I Held Fast To The Cherry Branching Skies

I held fast to the cherry branching skies

even when the earth slipped, the angels

vaulted over the unseen banisters.

they lay on earth dissembled, and starlight

was chipped and I heard the broken glass

of far away sighs that some called music.

all this has passed except for the museums

where long ago springs remain you can see any Sunday

settling down with your coffee and biscotti

they are painted in

sweet greens and blues in a sunlight that

cannot fade in the gardens to which

we can never return, you know,

in the same way.

I have made much of  the cherry branching skies.

staying afloat in this way.

painting over the livid lightening of the storms.

the steaming fissures in the sidewalks.

mary angela douglas 31 january 2015

Billy The Kid In A Sky Blue Kerchief

[on Mr. Perry Cordill's illuminating, "speaking" portrait
 of Billy the Kid]

Billy the Kid in a sky-blue kerchief, barely standing still against the skies under which he wandered; he wandered, wished the skies would open up; wished for

the angels on a black day, suddenly sunlit and is it sunlit in the

portrait, would you say? the eyes slit with a pale blue marksmanship; the diffident something besides a smile; the head aslant, unsure, under the porkpie hat of

the stranded Magi, what, you never heard of?

in an off gold shirt and open at the neck to the gallows?

for this year's pastel Christmas card, hand-painted.

oh paint, he seems to suggest if he had the nerve,

to the portrait-maker-

a stage coach one-way ticket

to a different homeland, maybe I'm the

orphan of too many destinations left to count

cut out of the picture book, a someone to save when

trying to reconstruct

lost prayers for all the outriders in the margins of

the unwept for (perhaps, not now):

American West

mary angela douglas 13 july 2014

Note on the poem: This painting "Billy the Kid" by Mr. Perry Cordill, a Sonoma County California artist can be found at
 www.perrycordill.com.  Just click on Wild West and it's the last painting.  And use zoom to magnify it if you wish.

There is such real intensity and feeling in the face.  It's simply incredible.  While you're there, you might want to look at the other portraits.  I especially love Annie Oakley against a prairie rose pink sky the color of a dress she might have wanted to wear but didn't get around to.  The freshness and the glory of a dream Wordworth said of his lost feeling for natural scenes.  The same phrase could be used to express the wonder of these American West portraits.

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

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

VAN GOGH TO HIS BROTHER, UNDATED LETTER, SUMMER, 1891

VAN GOGH TO HIS BROTHER, UNDATED LETTER, SUMMER 1891

[to my brother, Alan Leslie Douglas, in memorium)

the yellow leaves were falling

I could not catch them with my hands

the yellow stars and the pastel haloes

round them, ringing like colored glass

and every shade, a sound:

I was painting them mid-flight-

rosettes, like medals pinned against

the night, my

Legion of Honor-

you know, we always knew the

time of orchards was so brief, remember?

the pink and the mauve - the

apricot light - the moment's lightening.

I have a new studio; the walls are iris,

touched with snow.

I'm painting in colors we never

dreamed existed - without haste.

Dear Theo.

nothing is wasted.

mary angela douglas 23 april 2009

Note on the poem: I do know that Van Gogh died in 1890. I wrote this poem imagining what might have happened if he had lived for another year as it often happens in life that unexpected good happens after tremendous difficulty. 

Or the poem can be understood as a message to Theo from Van Gogh in the afterlife where he understands his art completely and is allowed to continue in it.

Kabakovian Wonders Filled My Eyes

[on the installations of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov] REPOSTED ON THE PASSING OF ILYA KABAKOV, MAY 27, 2023

Kabakovian wonders filled my eyes

like the varnish on a history I could not recall

confetti marches round the

kitchen table

with forgotten spoons upraised

a secret roof-blown catapult to

Space

a cloud with hardly any

borders

the paintings of a milder climate

set up against old walls to dry

someone singing off in the distance

the mystical simple means to save

a friend far-gone:

you will succeed at magic, if you try

just

concentrate...

it's up to you

Cezanne like interruptions of

the Party line

someone saved everything for

everything

not everyone can live like this

managing sudden snowfalls in

the corridors

finding the hidden gardens in

white walls whispering dreams

to the baseboards painted

only brown or green-

the parapets are leaning

though I don't know when

the rooftop studio will

telescope again

into far clouds and the spiral

staircase between star

and star will seem to hold no one

at all

angels off in the distance somewhere

are lining up for this new exhibition

passing me by

near the velvet ropes they sigh

crumpled up like paper roses I know

you won't forget the brittle bright accounts of

your mama

toast and tea in a broom closet off to the side

while the angels gather light and wait for you

the last one out

to close the door

mary angela douglas 4 december 2009

Ordination

[after a painting by Van Gogh, "Portrait of Eugene Boch"]

I wasn't ordained to

sleep in your shadow to

be the wheel turning

in your hand, the pure

silver backing of your

heart's mirrored

mirror

but I still shine at your

momentary table,

breathing the flutelike air

between us-

letting the stars upon stars

unfold above your head-

mary angela douglas 13 august 2002