Burton Bringing The House Down

[on the voice of Richard Burton (cerdd dafod)*]

He didn’t want them to tell him

how it was going to be

so he stood back a

little from the stage of

burnished expectations

still,  with a force of fire

and wonder shaping

while the gossip mills

stepped up business trespassing,

so I think, out of sheer envy

on a

something received beyond they couldn’t endure:

transcendence made immediate- an impossible thing-

cut crystal net overfilled with singing birds that little tamed out of wildness

so vivid who could believe it anything

but the voice heard by the saints in dreams made more astute;

or dream-music half-retained by kings

on waking to another day

forgetting for a moment where they were

or what they had to do

wading through poor Richard aftermaths

we’ve heard enough from the queasy forerunners

others at the scene

quashing the keylight

you didn’t even need

and asking themselves if it was really you

making the pieces fit

until the stained glass shone

as if it were almost Light itself-

then swallowing it?

oh who can kill God inside himself-

He’ll only rise to pity your

thinking you’ve brought the whole

thing to a close when you’re really

only tugging at the stage sets.

even if you burn it down He’s

smoldering half in ashes with you,

willing it to end well…cracking at the edges-

you think by flooding it to the very

brink the soul will drown

and then you’ll show them it was

Yours, not theirs-

but fare-thee-well-

whatever the heart sounds like

translated into Welsh was yours-

stand fast in a shaft of Heaven’s light

only you can see declaiming everything at last

without saying a word-

mary angela douglas 20-21 november 2011

Note: cerdd dafod is a Welsh expression denoting something like a kind of language that embodies the heart of the heart the heart of language, something untranslatable from what I understand (not directly, I don't know Welsh) but something which many Welshmen attributed both to Richard Burton and Dylan Thomas (among others).

Not Quite Drosselmeyer

[in memory of my father, Robert R. Douglas, newspaperman]

his shadows are slightly sugared, largely,

ink-stained;

brushed cinammon, his eyebrows; he doesn't say a lot and

seems to be surprised at your surprise

at long pauses in the conversation.

all his waxen dolls

could live alone

happy for years with a good vocabulary

and no one left

to tie

a pink sash or mend

blueberry leotards.

his very name can never mean:

prisms shaken in chandeliered dreams; he

likes the railroad tracks, too much candy

rich desserts and understated jokes but

he prefers sliced sentences with

corned beef hash, boxes of saltines, no gift-wrap, please-

and a printing press, any kind at all.

in the corners of his eyes, a certain doggedness

and I dream, a dollhouse in a

tiny country space

where leaves are really falling

very small

perhaps, next year

a snow-globe bigger than you are:

when the snow flies

the king shifts out like clockwork

on the icy porch and strangely,

errandless, not believing his good luck

whistles that "Bye Bye Blackbird" tune

admiring the dreamsickle stars twinkling to Glen Miller

and a Very Old Newspaper* rubber-banded,

red or green,

in eternal Christmas snows...

                 --30--

mary angela douglas 18 november 2011

*The Arkansas Gazette, of blessed memory, the oldest newspaper West 
of the Mississippi...

Field Notes From A Fairy

[to Arthur Rackham, William Shakespeare, still…]

you can’t make yourself small enough
to suit them
said the good fairy new to retirement
mulling over her temporary life

of filing files and

answering multiple phones and selling flimsy merchandise that fell apart long before first washings under moonlight..

nothing will ever be enough
though you make them pictures of gold
or silver
even embossed with stars
no one’s even found yet…

they’ll call the Agency
right in front of you:
“next time, send me a real secretary”
“you’re lucky to get a real person,”

I  said.  And meant it, charmingly.
soothingly, even…*

still, one must get by

you’ll punch in when

what you wish instead
Is punching something else

or glittering all the way back far under the hills to the Dollhouse left
in the rain by the Metro train
where the merry kinfolk live in mulberry gossamer near the
Bookstore of All First Folios-
where it seemed like Christmas every day

(They never called it just “the holidays”)

instead, you twinkle harder, feather-light,
blowing the strangers bubbles
on their turf as you’ve been taught and exactly the way they spell it out for you in the secretarial science books-
even when they’re peering down
to see you’re hardly there
and booming like stage- craft thunder, the Drama Club kind-

where is she?

I’m  right here I chime on tip-toe,

in my best lilac, your best prop, and
typing thrice the speed of light even when you don’t say a.s.a.p.
balancing appointments on
my rose-crowned head

fresh back from fetching you the
Golden Fleece or gooseberry cold medicine or ruby-collated whatnots triple- sided-
not forgetting the corned beef brisket
piled on rye-and your potato salad with the skins left on!

I haven’t  eaten a thing, but can a Muppet be hungry?
so I’ll pack all the leftovers for you,
shall I, hmm?

they’ll hand you the silly Box that means you’re leaving
just as the Christmas Party twinkling lights come on and you’re busy collecting the oyster shells from the caterers-

but you’re in disgrace and off to collect your things, now you bad, bad fairy- trundling the  Giant-sized cat-litter carton behind you- following the tumbrels
in horrid wet mittens (that’s later)

trying not to cry and picking up your perfect
demitasse from the kitchenette
they’d never drink from fearing the fairyland cooties on them- eyeing you each  break-time whenever the ravioli explodes in the microwave…as if you cast a spell on it and didn’t even clean up after yourself (you hate ravioli: they know it’s not yours)

you’re ripping your tiny poems off the bulletin board as you fly by (the ones they didn’t get to yet in the Lobby near the elevators where the Guests can see)
and clutching your spare bright polka dot galoshes
while they  keep looking at their watches grimmer far than Grimm and standing guard oh my, how threatening

can you be at 3 inches high…

with irregular socks They’d never be seen in,  especially when
drop-kicking you out in the rain just before the last bus

splatters your best lilac and disintegrates the cardboard  as ice pellets quickly form in the clouds above the little gingerbread office park with the over-pruned trees…
you’ll hear, again, their monkey-money organ grinder tune on the drizzly breeze that

they need someone with a

Professional demeanor…someone, more flexible…”
(professional What? sardonically I think
go make a bouncing cartwheel on the moon-
that would be flexible- betcha yah can’t spell “insubordination”
want some help? I flitter –

but They don’t hear and that’s how I know, once more, that God is merciful.

we have to let you go they bray
year after numbing year having no other script to follow night shift or day even on the eighth day beyond the Creation when you’re still working and there is no rest  and they’re in the back room eating cordon bleu and ignoring your Last tri-lingual page about the SWAT teams out front…and the customers fainting in the aisles from the lack of air conditioning the whole summer the manager claims

can only be adjusted from the main office in another state where the penguins live. (try telling that to the next of kin).

yet…

God rest ye unmerry gentlemen and ladies…if we fairies have offended…but Puck is not “less productive” whatever  you made up for the exit interview- pond scummy scum scum

oops! forgot to pack them the tiramisu…may

Christ in His beauty shield you child
from petty tyrannies like these and the idiot lack of song-

and so, goodnight, goodnight-
and a tiramisu, "Yum"...

mary angela douglas 16 november 2011

Dress Code

weaving the fabric made of clouds

and of the retreating armies-

I whisper to myself, again-

maybe it's not too late

for the new-spun colours in my head-

the cherry velvet ravels swept aside;

a silver tack of wondering again,

never setting sail-

who lost the Age of Rose?

I count the last gold

in the corners

and count again, sweet

polished cotton dresses with no seams:

the sprigged details

for the diffident day

on a simple field of honour.

little knowing what to say

not knowing the pearl of minutiae

as You do, oh God-

I'm turning this inside out to find You-

and twining the dreamy-treadled thread

that keeps on breaking yet still shines

in tiny roseate crystals stitched on snows.

piano music's sateen on the wind

and seems to disappear, pure lemon verbena.

but sparkles do not dwindle, lily-of-the-valley mine

though I'm so small and slide off of the bench

never reaching the pedals by the chiffoniere

where it's always almost spring;

you won't disturb

the shawl of dappled roses on the doll crib-

the childhood fortitude so pear wept

twig by twig, the same;

remember me, and, if not-

the pale green earrings-

my geranium gown...

I turn the diamond spackled key

of an antique conversation:

who lost the pockets of the

children filled, the little sashes made of

white violet, velvet

isles?

mary angela douglas 6-8 november 2011

All Music Then Was Fraught With Angels

all music then was fraught with angels

glittering on the winter air

and smocked with confetti tissue stars

and a stillness unlike any other.

how heralding my heart

still longs to be

as it was then

garlanded in cranberry or

in pine, in a gold or

silver largesse or

coated pink-silver apple clear

as my own mind was then

even when clouded with wishes

for the gifts hidden

in the opalescent instance

only you could find

when bending down so small to pick

the flowers of the invisible;

the word of filagreed pearl

I kept a long time through every last disaster.

may this glitter snow resolve itself

as if on a tiny wind carry me like chimes

over the red-ochre roofed village where

the kind people live

the one you held in your hands

like the ache of the Beautiful fearing to drop it

and sifting your song

on a sugar Globe shaken

as if by Eden caroling again

and not all that far away-

mary angela douglas 27 october 2011

Inexorable Rose

(Against the interrogations of the wounded:  to my mother, in memorium -  1927-1993)

“…the last rose of Summer.”

T. Moore

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

Inexorable rose

blocked from the site

where you bloomed only

yesterday

in soft delight-

I think it may not matter yet

that I’m too clumsy, frightened,

locked out of the fete

and anguished beyond  anguish

when I hear:

familiar cartoon music

starting up again

at whose expense

are the backstage cackles

managed best behind the scenes?

let’s all be clear, out in the open:

that the finite poison arrows

missed  their mark;

and Your  sweet colors live. sheer loveliness beyond

the singeing, simpering order of their day

and The café, corner-market  heat

of all the self-lit suns

not that inevitable…

it’s you with your one thorn left

till the jeering race is won

bloom out in the Watch of God – bloom on-

through this chill summer

linger, still

though petals curve to raindrops

In the end or to

remorseless  winds  that almost shatter you

yet they will not.

Oh rose fallen out of your legend

unexpectedly

or pushed from behind on a playground slide

unmonitored

never  knowing when it will happen next

that petal’s torn from petal while you wait

for whose turn now

It is to speak

In the sold-out, sell-out play

and  spurious miscasting

dripping with monstrous rhinestones-

Diamond paste this on the wind, then:

and paper-crown it

that I’m  in the song I made for her repose

and myriad lovely others

In their fallen sparrow exits

dazzling into God.

Bloom on in Heaven free from care

and in the poems I leave you here-

mary angela douglas 25 october 2011/21 august 2011

ASHPUTTEL HAS THE LOVELIEST DRESS

ASHPUTTEL HAS THE LOVELIEST DRESS

[to my mother, Mary Young-Douglas and my grandmother,
 Lucy White Young]

Ashputtel has the loveliest dress

made all of stars or tiny spangles

on a peach background;

against an aqua cloud

she leans, or aquamarine-

in my first Storybook.

how can she stop herself from dreaming

in tulle that is aglow with sudden

marigolds?

she's folding a sapphire fan just

like a cake, not wasting anything

humming "La Traviata".

or in a tarlatan whispering

"violets,  like the twilight hour"

that she believes in-

while I go on just reading,

lilies in a mist.

and everything she says

is only waiting to be:

A diamond or a

peridot embroidered on the air

in the distance between dream and dream.

it's God knows best

when she's blubbering over the parsnips

snipped too fine-

or snapping the clothespins off the

apricot crochet of clouds

or carnation petticoats-

how her shadow's pale pink silk

is dyed to match

His favorite orchids, orchards, sighs-

oh how could it be

any other way than this

when she glides out in the froth of

plinking moonlight unaccountable

happiness

that I have stored inside

to keep from crying

when the stitching's wrong-

the seed-pearls scattered-

and daybreak errands wounding

on a crooked-not a crystal,

stair-

she says, "God will take care of you"

and she should know.

before your melting vision soon

how gently she will step into the snows as into blue-belled meadows

holding on

in her glimmering house shoes;

decorative and true-

and spilling stardust as she goes

more beautiful than the mirroring sea

in my jump rope rhymes of green taffeta.

let the jeweled clock weep

the lucent tatters back-

the yellow gold pumpkin

crank itself up the hill

beside the little house with the rick-rack curtains and

the apple tree

let the raggedy rosebush

in the Mama's garden

burst into everlasting rubies

Raphael's cherubs gather still...

mary angela douglas 21 october 2011

Simple Interrogations Of The Rose, Case Number...

they interrogated the rose:

why are you-

who are you-

how dare you

bloom

did we say you could?

they could not hurt her-

freely, anyway,

her petals drift away

while they're all comparing notes

in another room:

and twisting the things how could she have said

(in all her pink unsayings):

into heavy unfestive balloon shapes.

they're stepping back

to see her after further considerations-

revealing only

the silvery outer shell of

a special  rose silence

with petals, too-

mary angela douglas 12 october 2011

In A Year Of Japanese Enigmas

in a year of Japanese enigmas

the poets left home to see:

only the moon

floating on a lake=

abandoned by the sky.

it’s you who’ll brush away

this calligraphy of tears inscribed;

it’s what you always do-

so that the pearl-drop moment

stands effaced

and my living soul with it.

I’m thumbing through my

Frommer’s Pop-up Book of Stars

not sure of  what to say-

I’ll ask you softly

so that you do not hear:

in the white jade mountains

with such a biting wind-

how did they find

the courage to write

about the plum blossoms

mary angela douglas 10 october 2011

Emily, It Is Getting Late

[for Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas]

Emily, it is getting late:

the blaze on the trees and

the blaze on the  poems are one;

the snow clouds tick the towns away

and I am on my own to stare

at the wall that  readily turns to stars.

I know that you would understand

the quatrains of this early moon

the open question of the wind

the quotidian you somehow find
an open window through which shines
so close at hand your own Sublime

and then I hear from distant years
a background music suitable to you

it's something from Charles Ives*

that moves

over the same bent fields...

while in a golden age we think

we may have many years to see

but the maple’ s  ensign warns us

you are nearer than

these  silver riddles fluttering from your hands

we still can read:

inscribed with their own answers

as God’s may be -  I'd like to think

He’s  pouring over them again

tipping back His amethyst chair

as any fond Father would

but in my sleep

an unnamed orb  keeps bleeding ivory words

and disappearing

as it did, (I think) so many times for you-

the lamp’s unlit…

and it’s nothing’s  set upon the household candlestick now:

vivid for a nation or a world within a world;

within each  secret’s  secret self

to counter  the miniature glorias set in pearl

you well remember as flame-

since it was just you  singing, singeing them...

I can’t dispel  the sense of something blamed  or

someone radiant lingering here

with somewhat more to say on these lost subjects…

I stand stock -still by the mossy door

where Beauty’s shadow seems to veer

and wonder only to myself

just who in the glittering days ahead

will comprehend

as if by  heart-

as if they wrote the words themselves-

the least hue in your brightening palm

the gleaming instant caught out in surmise:

I seem to clasp,

so briefly, meadow-sweet-

and vastly-then, as now-

before the first

or the last snows of Poetry itself-

mary angela douglas 9-10 october 2011

*reference to Charles Ives ( American New England composer) musical composition: “The Unanswered Question” which he refused to identify. 

Hamelin

 

[“whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit?” from the Psalms...]

I saw crown molding tip the walls

of an unbelievable stage-set, real, at the time-

set the table

they will tell you everything

you’re entitled to know 

while sipping their rubicund tea

on a lush and leafy afternoon you dream

is still your very own-

with your whole life ahead of you

as the saying goes

and still so near your own real

childhood home you could walk back there and be done with this 

Why didn’t you

before they trained you not to love

or even be, as if they could…

and to fill their hands with your own heirloom pearls meant just for them….

but I learned slow and never

to believe 

all their lost lovely angels far from home and

to fight the battles only

I could see –to know what’s mine 

alone

not underwritten by game theorists

or Pavlov’s pirates, looting my bright way…

as from the beginning of clowns-

and mesalliance

oh all my faceless springs in the name of God,

my God, unused and lilac-

I’d teach the children not to ride

that monochromatic ferris standing by

the carnival children modified to sell: flowers waxen friendship-

and world peace...

I'll sing you the song my mother lent me

as she died:

I saw the cream of God

brim at the top

and those who skimmed and skimmed

rich bubbles from my only Soul and from my rainbowed

hallowed, haloed home

I saw their skinflint empires rise

and the parties they threw each other

at each eclipse 

who could explain 

the vacancies of cranes

on the tilting horizons that they owned

and all the summers subcontracted out and

sparkleless

what made me turn around

to find

the trapdoor in the Night and

it was God up late, still

counting the tears of those waylaid 

as if they never stopped being:

His own embroidery forever-

“Here’s your doll finery,” He whispered.

in the voice of all rosepetals-

“I’ve hidden it here.”

You are -pure life - I cried - I’ll never give away- 

as if I could…

reward the kidnappers

oh my King where wishes turn to palms if we endure; 

I’ll buy fresh groceries, pay the rent and

find the playground where they’re waiting still:

all my tin soldiers whirring in the dust-

I’m caught in

the lace of the day

and cannot leave You-

mary angela douglas 1-2 october 2011