-lunar, distant are the puppeteers of

docentry everywhere but not 

the field flowers.

may it be said, though I am no painter,

it isn't for him I mourn 

nor for the rolling auctions 

of a heart that never could be dead ah,

how they must have said in the days that followed

(the gathering angels of his harvest)

but who will befriend now 

the orphaned haloes of his stars 

mary angela douglas 17 november 2013;revised, 6 december 2013