ARCADIA, THE WORD IS LIKE A CHERRY LOZENGE

 

ARCADIA, THE WORD IS LIKE A CHERRY LOZENGE

 

Arcadia, the word is like a cherry lozenge on the tongue

or butter rum candies my sister proposed

looking up from the swing sitting idle

 

in the sunlight

peripatetic golden child of music.

and now we're seeking the names of clouds,

off on our pastel expeditions

on picnic grounds, our own backyard

did we bring the coconut cake?

 

and we are far from trouble in the blue isles

sprouting wings and laughing sporadically

in cumulo nimbus, cumulo stratus, cirrus

 

cirrus, circuses in green and the tightrope lady

in pink sequined skirts

and this is our just desserts

 

we say, scooping into the fudge sundaes

or playing in the sprinkler on

hot Arkansas days

 

when the roses boil and grandfather

concocts historic rootbeer floats

the old fashioned way

when we make a wish on the Milky Way

that summer lasts at least until Christmas.

we have his word for it, smiles Grandfather.

mary angela douglas 28 june 2016;26 august 2022;28 february 2023

ON THE DEATH OF JEAN REDPATH, PEERLESS SCOTTISH BALLADEER

 Singer of Scottish ballads par excellence.

[and to my mother, Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas]

"Fled is that music-: Do I wake or sleep?"

John Keats, Ode To A Nightingale]

fled is the dream past dream on the clock of waking;

tulip-cupped the moon where the starry snows are flaking.

when will I awake in the rooms of before, not after?

silver, laughed the trees but they are gone

after song is evensong, afterthought is all,

in pearl bright slippers.

and the sunsets crowd: mere thread 

through the needle of the last hour

shadowing the pear trees in the fairy story

count, king by king and it's away

sigh the milk bright; wept the sailors

in their day, the tuneful days at sea the end of May

unread, wrote the poets in the frost of

windowpanes...the music drifts

and late for lunches wrapped in wax paper;

the jam smudged bread.

these songs in my head 

by these were disconsolate multitudes fed

nebulae, almost cried the child in the crib

with the orange coverlet;

dream, sighed the clouds and took her home;

is it too late for conversations?

that have scattered the cranberry hills,

my heart- where it's all flood tide for the

brides with lilies in their hands:all for Art

and the bonniest;strayed

the songs at her slight command o wavered

on the cusp of lavender and in the purpling dark

she stands, she stood

and here they leave you (all your songs)

and you don't know why yet

where the gold and the silver leaves 

have fluttered fluttered down

unclasping from fairytale branches

that scar these skies...

slirling, the wanderer wandered

and far from the rose red lanes.

the voice of mists may falter:

the Song, remains-

mary angela douglas 1 september 2014;28 february 2023

[last four lines in italics added september 2, 2014;

rev. 9 october 2014];25 august 2022

ENTER PIERROT, LAUGHING

 

ENTER PIERROT, LAUGHING

dusk falls in sepia tones

as it always does in the vintage photographs

but pierrot is a complex subject even so

is he laughing or crying

will you ever know the pinwheel effusions of his summer epochs

his heart that sows white rosebuds

seen from the distance you are sure his smile is real

on closer inspection, what does he really feel

no daguerreotype will ever reveal

is it the sun after rain or the other way round

a hopscotch falling to the ground

a lamentarion of coloured chalks or in pastels

is he feeling very well

he’s out for a walk in infinity

with the beau geste

and his silken shoes on the moon’s crest

or a quaking wire…

what was it you aspired to

 

a long time ago I played La Polichinelle on the piano

no one would believe it now

how I paint in imagination, memory’s gallery

his mauve bright tears

the small smile of redacted years

his penny bright forays…

 

perceptive angels, do what you must

guard his tremors, cherish his dust

I cannot find him.

mary angela douglas 1 april 2021;2 april 2021;23 june 2022;24 august 2022

DRESS CODE (REPOSTED)

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.

 

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

ON THIS DREAMING, FORGETFUL EARTH

 

on this dreaming, forgetful earth

let telegrams go out

from the missing 

in words formed from mist

to say only this

I have not forgotten

I am not forgotten

let the lakes widen on other planets

becoming more luminous and blue

wave on wave without rue

rippled from the stone

of far away wishing

I have not forgotten

I am not forgotten

let the children suddenly stop crying

for a pair of wings

sung to sleep by the silver birds

the birds of dream

in their returning

and under a moon of cream

spilt on the floors of the Unseen

and the Beautiful, still.

that has not forgotten

that is not forgotten.

mary angela douglas 22 august 2022;28 february 2023

FRIED EGG

 

someone once said or words to the effect

the sun rose like a fried egg in the Heavens

I'm paraphrasing or was it the pink yolk

barely glazed over by a winsome cloud

at any rate seemed felicitous to me

to use breakfast imagery at sun up

quite the thing

and of course I regretted I hadn't been the

one to think of it so Im approximating

being the lady in waiting and not the Queen

don't want to be mean or have to con it

considering a sonnet on country fried ham

as the next best thing but I can't quite catch the

zing of it

so I think of farm breakfasts I have read about

in books though never tasted on that scale

eating my toast with currant jam and not a little

pensive

about the whole thing

you know how that goes

kudos to the first one who said it.

probably Humpty Dumpty just before the fall

when a meaner poet pushed him over the Wall.

mary angela douglas 21 august 2022

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WE SHOULD BE SAILING ON THE GOOD NIGHT SHIP AGAIN

 

we ahould be sailing on the good night ship again

all sails billowing in an opalescent wind

the moon winks gold the stars show jubilee

snow drifts like petals upon an emerald sea

softly, softly

who knows but that the last lullaby may shadow the first

except we won't be rowing back to earth

by sunrise, sunrise

we could do worse than imagine it so

that the last sleep is  a flower sleep

in errant lovely april hushed

and the heart is brimming

with the late snows, the late snows

that we will miss so much

then we will Christmas croon Jesu, it's you we adore

and hear our mamas calling us

to  moire, pearl bright shores.

mary angela douglas 18 august 2022;1 march 2023

ANOTHER CRYSTAL SHIP IS GOING DOWN (REPOSTED)

 

[for the poet John Keats]

“ whose name was writ in water”


for Immortal, Timeless Poetry…and the children-
for whom it was all and will be, inscribed again,
and not forgotten…

“The very music of the name has gone…”

John Keats, Endymion

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

another crystal ship is going down
there where the violet waters cannot reach the sun
or where, the bargained-over heart
is run aground
no longer feeling anything at all
for the Attic messengers berated and

berated and
thrown overboard
in waters that won’t register the sound
of this bleak sowing.

the moon on bartered waters gives no light.
dim are the trees that used to
green the shore.
jingoistic captains seize the day:
cueing the numb musicians on the deck
for one last, auctioned song
to bear doomed passengers along
cold, flooded passageways.

we’re losing time and memory every day
observing the Grail float by us on the tides
and willing it all away to starfish
while we just hang on in the frozen waters
to the driftwood bracing prayers
we must remember…

“Our Father…

another crystal ship is going down-
another and another – everywhere -
alive with diamond words…
that must be spared
though we’re - just – ballast - to them:


the odd Ringmasters crowing
at the glint of Beauty drowned
and going down
they’ll claim -but it’s not true-
in Ophelia-coloured waters=


Not - this - time.

for we have heard-


though half-awake
the mist-bright mermaids surging Home
and we may see, half-blinded through our tears-
that when curbed lovely words
disintegrate – they cry out in soft rains:

“Hallowed be thy Name”…


however long we wait, we wait

at the edge of these coiled waters-
clear on their Return on the evening's tide.

pearl were the hulls
now singing on their way, so “optional”.
sheer Pearl, bewept, the tears of God
who only sent them all

(“Deliver Us From Evil…”)

to save our children
in the glacial days ahead…
treading the implacable waters…

mary angela douglas 18-20 april 2012

 

https://youtu.be/5YC3_hZGZI8

 

ALL HIS INFINITE LABOURING AT BRIGHT COINCIDENCE (REPOSTED)

 

[for William Butler Yeats, with reverence]

(and for Martin Burke, Irish-Belgian poet and

playwright, in memorium) 

 

all his infinite labouring at bright

coincidence

has long ago spun into the gold

of finer worlds than this one.

 

do you still read him

as the rose tinged glass, 

the harp glossed marvel gone? 

 

I wonder and then wonder endlessly

that poets after him

dared to keep on writing.

 

who will burn the sun into legend now; 

the moon, this starlit haunted maze, into a

jewelry

closer at hand too dear to us

 

or scan the snows of

ancient mourning

or note-

oh sons and daughters, 

 

the floating counterpoint of the swans

on Ireland's stilled, strange waters.

 

I have bound these letters with a shaking hand

couching my lament in flowers

from the antique gardens,

 

the rose ridden hours; 

 

learning in this, my latter age and stirred

beyond praise, 

all minstrel lays and sheared minstrelsy

itself-

 

tremulous, and grave to the very grave

to say to you, only: that poems like his-

we have not earned.

 

mary angela douglas 14 august 2015

WHAT MUSIC THERE IS (REPOSTED)

 

WHAT MUSIC THERE IS

for Martin Burke and for Marie-Anne

...the light on my hand is the shadow on the page and the silence a perfection..."
Martin Burke, Vortex

what music there is for the hand, fallen from the page
for the eye lidded upon

its own worlds now
only angels know
in their celestial vows.

what music there is
what music can there be
when the sea runs down to the sea

its own disappearance allowing or
for the harp too suddenly unstrung.
and familiar streets are overcome

familiar bells unrung
by the bookshop, cafe absences.
the sun in your eyes more fugitive now

than I imagined it who never met you
except through poetry
who dare not imagine your sweetheart's grief.

or how she binds laurel, leaf to leaf.

there is a glow by fruit stalls
old cathedrals.
the angels hidden in the shrubbery

that shook when you strode by
thinking you were the wind.
now that you no longer

breathe upon glass
or recognize old friends
how could they pretend

Brugge is not bruised now
that you've become her past
who seemed so vital and proud

tilling your garden of words
so happy to be, it seemed
the genial brother of so many,

poetry's herald.and all the rest,
second guessed, now.

what music there is for this
I can't bear now.
no elegies, you said

for those you had lost.
and now we bear that cost as well
who cannot call you back

to Beauty's spell on earth,
to your mythologies who miss you,
your twilight harbours;

you Irish Belgian Orpheus
maddeningly gone
from our midst.

what music is there for this.

mary angela douglas 12 december 2017

VALENTINE WITH DOVES ON THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF CHRIST (REPOSTED)

 

VALENTINE WITH DOVES ON THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF CHRIST

 

I am lost in the

Kingdom of the Heart

I said to no one living

since the day they felled the

King of it all-

seven swords run through my heart

seven swords and more

and oh the hilts

set with rubies

with russet diamonds

with

the sunset of the world.

and such a vein of

jasper runs through

the soul's so pleached amazement

standing still-

that I forget the words to

sing to you

a last border ballad.

my soul.

become the white dove's scar

and anodyne of mercy-

the cleft on the curl of the

last creamed wave

in this senseless valentine

shadow-box, shadowed, 

shifted by unseen wires

and winds.

the dove cries out

there's blood on the track

there's blood on the track

and more, look back

to the fairytale motto

of snow-cut

delicate drastic cameo

and descent: 

Be True.

in the version scalded

by fairies under broken glass-

scattering their gifts of light far

from - from the retreating henchmen

among last things.

all swords dissolve

with the help of God

who is also weeping

who is also weeping

oh dove, dove, dove

mary angela douglas 19 august 2011,1 june 2010

UNWRAPPING THE PAPER THEATRE OF THE MIND (REPOSTED)

 

UNWRAPPING THE PAPER THEATRE OF THE MIND

unwrapping the paper theatre of the mind
see the gold of stardust sifting past
the foiled huntsmen in the distance...

the backyard roses heaped up on the stage
let you know the end of something shines-
but you are too entranced to move
when no wind stirs the whirring pinwheels

and the dolls can't tear their marbly eyes away
from the cardboard angel flittering

in a tiny pink spotlight.
let the colored filters turn their
candied cellophane light,

rickety, on a
single crystal slipper-
though the paper candelabrum blaze

in medias res...
the razzle-dazzled mouse runs down
the semblance of a chime-

it's time to go.
and you can feel
faery music from the battlements

begin, this time, for real-

mary angela douglas 3 february 2011

TOURING ANGELS (REPOSTED AND REVISED)

 

[to my Grandmother, Lucy]

fairy tale bread was scattered the
birds did not eat;
the knights of the small hills

were locked in battle-
but here the shire's wind sighs
the songs my mother taught me through

an open screen door-
cornbread and strawberries are whipped creamed and
the diamond spindles cut, as in former days,

the naive princess-
in odd etchings,
beautiful,

as still-

whole kingdoms shine entire...
yet all my towers face the other way
on leafmeal, cooler afternoons

when a gaggle of stars

drifts by and the goose girl
(with her jewels sewn into her seams for
safekeeping)

follows after them in tears...
these are the things I tell myself
when God may be listening for

the shimmering years recounted,

in rosepetaled spelling blown
and every wish as sunbright, honeysuckle clear
as bacon and eggs at home, grape

jelly scraped on toast that
later will seem so
high meringued-miraculous indeed

or blue jay sapphire strung
from tree to tree

exquisitely hinged as a raspberry summer could be
suddenly frozen ruby solid
overnight-

oh guard with your eyes the scarlet
poinsettia on the piano from unstoried vandals-
the scarlet music

wrap it in golden foil
like a color you can use again
if you need to.

you will need to
you will need your
dream cottonwool wadded

in a silver keepsake box
in the back of the third
dresser drawer-

the crystal perfume stopper
and the opal-inlaid screen
of your best mind

on the day that touring angels
just drop by
unscrolling the fairy tale screed

you can't ignore.
oh step from the doorstep looking back
at what you cannot find

anymore-

you who knew daily how the best
of stories must begin,
will know it then,

forever

mary angela douglas 17 june 2011;rev. 20 june 2017