I Saw The Ghost Of Walter De La Mare

I SAW THE GHOST OF WALTER DE LA MARE

["why fade these children of the spring?'

-William Blake, "Thel"]

I saw the ghost of Walter De La Mare

leaning on an April curve of music,

unaware

I saw his hands of tender glass

and the thin china he was drinking from,

reflective, the dark raspberry stillwaters

of Beauty he drew up in pailfulls

the silver pooling stars

at his beck and call-

the curio cabinets bedizened,

strongholds of childhood jams-

and the apricot laughter of the cherubim

by his side.

now acorn cups half-brim from twilight rain:

the fairy feast's abandoned he complained

"Is there anybody there?"*

he said, answering his own soul, alone:

"the whispering trees of Eden."**

he wept.

they pour the ocean into a thimble-

our golden ships may founder in the moss.

there are other losses-

song is made desolate, Walter de la Mare,

long years since your flag was lowered to the ground.

rust from the muted region's flaking;

your antique tears I've brushed away.

no one's watercolour for so long---

mary angela douglas 20-21 december 2009

*line from his poem, "The Listeners"

**line from his poem, "Goodbye"

Mirage Like From A Distance Stray

[to Edgar Allen Poe and those who loved him]

mirage like from a distance stray

the figments of a happier day

of kingdoms, kingdoms washed away.

how maple red the skies appeared above the castles

always drear your own heart knocking at the doors

walled in itself and evermore

all glistening sails with the Adored

and never returning

how scorned by critics who can name

who pierced a troubled heart in shame.

around the lintels of their fame

may nothing shine forevermore

till Time and all its angels show

above the bitter flying snows

intemperate as his repose

a presence deepened known as Poe and

mystic organs swell commemorative:

a grieving love enshrine.

mary angela douglas 14 october 2014

A SILVER BRANCH IS BROKEN FROM

A SILVER BRANCH IS BROKEN FROM

[to the Russian Poets: past, present and future with deep hope and gratitude-and, most emphatically, to the poets of the Silver Age]

a silver branch is broken from

a golden tree.

in the upper atmosphere

are many angels

and clouds of shimmering

radiant symbols.

if it were colder it would be

snowing angels

and Christmas could come early.

but you lose your way in

the fairytale forest

forgetting to be

on your guard-

plucking a rose in the

fatal hour-

turning to stone.

all blazing kingdoms

corroborate:

the same victory on the same day.

and there is world-wide entertainment

and sherbet in 10,000 flavors.

but the milk-white sky pours out

pitchers of sorrow;

the sun on its own bakes

bitter loaves.

and like children unjustly punished

we can't stop weeping for

the silver branch

cut from the golden tree-

mary angela douglas 13 june 2005/30 august 2005/copyright 2006

We Can Be Infatuated With God

we can be infatuated with God

oh why wouldn't we be

who spelled it all out in stars

from our infancy in violet seas

in the flowerbeds of home

in the poems read to us by

our mothers. misquote him if you will

it's there to read to breathe in summer rains

in vivid plains in spring in what remains

of Eden still. love what you will or who or where

there is no finer love and free and free as air

your heart floats on the breeze and innocent

as the first lilied days

mary angela douglas 13 october 2014

Beautiful Trails Going Nowhere In The Poems

beautiful trails going nowhere in the poems,

I loved: on either side clouds can drift or

leaves oh why not spiraling words like the birds of dusk

circling endlessly back to window trees?

and is it supper yet you wonder, they wonder

you're still a child they itch to say when you're

entranced before

gardenias in the glass green day

so queen of the may and destined to be-

getting lost on the beautiful trails

and reprimanded by strangers who

know your mind better than you do

oh they think they do: in winter whites not quite

ferreting out as if, they should-

your opal galaxies, your cherished delays on the dazzling

trains of gold; the fold on fold of the rose scented

why don't you get to the point they hint

all patience spent near your

beautiful trails the cul de sacs

of seeming the deep sea quays of

dreaming that brought you all

this way the sounding mists

the foam that flies before the fist

the turquoise trysts with God

even while you're at the little table 

of the carefully coloured rainbow sighs

at the ebbing of all lies

beyond mere scenery

mary angela douglas 13 october 2014

Do They Pass Like Clouds Through Us

"this living hand..."

-John Keats

do they pass like clouds through us

the poets who were here before

listless in their later dreaming

sifting through our doors

just one more something to impart

a sonnet's line to darn?

or something's in your eyes

a mist of tears but not your own

come back to an unfinished line.

and so our rhymes disclose a something

missed before by someone else

though we inhale but faintly their lost

perfumes of autumns

rendered up, returned...

invisibly we sip from an ancient cup

we have not earned, taking the same vows

without speaking only feeling

someone's here that I have never known and

here's a refrain of not my name as clear as a golden

reaping where I've never sown;

bourne to an uncertain land

on the locked page broken into, breaking into these

strange sunsettng orchids, nightingale trillings

that I don't understand:

under my living hand.

mary angela douglas 12 october 2014

Broken Angels

[Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!

from "Lenore', Edgar Allen Poe]

broken angels that from the winter window sills inclined

how is it that your brokenness still shines

when I have swept your glass from the pavements of

my mind? what ravages are left behind

unguessed from the luckless mirrors refracting your designs

as it is replayed, time after an inevitable time

and always with your wind chime's benediction it's just

one ride more on the carousel's swaying on the ledge

and there you go, unparachuted, a leaf? a flower?

while the wind weeps, stay, o stay:

this is not the looking glass hour of domino folding

tower to tower when

the creeping ivy glows so far away, the little plants of

what you called your home; the magazines of yesterdays yellow and crimp in sundry piles;the vintage books

with none to read the pages you had folded down

while treading in the deep of

week to week before no flight at all.

now all's past reading sing the icarian choirs

so little sleep you had then. rest, while I implore

may I fold down your wings that couldn't sustain and

close the eyes of vivid death once more and so-

be done?

or like a ghost in a turnstile that won't turn

beneath a never varying sun

keep gathering up like a heavenly chore

until my own pace slows to pulse of snow,

and then, no more of sorrowing gleam on gleam.

the ever recurring dream of broken angels

mary angela douglas 12 october 2014

Oh Living Christ The Green Roads Far Behind Us Wind

oh living Christ, the dream roads far behind us wind;

now, before us, shine the paths where we will find you

farther along the lane than before

compelling us on. oh Christ my faltering song

please strengthen for the way is long. oh,

open door we dare not close the only way

we have to go the Spring itself in flowering;
 why would we stray

and wander wilderness instead

where every hour is dire, fairest day is farther still.

still we believe your heart within our heart;

your light our only light though sorrow goes beside us
threadbare of disguise in a world so hesitant

to sing your name, oh Saviour

your ramparts still, our only store of glory left,

sweet Time...

mary angela douglas 12 october 2014;
rev. 21 february 2015

To The Poets Stumbling Blind

God's own children stumbling into language

are we half-blind, self conscious, stammering

laden with impediments of our own making?

never mind, He wants to hear it all

through His great craving ear of

sheer pearl. waiting...

to Him, it is music though we quarrel among ourselves.

making our own distinctions.

to Him, it is song. He Is without ranking

whether it is a sun breaking into myriad

jewels on the Infinite waters.

or not.

mary angela douglas 11 october 2014

The Dream Of The Indigo Trails

[to the Russian poets, novelists, artists forever and ever...
to the "rehabilitated" dead]

these indigo trails through snow melted in the spring;

our early spring, (not theirs)
they could not live to see

the thaw of their lost pages,
tear stained appeals reviewed,
consigned to fire;
smudged ink: the last page being Snow
in a secret file.

what can we say who gathered them there

too many ages later
(black ink the colour of their blood or blue)

as if they were flowers? our hands sharp with cold.

these were their lost worlds, their last-

inscribed in frost, last samizdat

bound in no libraries- not up for a prize.
last ink, on snow paper flowing and oh,

the last thought fleeting: words to
the song of their last breathing:
no one coming back to rescue...

nearby the small tracks of the larks, the thrush

the nightingales of all our sorrows-
beside their half dissolving, shine-

as if in sympathy. Divine

mary angela douglas 10 october 2014;rev. 11 november 2014

Poem About The Moon About The Moon About The Moon

no more poems about the moon

rebuked the magazine requesting

instead poems about

anything dead;

they hated light

and just for that reason

we began to write,

my soul and I

(since they didn't want

poems about her either):

the pearl of Heaven drifting the

gauze twisted in the marble of the

Milky Way

lovely lozenge lingering

tasting like vanilla probably.

rainbow mounded sherbet, snow-cone top

that can never dissolve

gold plate, silver plate the only one

for Company set;

pale melon wavering where

mermaids dart;

passing through clouds as we wish

to slip through trouble

still the one we cannot reach with rockets

the one that pink or rose or orange

that the cow jumped over..

you're your own gift-wrap sighed the 

babies on Christmas Eve

can we crinkle you, please?

or golden without a dish, cream

that must have gelled in a wishing well

the one suspended how?

said a child neck deep in the silver waters

of her dream can you stay up there

when everyone on earth is staring at you

(eventually)

and not fall down?

sip deeply through an infinite golden straw

the honey of the tears congealed- just there-

my mother's voice. on the evening air

mary angela douglas 9 october 2014

The Huntsman Recalls The Bitter Morning

the queen surveyed her mirrors and the mirrors froze;

whole kingdoms likewise under the burden

of their pink spring.

the peach skies fell apart

forgetting all their clouds.

like silver coins the rains came

raining down, ice bound.

ice bound we all were then,

the huntsman said.

bring me her heart

thundered the command

I could not understand and

asked her on my knees

oh please your majesty, repeat...

I had many children then;

what could I do

but string my bow and seek her everywhere,

small princess of deep snows and fair.

but something happened in the woods:

the birds turned all to flame, the small creeks grew;

the roses, brambled,turned against my rest

their crimsoned scent and everywhere I went

the earth cried out.

and then I saw her standing in a grove

surrounded by such light as took the breath

from stars in winter's glaze enshrined.

I went the other way.

and slew the first wild beast and took its heart away.

her heart survived.

that's all I have to say.

mary angela douglas 9 october 2014

Every Book Of Light I Held In My Hands

every book of light I held in my hands

transmutes to gold all I don't understand

oh words at times the gateway into that vanished

land we sense and never see

until a glint of it, a sudden shifting in the trees

the wayward sparkle in a wayside pebble

draws the eye.

what else can draw the curtain back on that

the world forgets, grinds under feet, winds like

a winding sheet.

far from their coteries let me be

with words that remain true

because they are.

not second hand.

though solitary, wild, thought underfed

ridiculously clothed, unvisited, I stand:

deep in the light that pools around

their dreaming through the ages;

indifferent to command-

mary angela douglas 9 october 2014

Leaving The Place Where Words Won't Come To Life

["I saw Eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,"

"The World", Henry Vaughan]

leaving the place where words won't come to life

I wandered knowing nothing in-between.

whole cloth is Beauty as You meant it to be

and now the tatters flutter and I can't pretend

I know except I know You do

the way through all this wreckage of the soul

that isn't called that anymore. I am the door You said.

I know it's true. what else is there to learn

not scattered in the winds

beyond the soul wrecked hills you gleamed on and you died

I see with Henry Vaughan Eternity

the other night and always,

nothing as it seems...

mary angela douglas 9 october 2014

On Ionesco's Exit the King Viewed From A Distant, Jeweled Telescope

the golden rats have slipped now from the silver ships

cried the old king now that's daylight's done

and dusted cold rust is flaking from the sun

and all horizons telescope to one that is tilting

and aground. aground he cried! the thieves

are at the door with their enameled swords;

their brand new heraldry. 

the councilors withdrawn

to the flooded ports I cannot sense or see.

o tell me the Mysteries one by one

and is the bishop crowned

and have we come to fight, at the end

only these old shadows on the walls.

on the high walls, neither house nor home

mid the brimming light

and the twilight foam that slips from the sea

like a fog that knew me long ago when I was free

from clouds, at home with my paper ships

in a tender light, gilded and so far

it seemed, from this eclipse

mary angela douglas 7 october 2014

Note on the poem: I saw this moving, arresting play when I was at Fontbonne college in the early spring of 1970, I think.

I have never forgotten the atmosphere of that play and the beauty of it which is, of course a kind of fairy tale meditation on death, at least, that's how it felt to me in that production.

Going To The Fair I Chanced Upon A Riddle, Ghost-Guessed

[to Gerard Manley Hopkins

and so many others]

and can it be fair a something sadly silvered said- that

everywhere, the fair copies of the fair departed

wishing on no star that heard-

have sold at auction for more than half a kingdom

in their day?

beaten back in life by critics, critical neighbors,

distant cousins, ever more distant,

a stray citizen or two with nothing else to do

than scorn a wastrel poet, artist, troubadour

with nothing to show for all that "fiddle-faddle."

can it be fair that they eked out a life

that in after years reaped ah such golden gains

for those aspiring to play the game

 and what is this lag for except

to torture the blessed

beyond reproach,- now.

mary angela douglas 7 october 2014

Note on poem: "ghost guessed" in title reference to a line in one of Gerard Manley Hopkin's poems; I leave you to find which one. same with use of "fiddle faddle" a reference to a Marianne Moore poem. So, two riddles for you, if you wish. There are so many more as I'm sure you are aware being yourself, in life, where so many things are not fair, or if they are fair (as in beauty), quickly fade away...

La Belle Au Bois Dormant Reprise

the riddle of the princess gleams

above the scope of peasant dreams

and cutting to the quick of the

diamond runes

their dawns come all too soon

and then, the executions,

death blows, briers.

where is the fairy tale that says:

life is a riddle till you're dead

and golden gleam and glisten too

the unshed tears of the slumbrous.

it's the music of restraint we hear

in every syllable that clear

that haloes all the words of long ago.

brief was their snow.

briefer still the hallowed roses

sheared by the trending

clip clop of the horses of their doom;

and is this my room?

cried the homesick child,

 Aurora...

wakening too soon

mary angela douglas 7 october 2014

Oh What Compatriots Should Stand

[to those who fight (who fought) for poetry alone]

oh what compatriots should stand

beside you in the vanished land

that comes and goes from God's right hand

where striving to be tapped on the shoulder

as the main attraction swallows everything.

wish it all away, if you still can

before they steal the last rags

from the last ragtag bag you own

by virtue of not yet disappearing.

and those who have come before are useful when

they serve to introduce a point and then

consigned to the slush pile of history

mysterious still, unwavering

in a barred yet golden attic.

and every game of lets pretend begins

again o vanished saints from

a grasping world:

those who cared for Beauty more

than their own lives.

starved in the glass they come and go

emblems of a vanished snow

that melted here so long ago

under the crunch of the boots of

the recognized

the up and coming.

mary angela douglas 7 october 2014

Scarlatti From A Scarlet Music Book

[to my sister, Sharon]

scarlatti from a scarlet music book
inscribed in gold floated out the window

when you played, don't you remember?

what's polishing for if not to make the

ruby notes shine more than anyone's ever

done before

though everything THEN seems a distant shore;

and the bridge of music's closed; at least,

the piano lid and where are you

who are you now I do not know

though we shared birthdays, Christmases

as if we were twins.

almost but not quite I wonder where you go

to erase the picture taken way back when,

where, we stood like bookends in the same

silk brown gingham dresses

for the same recitals.

I am as though a lid's been slammed on my fingers

of pure ivory, something glazed, rich and expensive

as the memories you've disowned

oh, tell me quick if you still can

could we ever change the record or

like the memories of snow have we disappeared

and don't recall that we snowed once before?

mary angela douglas 6 october 2014

On William Blake Colouring The Layered Angels And The Skies

the layered angels colouring the skies

it must have been that way in infancy

the pale hints of rose, of amethyst of lavender

the laughing stripe of lemon there

where? said someone there you pointed

grass stained, seeing Elijah in the trees.

o verse is made of stars and mire

perhaps you wept a little later coming to terms

the angels at your side whispering in gold:

print this to the world in water-coloured sighs

in words of fire, oh England oh belittling

neighborhoods.

he was there among you painting the sour skies

above you with an unseen hand

glad as the merry lambs, sorrowing in your sorrow:

could you not have been kinder?

mary angela douglas 6 october 2014

Hand Painted On A Breeze Of Bone China

hand painted on a breeze of bone china

illustrating what the wind dreams what the birds knew

the doves that cooed round the cottage of Hans Andersen

these are the poems that elude that scuff the glass blue

sky in floating by or standing still  o heavy clouds

oh words unfolding where do

your roses blow

it must be far from here o dream

that it all comes clear or if not

remember when you see the strange lights gleam

suddenly through the roadside pines only

5 more miles to gas and food

not rest

you ghost you guest of God

mary angela douglas 5 october 2014

Lost In The Archives Of The Dead Letter Poets

lost in the archives of the

dead letter poets

I found everything gold

as the turning of a leaf that

does not turn; the tinge of

spring, of an april at the

first, of frost turning back

at the flowers petaling

having escaped the heavy snows.

long would I linger there

as in the fairy stories when

the citizen returns, he thinks,

at supposed daybreak

but it's been three hundred years

mary angela douglas 3 october 2014

He Keeps The Stencils Of The Living Day

He keeps the stencils of the living day

the crimsons and the evergreens

the snow washed opals o vast expectation,

feelings on the eve

where time cannot squander,

eat away the edges of the gem encrusted stollen

ways, the giddy sleds and sleighs the

bells glazing deep silences.

hushed between the wars we find

He is reborn.not on straw or in bleak cold but within

our secret cherishing, rubied caroling cradled

brightness of brightness all else, concealing.

there is no praise of angels we won't find

burnishing the clouds as in old paintings

rich with his interior velvets, crownings from

afar and opulent as the multifoliate rose

long longed for, the Star enlarging the skies

that breaks our darkness and the ache apart revealing

the snowflake enterprise again

the wishes standing still

before the Gates

mary angela douglas 1 october 2014