In Bubble Gum Pink Reading Old Comics

[to my grandparents]

in bubble-gum pink, reading old comics

we sipped our summers slowly while

the zinnias fried in the gardens.

after you are over the school nightmares

when you're being tested on the things you never read

because they weren't in the book-

the months are yours.

in seersucker dresses, white sandals everywhere

reading paperbacks by the score all the way from

Englewood Cliffs in brown paper, string, unwrapped

with a crackling like the crackling of words you

picked yourself from the garden of language.

or the SBS catalogue

and this is more delicious than ice cream:

Neapolitan striped chocolate, vanilla, strawberry

we eat quietly at the retro kitchen table

mushing it all together in a frothy heaven

while our little dog mysteriously does tricks

no one taught her yet hoping for just a slurp

perhaps, a sudden accident where the bowls slip

deliciously down and she wins the cracker jack prize,

you bet!

fresh peaches from Arkansas, like eating the sunrise,

who could describe it?

who wouldn't want a dress in watermelon colours,

cherry vanilla- it's decided.

chiffon maybe, with a beaded top

that shines like suns unnumbered.

it's just sequins, get over it a voice from somewhere said.

we squashed it like a bug.

eating Divinity candy, peaked like snow drifts,

we carry on.

and now we're on the back porch with sparklers

and it's always the fourth of july.

and we wear sundresses

while learning the scales,

on the piano we dust on Saturdays

zealously, with lemon pledge.

and reading the Reader's Digest we'll learn what to

do in emergencies, like, if you're unexpectedly

caught in quicksand

or at summer camps

where we are horrible at canoeing

and so glad to be back home

where the real summer is.

even if, we no longer drink

orange sodas every day from a vending machine

so homesick near the humid cabins.

and there's so much of it, still left!

all golden vanilla, the moon floats over it.

or maybe you muse, it's butter pecan

and it's not melted yet.

mary angela douglas 27 july 2014

Ferny Roses On Old China Appeared In My Dreams

[to my sister]

ferny roses on old china appeared in my dreams.

the saucers held light; we sipped it carefully

so that the children would not cry.

(we meant, our dolls).

so that the children would not cry

I fastened soft words like a brooch upon the sun.

but the sun melts everything,

even Chopin.

will I pour from the Milky Way

from a pitcher of milky quartz

the tea party punch we loved back then?

when roseate was our favorite word of all.

or will invisible weddings sigh through the trees

and the ballerinas we were going  to be

dance green: as if it were

the only child of all the colours?

in tulle, of course!

with a sugar cube sparkle!

lean back in the swing;

this time, you'll fly through clouds.

you'll barely notice grief.

and on the seesaw

rickety with our laughter-

cold as Christmas air-

one of us may reach

the moon in her mother of pearl

lighting up your firefly piano scales;

the dark green garden chair.

mary angela douglas 27 july 2014

Like Candied Fruit In The Nougat

like candied fruit in the nougat,

words on holiday shine;

shifting their coloured sands

in the sandbox, hourglass,

just-in-time. no longer punching out.

under the alder trees,

near the playground.

or coasting down the hill

on raspberry bikes

tailgating the ice cream trucks

we dream each time we ring the bell-

mere babies in sunsuits

out for a ride

just hoping for treats.

nose-pressed against the early

Christmas windows of a candy box

language (from the inside).

Here.  Have some.

mary angela douglas 26 july 2014

Beribboned, Stand-Alone Petticoats

beribboned, stand-alone petticoats

in the winter sunshine,

seamless snows, half-stitched in hope

on a day less forlorn-

peek from her garret wardrobe

though she knows, she thinks

she'll never wear them.

even the dress is so far off.

but she imagines it:

a rose confection, done in tulle

or skylark's blue with a faint glimmering

of gold, or handsewn sapphires, reticent pearls?

emerald, set as the stone of the days that follow;

the early springs

are the thoughts of her, embroidered.

and stashed so far that no one finds it yet

her primrose heart, the earliest sign

in the fairytale book of a little girl's first reading

that here on earth, beyond the birthday candle shine-

sheer peerless beauty has been known to sigh,

but not surrender-

in such untwinkling times.

mary angela douglas 26 july 2014

Canary Diamonds From The Antiques Roadshow

canary diamonds from the Antiques Roadshow.

I think I may have one of those mused someone's grandmother in her fuzzy bathrobe,

matching bunny slippers.

peacock feathers from the quills of Rilke?

a cherry silk barouche

(and matching horses)

in the attic? under the hatboxes?

the candy coloured palette of Chagall.

under the sink?

in your Grandfather's tool shed with the lawnmower.

they must be somewhere somewhere somewhere

the mariners maps behind the paintings bought from a 5 and 

10 store way back when in the aisle near the Tangee lipsticks

or the ruled tablets, the zinnia Burpee seeds.

pink china from Marie Antoinette,

handpainted by herself.

a basque shawl, red  rose poetry aflame.

and glittering, still,

the stars above Van Gogh's cafe,

the originals, crowed the apprasiers.

we've looked everywhere.

the names of famous ancestors unearthed

and all their diaries glow in faded handwriting

in the tv aftermath, switched off.

we didn't find a thing. it's not so bad.

it's fun to dream of things we almost had.

mary angela douglas 26 july 2014

We Guard Our Words So Carefully

[to the poets lost in World War I-

and in all the wars]

we guard our words so carefully

like the king's sons in the pear orchards.

the pears are truly golden and therefore someone is stealing them night after dew drenched night.

someone we cannot see with the footfall of violets,

starred, but clouded over. leaving no scars.

oh will we fall asleep again? our wandering asks us.

finding the firebird feathers gone from the yard-

plucked out of the dark?

oh guard my sight from the beautiful plundered I prayed to God when I was younger with the footfall of snow angels girded for the flight over the debris field

where the winds had scattered the cherry teakettles

and the pauses in old conversations-

sparing the shattered heart more shattering

because:

scratching their yellow diamond on yellow diamond-

on the crystal meridians left to them

our poets of the younger series

did not survive

mary angela douglas 26 july 2014

Choosing The China Pattern For The Wedding Of Words

[to William Allingham (1824-1889)

and to Camino Bakery where I hope to go when I've found all my books]

it's the moss green circumference of charming words

chimed the fairies, heigh ho! (from

another lifetime.)

or the scarlet of leaf-words, chill in their own sunset:

striped with a golden meaning.

almost.

painted words, echoing over canyons.

did they return to you,

lost doves from the ark?

eclair eclair eclair*

spun the fairies round my ring,

in love with the sound of it...

in peppermint time, on Jesu's birthday frosted

snow bright words began to float, to heap up in

the corridors where language falls asleep

like the princess beyond

the hedge of mere thorn, beleaguered

roses.

well you may ask is it the moon over lavender waters;

the opal wing that fell from where?

the child behind you wanted to know

can we have opera cake in the morning and

are you skimming the foam from the cream of

how things used to be or, are you only-

waiting for the poem to breathe

mary angela douglas 26 july 2014

*No matter what never utter the word "spumoni" in front of a fairy ring or you will never hear the end of it.

P.S. There's a bakery near where I live that serves something

delectable called opera cake that somehow made it's way into this poem dedicated to Mr. Allingham who wrote delectable fairyland poems.  Don't ask me what it tastes like; I spent my pirate money on books.  Come to think of it, it was probably the fairies wanting to know about that cake.  Here's the description from their menu in fairy handwriting

• Layers of a light hazelnut cake, coffee buttercream, and chocolate ganache.
• They could fling some raspberries over the top layer, ventured the shortest fairy. (That's the part from me, ahem...I mean, the fairies)

And Could We Ever Be Dressed In The Sunset Foils

and could we ever be dressed in the sunset foils

of islands, crinkled with shining?

where it rains colours

everywhere there is a poet

under the shifting fronds of something magical;

forever whispering on the foam, o my pink island.

and is it a whisper of mimosa green, the feathery pink

that will never be this distinct again-

the mango hour?

the froth in the cup of warm apricot

brimming over at the airports of welcome? or

splashed and splashing in secret inks like Easter dyes remembered or a bon-bon sufficiency-

we will write, how strange, dimmed islanders

may remember

our starfish music

rising early in

communion dresses of the unexpected pink,

Mary, mother of all Pearl.

we will adore the God of many colours:

orchid, hisbiscus, looming lemony starry

arcing over the pink and turquoise

tiny homes inset

in the sidewalk chalked , the

hopscotched cliffs of the soul.  

mary angela douglas 24 july 2014

Note on the poem: I wanted to use the word "pink" like a glass handbell rung just at the point in the music where you had forgotten about it.

Silver Poets Census In The Firefly Galaxy Aftermirage

["...in the secret place of the Most High.

-Psalm 91]

the directory of unpublished poets

drifted under no one's sun

yet did not set with the moon;

mysteriously undervalued,

God takes the silver census of the poets

and the snows

far from the kingdom of newspapers,

closets brimmed with crystal slipper knock offs.

green is the faded hour in His hand

the manuscript purple with tears

where the blue ink smeared and,

undefiled.

for a little while I have hidden you

under my hand, perhaps, He said

like a firefly glow in the galaxy.

here is the place they buried the sun

said Mandelstam, softly.

said Mandelstam.

mary angela douglas 23 july 2014

The Striped Goodness Of The Candy Cane Carousels

[for every child who ever wished it could be Christmas in summer, too (and spring, and fall...)

the striped goodness of the candy cane carousels

cannot diminish; the horses breathing varicoloured

fire and orbiting the part of the pasture someone earlier

declared: this is the county fair.

set stakes and dream; the big tent is your home.

o there's no homework there.

my taffy apples I will keep awhile.

the fruit flavored, coloured ices in a cone

of glacial delight. and pink spun, the mystical

sugar on the distaff of plain fun.

here you forget it's so far to Christmas.

and think, what if the child Jesus was born in summer?

we would have let him ride for free on everything

when he got a little older.

penny candies spilling from his pockets

with a strange, star-like glow.

and the shepherds winning lambs in every colour

for their sweethearts.

and meadow jams and flowers

of Tyrian purple and the rarer, scarlet.

mary angela douglas 21 july 2014

They Come No More

through her diamond windowpanes, a little recessed,

she saw the pageantry of ghosts.  alas. they come no more.

and the regalia of dreams is dead, half-dead.

she was never that good at fractions, chalk scratched

on an emerald slate

while longing to be somewhere else.

longing to be someone else in another time and place

is no disgrace said the Queen Mother, once.

it could prove useful by and by.

but now I've stitched your cherry petticoat in all three places

the royal puppy chewed at play while you were dancing

on the pond's sweet winter glaze of ice.

and you'll look nice in your mimosa overskirt of tulle,

organaza whatever it is that we've got left from

our last move from our last castle, stashed away.

and the regalia of ghosts is stashed away now, too.

they come no more.

the heart is jettisoned;

the valentine thread

that ruby, shone.

the pink-shored maps.

the amber saps of trees; knights in their plumes,

ladies to the door.

the moonlight viewed as poetry, the sun, the sea.

the bells clang uselessly now

from the ghost cathedrals,

vexing the atheists.

mary angela douglas 21 july 2014

Beauty Remembers The Poet

we've saved a lot of gold in the cloud banks today

dreamed the painters down-at-elbow

half asleep

before it seeped through and children said

but we don't remember it being there, before

now the small birds fling themselves against the

stars and it doesn't seem so far from here to there.

and we will prop our ladders against the skies

to gather the golden apples Yeats loved so.

perhaps he will shake the tree of Heaven

oh, just this once, he sighed from far away.

and she was happy with all that glaced fruit

heaped up at her wandering feet

in the silvered over grasses

somewhere clear

mary angela douglas 20 july 2014

Slipper Song With A Matching Dress

the soul in her simple dress was so happy.

do you remember?

the one with summer pockets;

the danceable one that whirled convincingly

like something cloudy, clouded, clouding.

but now the last leaves on the trees can't bear to

leave the already mourning branches and

it's been hard to say anything new to no one.

still, threadbare, the fairytale slippers will last

with care,

somewhat longer than you expected

from the first:

fresh from the glimmering Godmother,

"sugar pink ballet leather."

mary angela douglas 20 july 2014

Not All the Branching Paths Are Gold

not all the branching paths are gold

she told herself in sudden moonlight

even though it seems

so, chided the small breezes through

the ivoried harps of trees; where should

I turn in these thin slippers

embroidered with cherries;

will kingdoms keep beneath the snows?

or anyone record for whoever's interested later

coming on the scene in a peach bartered spring-

this was the coldest winter seen by

all the melting poets,

ever after

mary angela douglas 20 july 2014

And Were You Dreaming In The Licorice Night

Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing, And sing, and weep, soar'd up into the ring; But most would use no wing. O fools (said I) thus to prefer dark night Before true light, To live in grots and caves, and hate the day Because it shews the way, The way, which from this dead and dark abode Leads up to God, A way where you might tread the sun, and be More bright than he. But as I did their madness so discuss One whisper'd thus, "This ring the Bridegroom did for none provide, But for his bride." Henry Vaughn, The Ring

[again, to Valerie Macon, true poet laureate of North Carolina- on the true nature of the poetic calling, ultimately, as a calling from God

and to Joseph Brodsky, who said at his trial in the USSR (being tried for being a poet and accused for that presumption, "you parasite," they said) while he said, simply, "I thought that was something decided by God."]

Esse Quam Videri*

and were you dreaming in the licorice night that words

like vagrant stars drifted through your window?

and did they settle like snows of your young Decembers

on the covers, setting up their illusory summer camps?

oh yes. and with orangeade on tap and the strawberry swirled; conversant with all the dolls.

and could you see, through the semi-transparent tribunals

of poets, even then,  trying the poets they wouldn't let through their chain-linked honorariums?

oh fences dissolved for you, perhaps, as in the

paintings of the Impressionists and

you were living then in their springtime washed in pink and 

green,who measured time in the colours of the flowers

and the violet shadows flared.  and you were

in love with the licorice night

and thought God made the stars for only you.

and thought that poetry was

the bright, bright ring endowed by Him,

for you, a chosen bride of words, and to you and

you, perhaps, reading this and, aren't we linked

by love alone in the chain of eternal

poets, poetry who were never chained, being loved by God?

and this is pearl scented like the gardenias

in our grandmother's gardens;

like the magnolia bush weeping white linen in a vast 

perfume they cannot pretend to know

who crucify, if only they could,

the glow of flowers they could not have created.

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

*Latin for: To Be Rather Than To Seem, State motto of North Carolina...

The Poets War Against Poetry While The Amateurs Are Comforted

[to Valerie Macon, poet laureate of North Carolina for just six days who resigned on July 17, 2014 because other, former poet laureates and many others in the literary community ganged up on her because she was only a "self-published" poet (at least, it seemed that way to me and to many others)

and who said in her resignation letter to everyone. don't forget to love poetry even if you haven't collected accolades...

and, we won't.  As for those whose scorn for the self-published seems unbounded, if you want to drive the Muse from your own door, attacking a fellow poet, (no matter how lacking in credentials you think they are) like a pack of wild dogs - in broad daylight - should suffice.]

who will He send, the angels of saffron?

this time, the ones of sheer starlight small children

see straight through?

the ones of green linen

soothing the wounds. the wounded.

once again on earth, cried the violet

shadows, poets fight poetry with their inverted shields

their plumes upside down backwards on their horses

running down the unqualified.

plaintive on a lute in a far away time someone strummed

a few notes under the moonlight.  thank God no one heard.

or just a few friends.  and song flowed under the doors, through

the chinks of the windows and was welcomed.

sit down at the table, here is dark bread, our last slice

and spring-cooled butter. jam of the summer strawberries we kept

just for you and you recited for no money at all

the beauty of the day gone by and how the angels tread

on clouds of rose and gold above our worst hour and children
 folded up their

tiny griefs and grasped with both hands the moonlight appearing at the door that never wanted to leave again.

and neither, neither did we.

mary angela douglas 18 july 2014

Book Condition: (Fairest Of The) Fair

this book is not a former library book. it has mild

smudging where a child lay down her candy bar

on a hot summer day; a few nail polish

spills enhance the hand-coloured

illustrations from A. Rackham, charmingly.

the spine has not cracked.  God knows why.

the dog held it in his mouth for five whole minutes

(after the chocolate bar fiasco) slightly foxed, it is.

dog spumed.  you won't mind, it's a rare edition.

grass stained, owner's former name in

Christmas inks, a bookplate with a mustachioed pirate.

a st. therese funeral card, bookmark-

the one with creamy roses in her arms,

tear creased;

in a former life, greatly loved, thumbed through

by small thumbs on finger-painting day at nursery school.

a magical screed. and glitter spattered that day we attempted

(for a school geography project), the glittering snows of 

Russia done, in papier mache and cerise towers.

bravely crayoned in.

once left under the redwood table, at the  beach, after hours

you'll hardly wonder at

the mild water damage, scent of summer rains, old ferns,

the tuna fish lunched wax paper scrap from a 

vanished picnic. tally, a

moon map scissored from the National Geographic

by my Grandfather.

a day that something wonderful was learned.

the once pink rose herein preserved.

the laundry ticket, included for free;

extravagant as Easter, one foil candy wrapper

smelling, faintly, of toffee.

coffee stains, no cream. no extra shipping;

dreams...

mary angela douglas 17 july 2014

Your Nose In A Book 0r: A Kingdom Far From Here

your nose is always in a book they sneer

in every language on earth; at you: 

who, long since have fled from them

each time you turn a page

into sunny fields, rose tinted mountains

like the Himalayas when everyone looks

up to see, suddenly, a sunset flush

from peak to peak simultaneously:

whole rose gardens- there, across the crevasse or you're on

the moors with guess who? Jane of

course; it's raining hard; she's drawn her

cloak about her; her bonnet, with its one small

rose is getting soggy; (a detail Charlotte left out,

but you've just snuggily supplied) then, she's at Thornfield

once again and Mrs. Faifax pours the tea (from the everyday

bone china)-and Jane doesn't take any cream, oh,

maybe, just a smidge- and a currant bun, perhaps

little cakes iced with pink?

no, you think, Mr. Rochester's

too cheap- (who assuredly knew she would refuse

those ruby scarabs from the Caribbean

and all that snowy Chinese jade), but you embroider

the point too finely, Charlotte complains.

and they draw near the fire and she's just

happy to be employed and hasn't even

seen Mr. Rochester yet- she thinks, and

so do you since you haven't gotten to that part...

oh couldn't they just have charlotte russe, just this

once, for Adele's sake? Charlotte laughs a little at

my joke and says not even a tiny ruche 

of cherry silk on that old bonnet...

"life is more than books,"

they yell and whirl you back from space and

Jules Verne, and off your stool, your rickety chair,

your divan with the stained glass afghan-

beginning to fray- as much as their nerves

but now they're on their prosaic way

to another part of the house, the factory,

the dim bulbed office-

and you're with Ray Bradbury and it's home to

Mars and someone's baking pies with perfect meringues

and Ray says let's go in, I'm hungry and they don't look

like Martians...the screen door creaks;

the lilacs blow against the palings-

have a slice, won't you? chocolate silk!

that suddenly you're skating on the Zuider Zee

in Christmas red, fresh roses in your cheeks

(to work off all that pie), you poor beleaguered thing

in real life, sprawled in roller rinks or holding onto

the rails- but now,

you sail across the winter ice

with secret gold in your heart and no sawdust

grind from the mills that turn for you each time

in a land so beautiful you almost feel sorry for them-

whenever they're left behind-

mary angela douglas 17 july 2014

To Valerie Macon, New Poet Laureate Of North Carolina Or: World Poetry In A Single Bound Vaults Over The Nitpickers

[to Valerie Macon, new poet laureate of North Carolina, "above the fray..." (July 12, 2014-July 17, 2014) a glorious though brief, reign...]

poetry appeared in the bark of old trees,

in the neighborhood you used to live in

springing up overnight, syringa in the moonlight

cloudy cloudy stars.

in the old rains,  intensifying the lilacs.

in the older lanes of perhaps, Fuquay-Varina.

in the little birds hopping near the mystical puddles

in the parking lots.

and "whishing" in the tails of the grey squirrels

and it was curled around the baby's finger

in the butterscotch sunlight and it never asked why, why

has no committee come to call on me

but burbled over the white stones in the creek,

the varicoloured,

in a wavery sound we knew was music laughing

and the angels, brookside laughing

fit-to-be-tied:

"what is protocol?

does it have wings, too?"

mary angela douglas 15 july 2014

Note on the Poem: people (some) are upset that the Governor of north carolina appointed the new poet laureate of North Carolina, skipping the normal protocol.  All I have to say is, thank God, since He's the source of it, anyway! (of poetry, not protocol)