Lament Of Therese Of Lisieux

just now the bars are coming down again

blue morpheus winds are rising

in my soul extraordinary

courier and friend-

in my soul there are no bells;

there is only You.

it's only waking up

that I can't bear;

the white rose in a dream with no confrère

remained so incandescent

in the end

and caught in a warren

I don't understand-

Jesu, my flag is not down.

bright dreaming son or brother

or someone else

under the drizzling skies I feel

that I'm dissolving far from you

and running late to say:

it's only that I recognize

that star you held in your hands-

the one that made you suffer-

the one that, even now

compels me to weep sapphires

endlessly

on your behalf-

and to lean into Space...

mary angela douglas 8, 9 september 2011

The Paper Door Cut In Silence

the paper door cut in silence

cut the Maker

of paper snowflakes, coloured

Christmas chains, small birds

that fluttered in secret cherishing

never flew past the

small incisions necessary

for the valentines remaindered-

and the silhouettes strewn

in old storybooks shut.

behind the paper door cut, die-cut,

the Maker no one knew pursued

his endless dreams of making and

the scissored stars fled shredded

downwards everywhere

while we looked up in

amethyst confusion...

but He is the Maker

striving still

at the isinglass border of

your most recent dream:

someday to bring, in Person,

galaxies and real roses to an
opaque silhouette

mary angela douglas 5-6 september 2011

Scribes

the blackbirds in the margins of their songs

are long past earth

and poured out gold that

you can't see

my silence breaks apart

but not from theirs

on branches of anomalie.

this is the rippled singing

I believe, and God,

I'm not ashamed of there or anywhere at All

while here the meatless

spaghetti boils over again..

for it's wreathed in stove-top mists

the blackbirds in the margins of

their sighs will rise with grace notes, duly noted...

sweet cherried jubilee

just when you are reading in your room

or prescient, in the back garden

by the tangerine nasturtiums...

over your shoulder,

flocking jewels-

and in your heart as on no other day the

sparkling arrows of the inexplicable-

mary angela douglas 4-6 september 2011

Wild Roses

stooping to find the name for myself

in the bottle-necked world brim-filled

with stones to stone or to confine-

I rise to find

all names are taken:

only Your Name shines

above gardenia galaxies

and our lost home

with the blue curtains-

and I'm in the

tatters of the words

I cannot find

to say that

even then, I know-while kicking through the vacant lots

You strewed my path with wild

invisible roses.

that I might not-

weep time away-

mary angela douglas 3 september 2011

Song For Therese Of Lisieux

keep me as the apple

plum peach

apricot and

muscadine of Your Eye

in all the hills, hillocks

burrows, rabbit hutches

flower-filled canyons on

Your green stone;

count me as all your stars,

extant-

though each one's carved

with hearts and wings to burn and

flow away...

I favor blue morpheus wings in

Heaven- please remember I

don't want to intrude

whenever you're painting your

rainbows' cherry after cherry

double-hinged but wouldn't you

rather make

for old time's sake:

another flood of roses?

remember that I am Your dove

though pressed in a leatherbound

book of saints and tissue-veiled

though edged all around in obdurate Gold-

mary angela douglas 6 september 2011

Lieutenant Columbo Drops By The Dollhouse On Christmas Day

watching their very first rerun of

cooking with rosepetals

(on the dollhouse tv)

straight out of the box

the small dolls couldn't be

happier-

even if they can't

tell how

to change the channel.

somehow, bills never come

so why worry?

tonight's a feast as it will be,

always:

there's the stewpot

ready - the parsnips and

carrots glued to the kitchen

table beside the Big Spoon.

the immovable cherry pie

on the sideboard and

"beautifully latticed, if you

don't mind my saying..."

but why do the curtains sway in

the breeze when nothing else

here ever budges?

they're tightlipped but

smiling.

besides, there's roses

in their checks.

oh, and one more thing...

why is that plastic porchlight always on?

amary angela douglas 6 september 2011

Forgotten Waltz No. 2 (After Liszt)

subsiding in the crystal wave,

the mermaid turns of phrasing

let us renounce

while we still can

the plated words, the minimal things to say

that wear off quickly and betray-

while the heart's

own music is buried.

oh when

will the jeweled cathedral

rise

from the lake of mere forgetfulness;

the sword be taken back

from the glistening hand-

and who told you

the prospering word,

laconic

day was gold-

and a necessary armour?

mary angela douglas 3 september 2011

Imprimatura

wrecked gold of  the far illuminations

is coming home

and moonlight sunk in

its own mirrors helplessly

I find forever

in the glazed word you speak.

but april blossoms on the wall

when you bind your luckless

clouds together

and you wound nothing.

imprint this with a spendthrift's sigh

with the knowledge that every colour breathes

the rose you gathered as if it were

long-ago

from very Light.

mary angela douglas 31 august 2011

Startled Birds

over a bridge of clouds I passed

not looking at my reflection in the water

and it seemed to me there was no sound

when the harp of shadows passed

to no other

and that my heart was taken from me

by things no longer on earth.

then wind for me a harp of pearl

and I will stand

soundless on a bridge of clouds

with all around the startled birds

you folded into snow

II

sensing the clouds above the clouds

I tried to run-

finding the severed music, everywhere

forgetting how to walk

this loose stitching

always comes undone

undone

a thousand laments were launched;

they fell into foam...

and I am singing low, so low

by the edges of your seas

the startled birds of your lost

languages-

reprieved

mary angela douglas 27 august 2011

Pegasus

these realities are so unformed

not like the immaculate visions

that once rose before us

when we were commissioned

with the first snowfall of

exquisite words

and the petals of the stars

drifted

in your so elaborate sleep-

these realities are so

unsolicited:

but we are unremaindered

and will not give our lives

just to be granted an interview.

even minus a "good job"

let the soul flame out from star to star,

not a horse to be installed

but to run through heaven, encrypted.

Pegasus!  My gem-bridled friend light

mint-green is the day

whenever we ride together:

seeding the clouds near the

office park with

Roses of Pure Vermeil,

we are never that professional

when immaculate visions rise before us.

mary angela douglas october 2009

HAS ANYONE SEEN MY ROSE VELVETEEN FLATS?

knocking the paper doors down

that they have made of You

I turned away,

not knowing where to go

with my child-sized suitcase, in

my red cloth shoes.

the clock of yearning's set to

endlessness and

I weep on pouring the news out to the wind

but it's like a ripped-out seam within

not knowing when I'll find

all my lost porches

floating backwards on the Tide

and my best dishes, ringed with ferns...

when one Word tolls the

bells that they have muted, smashed-

maybe snow-jeweled quietude

will return

but now I only find

that I am I

and dream for you even

without knowing how.

ethereal clouds will come

and their attendant angels

as if from an extended Trip:

bring me crushed violets

bunched

in silver ribbons strewn

the never-ending stars

the winding mists to live in-

mary angela douglas 25 august 2011

ASLAN* OR THE BRIGANDS GO THE OTHER WAY

ASLAN OR THE BRIGANDS GO THE OTHER WAY

[to Jesus the Christ, the Lion of Judah (the overcoming one...)]

the brigands go the other way;

calumny stares stone-statue dead

at the white-frost crossroads

in my head

suddenly everything

turned to song.

white flowers staunched

the senseless wounds

where late and long my soul had bled

and I cannot relate to you

how suddenly the winter fled.

everything suddenly turned to song

the hand upraised struck down

at last

and evil's anvil hatched and passed

flowed by You into

silver stars.

I wept at Your bright armies;

and I could only bow my head

when-

wolfish sorrows stalked away

and shadow-puppet Scorn

knew Dread.

suddenly everything turned to song

like a forever Eastertide

and we were finally by Your side

and couldn't be overthrown-

mary angela douglas 7 february 2010

*After C,S, Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia

Facing The Dragons Down

through kingdoms now

as it was then

you tread a certain

inward path

while they line up again

to stare you through

on a very tiresome playground-

or hurl, with no one else around

a mere boulder or two

down the embankment.

don't ask me how

they know it's you with

a birthday message for

your ailing children

done up in maypole ribbons bright

and the fairytale hour-glass

sands on the low-end...

but they could find you

in their sleep

on the margrave's run-down highway-

and creepity creep creep

through the heat-

roiling their chartruese scales-

waving a finny fin-

casting a munching eye on

your last bit of raisin toast

with frosting...

or burping from an office window

just to throw you off-

a murky word in-between

presentations...

do not fear them;

let them rave:

thrashing the marigold window shades

beneath God's diamond and

discerning eye-

you may look swiftly all around

but no one else is there to pound.

they must mean, you.

don't be alarmed;

don't be concerned.

it just that it's your

turnity turn turn

To Be Facing the Dragons Down-

mary angela douglas 23 august 2011

A Lapidary Stillness Fills The Room

a lapidary stillness fills the room

while I'm too tired to hear

the angels singing. forgive me when

I say, oh God

that it seems hard to live this way

but I'm setting the scene the best that

I know how

and jewel by jewel,

as You did.

lay all your shaken griefs aside-

folding the opulent

shadows on the chair

not for the last time, yet-

while off in the distant

semi-precious Light

a heavy door opens and

then closes-

mary angela douglas 23 august 2011

Blake

[to William Blake]

I saw you walking

the hills of green.

angels on either side of you, conversing

and cherry-bought bells resounding

in the dove-sought skies such flame-tinged

clouds appearing:

yes and the fleece of

skies that you loved once-

the cirrus roses...

you were so happy with an ink-stained smile-

peeling a scroll of topaz from

a frayed coat pocket,

meant for the martyred poets.

you said: don't cry anymore

all consternation's fled, don't cry,

no rose is dead.

art is a shining ship, delivered:

the choken river's spanned.

the mocking charter's been revoked.

they hoped your vision was a sinking sun

marked by three crosses on a stolen hill,

but the day is a flower endlessly fluted,

and cut in crystal now

where tygers kept their radiant promise-

where darkness is banished

to a farther castle and the

face of the Lamb is so revealed

whenever we are speaking in our

sheer unfiltered gold

and realize

we are still alive my

bartered friend!

a bright wind drives your

mended sails toward home

with the diamond husk of all your

poems received, the

heart of it believed in when you say

that all your trees are filled with singing now

where nothing, nothing is a bane

how

blazingly the Light

of every poem remains-

mary angela douglas 22 august 2011, 2 december 2005,

Valentine With Doves On The Seven Last Words Of Christ

I am lost in the

Kingdom of the Heart

I said to no one living

since the day they felled the

King of it all-

seven swords run through my heart

seven swords and more

and oh the hilts

set with rubies

with russet diamonds

with the sunset of the world.

and such a vein of

jasper runs through

the soul's so pleached amazement standing still-

that I forget the words to

sing to you

a last border ballad.

my soul.

become the white dove's scar

and anodyne of mercy-

the cleft on the curl of the

last creamed wave

in this senseless valentine

shadow-box, shadowed,

shifted by unseen wires

and winds.

the dove cries out

there's blood on the track

there's blood on the track

and more, look back

to the fairytale motto

of snow-cut

delicate drastic cameo

and descent:

Be True.

in the version scalded

by fairies under broken glass-

scattering their gifts of light far

from - from the retreating henchmen

among last things.

all swords dissolve

with the help of God

who is also weeping

who is also weeping

oh dove, dove, dove

mary angela douglas 19 august 2011, 1 june 2010

I Dreamed Of The Sea, Of The Children Of Lir

I dreamed of the sea, of the Children of Lir

coming through the mists of their childhood

unrecognizably

oh beyond reach

let words be fought for but

what am I supposed to say

when saints have courted endlessly

the hard and diamond edge of

your impossible retrieval?

when are you coming home

o vivid heart eluding

bereavement, banished wing-

are you carving the thick tiered

wedding cake mists as if they

belonged to you?

when will you find rest

beating the crystal air to a

fine snow over centuries;

are you very nearly free

or do you dream your muted

carillons below

have all passed on?

it is a real question.

are you?

stay alive can you

be carried sleeping into

deeper exiles over

God's bright shoulder?

it is a real question are you

finding no more countries left

for you

on earth...

I lived as some suggested

sending golden transcripts off

somewhere into space

from brilliant institutions no one ever heard of

and the envelope sealed with evensong and

all the mauve distances dissolving...

are you the one

bargained over at sales

not open to the general public-

subject to steering committees

charged

with capturing the data?

let us return, unopened,

frailer than snow and so unchartered

to live in Danish stories, after all-

dreaming of journeys

over long waters

looking at light

through the spent leaf

and the mottled cloud

as if at a kingdom

somehow lost to me

still still my own

prospective student,

employee, friend,

any person at all:

launched to the unfairytale-like

docket with a

mirage-like defense

jump over the railing!

there's no qualifying ground

for one so fey and the wild swans must

move through

the lilac foaming of their weariness.

it is also true

the glimmer of your sunset mind

is a sheen of no use to them at all

and will count against you at the agencies

more than the questions you leave

blank

when you're combing the waves

oh not

for 3 good references and a jacket

they can believe in.

then you'll descend, dear

Christmas-bright contestant, saint

like the exemplary

Children of Lir with your

one cloud-sleeve unfinished

down to the violet waterline at last:

caught up by sudden angels on command-

recommended by the wounded Trinity-

weeping poems and

the clear bells

of little stars

mary angela douglas 16 august, 14 august, 20 july 2011