The Talking Doll Goes To The Job Fair

I don't have a resume at all.
I am very small.
I talk out of turn

I will never learn
but you'll like me, after all
I am a cheerful doll

you may get tired of,
after a while
when I can't reach the files

with rooted hair. 
eyelashes out to there.
though I confess

as far as the dress code goes
I've just got the one frock I came with,
with it's baby rose...

don't dock me!
or clock me,
I can't tell time.

though Im pretty good at rhyme
and trudging through the snow
when the bus can't find me.

I do my best.
not dressed to impress.
and wander on

with my little song
in the Coliseum
with no per diem.

mary angela douglas 9 july 2019

The Way You'll See It, In The End

the way you see it in the end
still could be bordered with lilies of the valley
a fragile dawn

in pinks and blues as
the cue to birdsong 
the last view of the moon

through plate glass
all the past like a Christmas train
through a wide wide  tract

where the people wave back at you,
forever

mary angela douglas 9 july 2019

To The Minor Poets In A Heartless Hour, Speaking Love to Power

[to Valerie Macon, who lives for all poetry.
and who rose to the occasion]

in almost any poem
someone else's heart is on the line.
to think this way

is to be subject to the rejoinder
too much schmaltz.

I think, really? Is it better to ignore
as has been done before
of course, always in the name

of Higher Criticism a poet, a peon's inalienable soul?
of holding to golden literary standards
the person writing anything at all.

in their starry scrawl

as if in the dock, or in jail.
to make them feel, they failed.
is this necessary?

we are all small.
we all try to be known.
some for power.

to occupy a throne.

I am not speaking of those. 
even small insects in their summer fields compose
and float up to God

their miniature hymns.
are unacknowledged poets
not as worthy as them?

mary angela douglas 8 july 2019

The Sea Maid's Reminiscence (Final Version)

(to Hans Christian Andersen


I miss sea glass, my grandmother's pearls

coral music in the whirlpools

the icebergs on the moon,

when the moon is

floating topside on the waters

the ships of doom retrieved.

ladders of angels.

most of all, I miss speaking

where I'm heard

ever my mind a bell from far

distances in the Dream Time

ever the wave's repealing improvised

and not dancing on swords;

the fragrance of the frangipangi

the simple accords

of water and light

the depths where I

am out of sight.

mary angela douglas 7 july 2019

The Sea Maid's Reminiscence

I miss sea glass, my mother's pearls
coral music in the whirlpools
the icebergs on the moon,

the moon floating on the waters
the ships of doom retrieved.
most of all, I miss speaking

where I'm heard
even my mind from far distances
in the Dream Time

and not dancing on swords

the fragrance of the frangipangi
the simple accords
of water and light

the depths where I
am out of sight.

mary angela douglas 7 july 2019

The Seeing Heart And The Scarecrow Rendered In Charcoal

(for William Wordsworth)

there, by the Seeing Heart, and not the stream


that makes its murky way into an ancient seam

I paused and did not want to go again.

invisible world made more invisible with Time

how can I see you locked into rhyme

that falls away

made for the coffee crowd.

these ragged rocks convey what might have been

I sense in the world at large such desolation.

friendlessness

and all is scarecrow; a highway dream sign

reads: Beware.

Here there's no crossing at all.

let ravens seem rubied in the sunset air

but I know better.

this is not lark blue happiness

but a cunning stair, where the gnats

rise after long rains and

the havens have grown over everywhere

the cataracts bode no good.

and where you stood once,

in an enchanted wood

an emerald light filtering down

has morphed into a town foreboding;

the scarecrow's straw tears.

mary angela douglas 7 july 2019

The Seeing Heart And The Scarecrow Rendered

there, by the Seeing Heart, and not the stream
that makes its murky way into an ancient seam
I paused and did not want to go again.

invisible world made more invisible with Time
how can I see you locked into  rhyme
that falls away.

made for the coffee crowd.

these ragged rocks convey what might have been
I sense in the world at large such desolation.
friendlessness

and all is scarecrow, a highway dream sign
reads: Beware.
Here there's no crossing at all.

let ravens seem rubied in the sunset air
but I know better.
this is not lark blue happiness

but a dubious stair, where the gnats
swarm after long rains and
the havens have grown over everywhere

the cataracts bode no good.

and where you stood once
in an enchanted wood
an emerald light filtering down

has turned into a town foreboding;
the scarecrow's straw tears.

mary angela douglas 7 july 2019

What Is Impossible To Say In Words

(for Dmitri Shoshtakovich)


this is daylight then

when gold shines through the fissures;


this is the violet tide and unreturning now;

a quake of diamonds concluding

who knows how

and where you are

the dark snows little stars

and hemispheres hardly breathe;

amber beading on the sunken lawns.

what eve is this that shakes the garnet core

you cannot even form the words, your fist.

there is no birdsong left in this, but shards;

caesura.

there is a pause between worlds.

a diminshment, in music.

fountains shut off.

angels turn from the scene,

the weeping spires.

mary angela douglas 6 july 2019

Let's Analyze Little Kids To Pieces

let's analyze little kids to pieces.
do they have 3 vegs to eat
are they standing on their feet

did they share their toys today
what is on their resume
can they tap dance in their sleep

take a swan dive in the deep
will they make a mint by ten
leave the world of let's pretend

at a very early age
learn to dictate every page
of their memoir all the rage

are they social as can be
are they ever really free.

mary angela douglas 6 july 2019

She Explains To The Uncomprehending Her Predilection for The Romantics

there's a rose gold patina or I truly wish there would be
in the morning when I look out
on a sea of trees

in a summer park
where in the dark
a lurid green flows from the security lamplight beams

so I imagine brighter scenes.

as if there would be
a castle up the service road out back

where in fact police cruisers circle around
and then go up it to downtown
where the condos glow.

and I think I will move there
when I have better luck  (the castle, that is)
and I will keep the refined sense

of the stories I grew up on
rose gold patina or not
and embroider them more deeply

though all around me rots.

mary angela dougla  5 july 2019

It Won't Be The Way You Heard It On The News

it won't be the way
you heard it on the news
when it happens to you

you'll find out in a dream
more than you'll discover
at an agency

I don't mean
to be discouraging.
you'll see what I mean.

but I hope you don't
I really hope
you stay afloat

and don't have to find out for yourself
how meaningless these
conversations are

when you are no longer standing
where the hallways are.

mary angela douglas 4 july 2019

Cold Reading;Not To Be Resumed

it comes back to you like a wave, a cold one
strong enough to knock you down
you feel you are reading your own poem soundlessly

before a crowd but

there's such a lack of resonance
in the room
you might be reading in a tomb

and not the one where those who died
for beauty rest.
for truth, o, even less.

and a something's not in tune.
how discontented the orchestra seems
some Greek chorus in a dream

chanting the victims home but there's no bier.
no Delphic fire.
never mind I said to my soul.
we will be brief

and sail away before we come to grief
captive for a day
that turns out to be a century

like one mistaken from a foreign shore or
entering through the wrong door

to a stranger's wedding reception
with radar like detection
scanned and banned

when they assess
you're not one of the guests.


mary angela douglas 4 july 2019

Hushed To Me Are The Names The Rain Gives

hushed to me are the names the rain gives to me,

to anyone listening

the former blueness of clouds

the camoflouge of the skies.

hushed are the small ferns

I bent down to see

the wish for moss roses among them.

every waning moment for me

in a subdued gold

but the child in me cries

but it's still gold

the aim of all enterprise

not exactly that.

the rain falls in cascades 

over the gardens I do not own

yet I am free to gaze on.

these and whatever I see

even to other people's lamplight

privy.

I wish I could stand in the rain

stand the rain as flowers can

and be exactly who I am

I feel like a scarecrow

in my soul

only good enough

to frighten the ravens away.

yet to me has been given

a language of rain

of the departing names

the ones I sob over

with no one nigh.

when clouds are tinted;

the colour of the sky.

mary angela douglas 4 july 2019

WHERE WE LIVE

where we live.

as children, at the North Pole

though we are always warm

the way the Match Girl was,

glimpsing visions in the briefest flame

or in story books, in out of the way nooks

making up our own names

as long as the teachers don't scold

and send us out to be clinically examined

standing us up

in the corner with Cinderella

as if we were their dolls.

daydreaming being now an aberration

in our scientific nation

unless we dream of numbers, data.

of flat ironed information and of

having a professional demeanor.

what could be meaner. but

we live in a country all our own.

at the corner, with an apple tree, a playhouse

set for tea even when we're grown.

and a tree swing, pushed by God alone.

into His clouds.

we're always shifting the scenery

before it gets shifted for us

and in our own Play, where the courtiers adore us

in our shining role because we're kind

with a crown of tinfoil;

never getting old

left to our own devices

as we should be

in a nation called "free"

what is free.

the air. the Soul.

comets,

the puddles we slosh through

on our way to being productive somewhere

for someone who may cut us loose

with no excuses made?

not there. in summer shade

near the raspberry bushes

anywhere farther than

the charmed mind can go

the clear mind calculated less than;

the mind that holds no grudge

sweet brook running under it all yet

fastened to the wind, the sky

the mind in its once upons

forever asking why

won't this come true

kitelike in its gemmy wonders blown

and out of favor.

we are the tribe of imagination's darlings

the least to be acknowledged in the GNP.

but we don't need to be.

mary angela douglas 4 july 2019

Every Poet Thinks He Owns The Colour Red

every poet thinks he owns the colour red
and bread and butter, sky and sea
grass and the trees

the way the wind blows through
in any language
and so they are startled to see

all words they love in anyone else's poem.
though each note sounds when played
a different way

but it is hard on them
to get the feeling back
they only own the alphabet.

mary angela douglas 3 july 2019

The Goose Girl Praised

sometimes a bit of gold shines through a tattered dress
the rain has its tiaras I confess only that
and where her slippers wear clean through

the dew anoints
the princess disguised.

I would embroider in this wise
on the goose girl exiled
the vault of Heaven, her roof

the scudding clouds
with floss of forget me not blue,
little rosebuds

for she should get her due
in multifaceted lore
shooed out the door

and near to penury
you are still who you are with your bunch of violets
though they have scattered you

farther than Far
friendless yet holding the secret still
that God helps whom He will.

mary angela douglas 3 july 2019

Why Can't They Tell Me

why can't they tell me the way back
cathedral angels in my dreams
they should know that

but they are seamless
stationed without utterance.
oh I would travel back

with even the slightest map

through the Spring mud
to see the wild violets again
packing only bread and butter

and raspberry jam
on a fairy tale quest in my light slippers
anticipating, once more, a golden ending.

sometimes before daybreak
I am in the old towns

all the houses are there,
the same curtains.
the willow ware pitcher.

Im in the rocking chair with my Grandmother
soothing me with the old tales
and everyone is there.because

it's near Christmas
my sister and me and all the dolls
apple checked and learning music together.

in the metronome's glare

I see the piano in my dream, I left the lid
and then it breaks apart;
ice floes over the dam

the living room table

the melting of my soul
into the irretrievable.

mary angela douglas 2 july 2019

The Atmosphere In The Room Explained/At The Micless Open Mic

writing the room away I freeze the screen
calling tender angels to the scene replayed:
so much intransigence masquerading

as politeness; my words are honey
but they stop in the first aisle
for those with daggered smiles or the enigmatic

this is reading for the public (a little problematic)
of writers themselves
this is the shore littered with sea shells

where beleaguered sea animals creep away
this is the official occasion with its official invisible say so
hiding meanness unparalleled

in a world of parallel bars where I've come to play
from which I slip and fall oh, anyway all Q.E.D.
and continue reading, after all

and I hide distress
in my old fashioned dress, I love
reading the words of honey

from my poem that flows slowly. viscous
on an excruciating day, sadly, irrevocably
as if over Pompeii

mary angela douglas 2 july 2019

115 North Monroe

it's still the thing you were waiting to understand
through blue shadows on the hardwood
the floors upended, where are her sapphire rings

the seascape in the music room
the way it felt back then.
Keats and Shelley in a Modern edition

now ivoried with age
"to Mary from Joseph, with all my love"
and in an aqua binding

whose colour has been lost to

modern publishers
as if they swallowed the sea.
they all write about memory

just not yours.
will you go with your
small metal beach pail

to the sandbox again
overshadowed by pines
or with small steps crunching through

the fallen leaves into
the forest green neat little house

with the pale green awning;
the porch swing also the colour of  pines
the angels sitting on the steps

a long, long time
opening for you,
the screen door.

mary angela douglas 1 july 2019

The Beautiful Heartbreak

it's the beautiful heartbreak seen from Space
like snow that's driven from place to place
as if in exile once again

from the bitter winds that Winter sends
and we are sheep without a fold
or we are ships without a hold

and carry love in vagrant hands
to God our friend through shifting lands
and fall and stumble on the way

as Him who bore the Cross that day
who sees in us though we can't say
His heart live on in smaller ways

thus we draw courage from His well
though all on earth should turn to hell.

mary angela douglas 30 june 2019

Stone Gardens

I have been where people turn  to stone
dissolving into landscapes of their own
then called a gipsy I moved out

or I was thrown.
you know, it doesnt matter either way.
light comes back another day.

you look at the stars
as others did before you
knowing there is something else

if only you could find it in some book on the shelf.
no neighborhood feels familiar
countries keep changing borders

there is law and order
whatever that means.
occasionally the screen is lifted

from the Great Oz.
gold is sifted.
there's a pause

and you drink your tea
reading the signs.
and sigh, Thy Will,

not mine.
knowing the saints are looking on.
whatever happens

to right or wrong.
you only wanted to drift among the flowers
but all you see is the drive toward power.

the ones weeping in its wake.
whom God cannot forsake.

mary angela douglas 29 june 2019

GOODBYE MY JEANNE (REPOSTED FROM MAY 9, 2018 DUE TO FAULTY LINK)

[For Jeanne D'Arc]

that is the fairy tree, the holy tree for certain
she breathed as though she spoke in cloud language
only God could hear; the other children having departed

now the silver edged angels,
the twilight ones appeared
when the stars were ensconced

not quite yet, the honeyed candle of her soul is lit.
ahead lies a future;
not of clouds.

Michael, Catherine, Margaret within the hour
appearing to the clear eyed child
who must speak truth to Power

the one her visions forge that indicate
the road that she must take
and all her meadowed dreams forsake,

leaving the fairy tree behind

packing only her one wool dress
the one on Sundays worn
her prayer book perhaps; could she read?

only the missal of her dreams
she is fanciful her mother said
after she'd gone, self willed they said

not right in the head and there was rage
at the turning of a page while
the cobwebs of the dawning grasses
served for a halo of sorts, for Joan.

a covering

sweeping into God, destiny, the fire...
a heart of resolve.

only the tree knew her best
where she confessed she loved God only
and the tree whispers  and would have shed every leaf

and oh, for very grief (the fairies said) and the tree

though newly leafed sensing not far from here, 
her last breath on the winds
sensing it would see her when

it also,brandishing newly and with its pearlized

flowerets would be let into the lobbies of Heaven would bloom again
heavy with birdsong, jubiliant.

this marked her now, goodbye my Jeanne...
to the once upon Kingdom

that ring around the moon.
my halo, my small Queen.
goodbye to life, to what has been

farewell, for honour's sake
pursue without turning back
the Divine trajectory.

for all of History.
For Love itself.
and nothing else.

mary angela douglas 10 may 2018;30 may 2019

What Will Remain

someone is scavenging the cherubs and the chimes

from my valentines

they know who they are

or maybe they don't

since they can't make their ditties gleam

using my soap.

my chimes don't migrate

my cherubs likewise

my cherry tree carol

has no disguise

your scamming intent's

a bum's enterprise.

allusive birds nestle

and the pink doves too

as they did before,

very far from you,

all thieves of words, of lilt and rhyme

your ink is stained and it's a crime

to no avail

for what in my poems

will prevail.. because I draw

from wells of truth

and beauty too; and do not loot.

mary angela douglas 28 june 2019

Walkout

well, letters just walked off the page I was only half way reading
they were tired of forming the word "change'
especially without any modifiers

more than sick of the word "revolution"
where were the colours?
the months of the year

the Book of Hours
with pictures, illuminated

and "ruminated".

can anyone hear me say this
or do they just dismiss
this regicide of words

ah, beautiful beautiful I said,
coaxing them back
and opal, and opaline

pearlescent
they began to stream, shyly, to the corner of the page
when all is said, ah, roseate, roseate

words started eating off my plate,
and it was gold

there's violet, eglantine when all is told
they started forming little alphabet hearts
and tuning up their strings

when I said: clouds, wings, the moon outloud
the shine on everything
and kingdom, kingdom, come

when you were young
and naming all the beauteous,
one by one.

mary angela douglas 28 june 2019

On The Mirrors Of Arvo Part And His Departures (Second Version)

yesterday you wrote

inscribed and ever inscribing

in the pooling of mirrors

crushing the kaleidoscopic colours

of feelings past music into an undiscovered realm

or as if angelic beings held enormous

mirrors reflecting music back

from its beginning in a universe

we could not know or forgot that we knew

or were we driven in fear from the yard of gold
by the dogs with eyes as enormous as teacups, windmills
in a neighborhood of sounds distressed
compressed our hearts, boiling with the lids on tight

so that you alone guessed and then took note

in notes as rare as certain birdsong at night
did you wake to hear? sheer

refractions of the rose, the violet, the forest shards
ah children turn again, you whispered, Christmas uncle
that you are

and then it works

the battered toy, the hidden borealis, star
no longer receding

and in your midnight watches so composed

beyond the guarded borders of our sighs

of the whirling angels, list! that we all stood still

a kind of requiem in ourselves and then, the glorias

weeping that this music filled

an ache in the soul

never before comprehended

mary angela douglas 2 october 2016;rev.23 january 2018;28 june 2019

White Jade (Second Version)

[translated from assorted baby languages…]

to P.L. Travers for her chapter “John and Barbera”

in "Mary Poppins"… (I did not forget)


he said I have a pearl-handled stillness

to sell you, clocks with vanilla moons and

suns inlaid.

curious bubble-gum,emerald

or amethyst rings in just your size;

broken glass from the gumball machine.

a Cracker Jack prize.

a few chess pieces under a valentine sky;

on brown paper, your earliest shadow traced;.

an eggbeater churning the colours in the clouds.

and if this fades,

the maps where silvered ships slipped through

and no one drowned.

striped candy.

a rhymed song merrily sung. and cherrily,

peachly. plum.

the wind through wild grasses; gift-wrapped,

the jeweled meridians…choose.

I said I’m in a painting by Currier and Ives;

the sky’s forever lemon, streaked with violet jam

when what I really want oh what I am

is the Impressionists-

and to live in a thatched house

arranging lilies in a pale blue vase

that doesn’t tip over.

already the hour glass is breaking apart-

so that I’m the one and only

holding onto blind grace and

sifting these pink sands;

hauling the jar of peach bright pennies home

and shaking the glass globe twice on Sundays

so that snowfall swirls;

still,somewhere, in the world.

and this is for the last ones in the Park

who forgot to wave as I

rounded the corner-

too sequined-charming or bundled up

to know that some choice diamonds.

leaves and flowers go

never snagging at all

the glint of lilac

in the snow child’s snood…


where are they? would you tell me, if you could

that they are wreathed forever in an enchanted wood.

there God is. He won’t topple over.

soon you may want nothing but melting, too.

moire end papers rose-threaded through-

for the white jade stories

you can’t read yet

sorting the ashes from the please

(whispered my Mother filtering

sunlight through the trees…)


mary angela douglas 15, 19, 21, 24 june 2012;27 june 2019

Does Light Grow

does light grow, does it have roots 
can it become, does it have shoots
is it restless like a stellar tumbleweed
,
does it need more or float like a pond lily

it seems to me
it only Is. beyond all shores known and unknown
a kind of benificence on its own, an attribute of God

that if flows not only to the green tendrils
though we cannot see it do so
sometimes a net caught

on the waters
threaded with gold, light appears to be
the shining of the Sea

which could not shine alone

a blue line in a green wave approaching

I dreamed like Dante
Light was a rose
forever unfolding

scented like stars
or snow.
I dreamed it was healing us so

in our sleep
even through unaccountable weeping

and when,
we arose.

mary angela douglas 25 june 2019