And So The Fairy Wish, Wound, Will Come To Pass

and so the fairy wish,- wound - will come to pass

on a Saturday perhaps a little gloomy when she

grows weary turning the royal kaleidoscope this

ruby way or that and wanders off in a gown of pink

trimmed slightly blue to match her mood and silkenly

she'll yearn to know what's in the golden attic.

there the spindle shone and then, the swoon and then

the failing of an ancient afternoon foretold;

the roses can't grow old but the thorns thicken

and the years appall not those who won't be

heard to say though lovelier than the day

these manifold sorrows won't be laid to rest

by the mere dreaming of a princess...

mary angela douglas 17 august 2013

There Is Another Kingdom Where The Brambled Roses Breathe

there is another kingdom where the brambled roses breathe

where fragrance from colour cannot be parted.

winding the clock of quiet come the snows

hallowing.

there is another kingdom where the home you left

on fire, distressed, packing no clothes at the onrush of

the midnight wing, packing the

floods instead is set down in a vale

beset with lilacs, light and far far

removed from the killing shore. you know.

you know

where the soul from the soul

cannot be parted more.

mary angela douglas 16 august 2013

Are You Disappearing Still

the fractiled populations glow only for an instant

on the holy grid  and are you disappearing still?

are you factored into the sun

and subject to random evaluations.

on the spur of the whimsical?

are you fired at will,

called special at the end of the day

lumped in with the myriad suffering others

while your devastated countries bleed

and all your imaginary companions

under the nose of the monitors monitoring

do you know what to  feel

what to wear on these occasions?

fact finding committees would

haul you away as though you were trash

right in front of the essential employees

while the poets in the newsrooms blanch

given more than  .50 of a tinker’s damning chance.

Shine!  momentary diamond in the mind of God

eternal, cherished

Individual-

even this far from home

mary angela douglas 15 august 2013

Rainer Maria, It's the Rim Of Light

only the stars in a blue-white extremity

signal to you: can you be that far?

when the wanderer's path is

a ribbon of sea-

a canyon of standing still.

only the stars in a blue-white extremity

translate the evenings to the wind

enabling you to breathe

all this is as if

 reading Rilke in a dream,

surmises through the

dim boughs of your sleep

the crystal extremity of birdsong

long ago longed-for,

etched in the glass

or was it, the snows

not yet, foreclosed on

mary angela douglas 10 august 2013

To Be Hidden Under A Stone For The Next One Who Needs It

my they start so small murmured the princess silkenly

almost leaning into the grate where the baby dragons slept and slept and shone

oh who would think that when they’ve grown

rumbling armoured in chartreuse, complete-

down to their perfect fuchsia toenails

that they would thrive

splitting the villagers needlessly. endlessly...

if you have a heart, keep it.

if you have a dream, be still within it..

if you have a shadow sew it to the stars

and lose your name.

mary angela douglas 7 august 2013

Blue Is The Bluest Joy

one blue crayon for the rain

for the grape stain on a pale tablecoth

one blue crayon-

only one-

for the sapphire midnight sun

for the belated wish for the

plum-deep chiaroscuro the unseen span

over the water lilies

I may keep

holding on to one blue crayon

to a house in a twilight town

to the stub of no renown

joyously blue

mary angela douglas 6 august 2013

Alice In A Blue Gown Wondering

shall I follow the burbling stream thought

Alice to herself in a dream within a dream

this was in the Pre-Rabbit days

or just let it burble on

oh really is there any other way to burble

than to yourself she wondered as if for

the first time in a lifetime of wondering

that was merely just starting to be self-evident

is there any other way apart from dreams to part-

but muddled are the colours when I find them

(if I find them) in the galleries of sleep

and am I invited I am not to the first showings

shall I follow the burbling stream each time it

burbles or only on Mondays only in a green glade

God forgot to color in or left for me invitingly to find

so I’ll just fill in the outlined spaces

for Him, Shall I?

with a soft periwinkle.

mary angela douglas 5 august 2013;30 november 2020

Just Desserts For The Literary Fray

poetry is its own award perhaps

said a little girl somewhere eyeing

the slice with the cabbage rose on it

I’ll take that one,please pink meltingly

its always its birthday

it doesn’t have to beg for ice cream

it just dreams it up and pouf! raspberry frappe

lime lemon gelato gelato

its always got butterscotch in its pockets

peach cobbler lunch-boxed any odd time of day

it owns the moon and the stars

what else could it want from you,

banana cream pie?

mary angela douglas 5 august 2013

Bygone

[to John Keats and those who came later

quoting the rose they

stumbled through the thickets

thick with the mists of faerie

who will say how their stories

ended in the sere days in the

days without mercy

quoting the rose they

rose to stand, to walk, to fly

through thickets of waking buds,

innumerable suns and on the cusp

of learning learning

everything by heart

Again

mary angela douglas 3 august 2013

Everything Chimes, Not Only The Wind-Chimes Starbright, Aeolian

everything chimes, not only the wind-chimes, starbright, aeolian

in the wind tree branches chime and winterly

clacking branches branching  ice chimes coating them

and afterwards you are chiming too whenever you are

walking through the shattering pieces chiming and

chiming are you

marveling after the ice storm that the trees are shaken

and the ice is shaken from them even in brokenness on the

winter ground

declining not to chime

mary angela douglas 3 august 2013

Workplace

the moonlight stands ajar in story=book gold

I have fashioned after a fashion something to remember

in this cell:

a cubicle of diamonds, while I’m working forever

on someone else’s something else oh

hush they’ll see

which would be a new experience for them,

after all

mary angela douglas 31 july 2013

Rebranding The Branded Who Are No Longer Here

these are the separate strands

of the rainbow-riven fields

may-broidered

floating, thinned-

so that it is today

100 years after

you did not turn around.

these are the separate strands

reworked so

hand-tinted carefully

so that the fading fades-

so that the portraits seem brand-new

framing the far-sighted

who are no longer here

mary angela douglas 30 july 2013

Read In Your Own Language

read in your own language

the thrumming of rain on the rarest roof

the first one

red, purple or green one

you felt you would live beneath forever.

read in your own language that

sliver of moon. remember?

the peach frosted sunrise

soothing your nervousness before

winter’s long school;

or the apple surprise of those pale

flowers on the very same tree turning to rubies

later on

turning to rubies.

no one told you this would happen.

no one said in any language yes but

tears can melt into the quartz of years

so that looking back maybe all you’ll see

is the luminous

mary angela douglas 27 july 2013

Through These Sheer Battlements

[to William Shakespeare]

through these sheer battlements

the myriad suns arose

over a single field of language

forged gold beyond gold

and shining, still, as unsurpassed,

the life and death of kings of saints

of jugglers of every form and color

of a dream that could be dreamed

within a dream

or foregone wholly.

Holy.

are you gone or buried like the sun

said Mandelstam

we’ll meet again

we’ll meet again

inviolate language unincorporated

when these sheer battlements have

 done

 mary angela douglas 25 july 2013

I Dream Not Like A Fugitive, Leaving The Light On In The Poem

seeming candlelit at times

a cuticle moon slips down

even a fragment of window

somehow the shadows flame out

you don't ask how

into silver-pointed dawn.

you'll stand near an open window

letting in as if it were the sun,

the wind, the vast sprinkling of stars...

mary angela douglas 25 july 2013

Oh Flower Flotilla Down The Dead-End Mines I Floated You

oh flower flotilla down the

dead-end mines I floated you;

it was not in vain:

though rust appeared in the night sky

as though it were enamel.

the stars creaked on.

now past the horsehead nebula I thought you

climbed, but falling back into the mist I find

the beads slipped through my fingers, time...

and the prayer unwinds where wheels of fire keep still-

restrained by God,

above a well-glazed martyrdom

wherever rust appeared in the night sky, enameled

mary angela douglas 25 july 2013

God Is Nearby

God is nearby.

let the hush of His whiteness

deeper than all snows

suspend your disbelief;

the crooning of His Might.

let the jeweled javelins of those

who know better-

oh, let them miss their mark.

at least, let the emerald of His speaking pass

through the wretched borders

of a purblind earth

heartless without Him

mary angela douglas 25 july 2013

Dear Christmas King My Star

dear Christmas King, my Star

whether near or far

I do not care how many

theologians

agree to disagree on the

head of a pin or elsewhere

if there ever was a manager

or a Star

or who you really Are

whenever the snow wind blows.

I know.

it is in my heart

it is in my heart

mary angela douglas 25 july 2013

I Tripped On My Shoelace Down A Starless Hole

I tripped on my shoelace down a starless hole

where the Red Queen rose like bread overnight

where we never stopped painting the blue sky brown;

the green earth, raveled

in a dream

I followed the followers Down

you forgot your sweater, Grandmother cried

from the pink brick house;

my grandfather died;

rising like bread, overnight-
into the winnowing heights.

but mirrors are all alike here.

and I am sleeveless  in a sleeved charm

where the swans still return at sunset

interrupted like a dream

and the poem will ravel

mary angela douglas 18 july 2013

Losing Your Place In The Audience

losing your place in the audience

you turn to find stage sets of childhood

so tea set bright and apple refined and

glowing, down the glass mountain,

spinning back, the prize you could not reach.

but watch it sparkle from an  unseen window:

you’ll have such a view never

fetched from starlight for any princess

of all the ways they’ll squander what you had

of Time.

whole kingdoms under snowdrifts drift away

sans lock and key how can I say who tore it all

away from the notebooks of your

dreaming, unassigned?

trespassers on the fairytale glimmer

and on the lawns of Day,

scanning the margins for what they can use...

still, sparkle with the newness you knew then

before the cruel ones came even in the name

of diamond God

and of His green.

mary angela douglas 16 july 2013;27 november 2014

As If It Could Be That Way

let me exchange

as if it could be that way

three more wounds later on

for the silver crumbs scattered

under sudden moonlight

for I'm misplaced

in this kingdom of glass

where anything breaks into

rainbows if you just look at it

and always picking rose-petal words too fast

to be believed by the nursery floor

lions split at the seam

half-splayed in their pink

night-lighted dreams

and always butternut whispering:

"why is she always this far

from the castle

and no further-

waiting to be believed?"

as if it could be that way.

that I may not distress

any further the voice

of darling God caught in the

brambles, every time;

moving that stickily on Lily-pad Paws

too beautiful to be believed,

oh my savannah.

to be believed.

as if it could be that way.

when I have closed my eyes

too far to see

and no one comes to find

I will exchange

one small rose petal kingdom

Misplaced in the kingdom of glass

for three more wounds later on

when this has passed.

there's too much shattering, anywhere-

so that even the roses know it,

the rumpling lions

mary angela douglas 21 april 2012

Pure Tangerine Is the Colour I Would Speak

pure tangerine is the colour I would speak

irrepressible cherry, lemon-lime so lingering

from the jump rope times

pineapple, coconut orangeade in the

tiny hamburger palaces

frothing as you wait in line

a little dreamy as you should be

as if for a midsummer Christmas

parfait but I

lose light, lose time

while keeping in my mind the swirl of

the giant lollipops I never got to wreck my

teeth on, sweet shipwrecks at peanut

butter-logged Stuckey's

only 50 more miles

mary angela douglas 11 july 2013