I Wept For The Many-Storied House

I wept for the many-storied house, the
castle we always wanted to go with
the pink candled cake;though it

would have been a bear to wrap.

where was it, after long years and
no more birthday lists required?
I will make it myself, I said in

my dream and began the long task.
and now I have parqueted the floors
and set the turrets ablaze with the

afterparty fireworks and embedded
a thousand gems in the palace walls;
and o! dear Lord

where are the former inhabitants
that I loved then, receding in the afterglow
of all my childhood wonderings

who cannot come back for The Grand Opening
the penants breezy in the alley ways
because you have not willed it so?

mary angela douglas 20 april 2016

Old Alphabets Haunt My Dreams

old alphabets haunt my dreams
the ones in dark green
construction paper red

the things they said to us
when we were little
in capital letters and very loud

inside our heads,

the important things we thought,
on these we counted 1.2.3; the
glories that would be when we

reached the end of the times table perfectly;
the last ones standing in the Spelling Bee
with perfect penmanship and gold stars

by our names; where have the clouds gone,
the ones that we loved then, when
singing about the rain

in someone else's folksong;
with a cherry bright refrain
and you, reciting in your sleep

the things you'll want to keep
much later, from fading away
and all the things we used to play.

mary angela douglas 19 april 2016

Roses, Roses, Roses

these things could border the mind, if you let them:
roses, eglantine, a few stray stars from old report cards
the glitter and the glue the

perfume of our new shoes bought just in
time for school

the feeling of new things unwrapped in a
never before seen day our shadows
melting on a childhood lawn, we pray,

along with the strawberry summer cones.
or being left alone all day to read
inside the playhouse

the accounts of all that June brides wore
on a previous Sunday: the alencon lace
the orange blossom grace, the satin-

and the sequined veil, the seed pearls
oh to such avail my sister and I imbibed
each word in the paper and drunk on bridal finery

played with our dolls, wondering:
what is stephanotis and why don't
they just carry

roses, roses, roses
in all the colours

mary angela douglas 19 april 2016

Such A Pink Cloud

such a pink cloud hides The Ministry
of Fear and Intimidation that little children Outloud
ask for directions, caramels, balloons there

unaware or else I've got it backwards and
the sign in Spring pastels reads: Candybox City
and a voice on the line so pretty

in the audio portion of the program says:

oh. welcome children to The Ministry of Pink Clouds.
and you really hope, oh you do. that at least they'll have
light refreshments, a little cake or two

since standing in a queue for groceries

wasn't that productive in the olden days, the golden days
the days beyond recall when you wore your embroidered shawl
to the Ministry of P's and Q's;

what else would you do while the sunset fades...
oh, now it's getting late; I'm off to The Ministry
of While You Wait a one stop shop

where stars come out and sudden skirmishes pop
you know: wars, mere false alarms.
and now they're tarring over-

(what used to be)
The Ministry of Felicity-
Thank God.

mary angela douglas 18 april 2016

If You Just Tried

but it isn't the One she said
to herself in the schoolroom;
it isn't even the Many.

it's the Exact shade that
matches the ruby slippers
or the clouds in late afternoons

and you string your lute accordingly,
don't you? pleading no contest.
it's the details like the amber of

honey on toast, its viscosity in the breakfast rooms
she laughed because all rooms were one and the same
in small apartments with their mini blinds for free;

viscosity of stars on summer nights,
the dark green awnings of trees matching the
porch swing or

on the summer night you remember,
as the wind lifted
and you are a child in blue and green 

and happy with your dessert yet
thinking in your dreaminess
you could be somewhere else, like a fairytale,

anywhere else at all; your sister agrees,

if you both just tried long enough;
jumping off of the kitchen chairs
and laughing up the hallway

onto Later On.

mary angela douglas 18 april 2016

O Words, Not My Words;No Longer

o words, not my words; no longer
will I follow you through
someone else's country, marigolds,

wilderness, screen door.
or partake of the cake on the table;
sip dark tea, as if I were Persephone.

I know those words are not for me;
that climate, and the covered well.
forgive my spelling it out for you

that the bird tracks in the snows cannot be traced
to anything living;
the scattered shot of my thoughts that  I

do not know not know not know

where the echoes flowed;whose the
birds are, rising; they're flecked with silver-
much less the horizons.

I want to go home where honeysuckle thrives;

the green grass grown remembers me and
the trees so much older, their branches kindlier disclose
the angels hidden in the pictures.

and I will shutter the windows;
will never think again
the livelong night or day

of where I have been
and what language I was 
speaking, when I lost my way.

mary angela douglas 17 april 2016

I Am Going Away Where Words Are Not Arguments

I am going away where words are not arguments
where they fall softly from the tree of language
and it is moonlight and you are in your secret house

near a window and off to the side you see
it is either petals or snowflakes falling from
the skies, the cloud trees scudding through the

evening and you are as solitary
as the one star that will not forsake you there
if they twinkle they are planets someone says

but the fragment fades, the last photo in the album
and it is tied to your heart the whole thing as if
you were a kite

and you float over all the arguments the broken china
the recriminations in your red shoes the ones from the fairytale
but you did not lie to get them and so they are rose red slippers

and you fly and the rooftops know you but say nothing
knowing you are in need of rest and you are part of this
the petals the snowflakes falling from the moon

and the starlight covering you from head to foot
in clean silver.

mary angela douglas 16 april 2016

Deep In Our Enchantments

let us go to the storied beginnings rosepetaled,
I cried out not to the red ashed caves but
to the greenwoods, greenwoods.

sweet echoes came back.
come back to me mourned the mirroring moons
in the dark pools reflected

and no one to see.the children at sea.
come back to me murmured the lilied fronds
and the wildflowers sown all down to the seas

and these the margins of our happiness,
or should be, mayflowered and splendid.
let those who lied to all children flee

and beauty reign over us, and the sound of the seas,
the wildflowers bent in a crimson wind then
turning to ochre, to sudden rubies; Again!

said we; deep in our enchantments; Home.

mary angela douglas 16 april 2016

Saturday Praised

on saturdays the realm of freedom widens
the smell of cut grass in the neighborhood
the drone of the occasional plane

from the base overhead
and we revel in cirrus clouds the cotton candy of them
the peanut butter and banana sandwiches

made by our Grandfather's hand
and, after chores, the endless ocean of time
that holds whatever may come.

the small dog's tricks across the kitchen floor
for the fried chicken to get dropped somehow
under the table

and grace to read under the trees and the
kingdom of home that feels so wide and deep
even when you do have to straighten the dresser drawers

for the umpteenth time for they are not neat
or polish the silver or pick up everything that fell
from the sky when you danced so hard on the grass outside

saying this is mine this kingdom of green and blue
and roses too and the winds the winds through the pines
and saturday the very emblem of Heaven, someday

when every day it's Saturday Forever

mary angela douglas 16 april 2016

In The Studio Of The Departing Aviator

[to the soul of the marveling artist, sculptor vanished to
realms of gold, Michael Rolando Richards from the World Trade Towers September ll, 2001. Most famous for his searing sculpture of the Tuskegee Airmen and the person most like Icarus of all who died that day]

ephemera of wings, and a gold paint spilt
the cardboard outlines conforming to a blueprint
wrinkled on tissue purpled with

the outlines of...
what? a dream come true? a tar blurred view
an adjustable happenstance seen through

a something wept for years, and not yet done,
oh tears of tar
the half flown years in dun; spun

into a pearl edged stream of night
and dawn too heavy to bear the weight

this is flight, hallowed the angels
this is time
and chimed your brethren, out of sight

and this crossed flight crossed purposed
now to be

abandoned due to circumstance so
thunderstruck, too suddenly askew?
the black clouds roiling on the horizon

the gold swallowed whole, the gold swallow. swallow
where are you we call from the manifest
having no names when the smoke clears yet

debris of starlight everywhere, Archangel o Michael
new fallen, tears in flames; o morning dew burned up

the glass heavens
and our grief.that this is brief, too brief

till Light itself cried Michael! Michael,
take flight.

mary angela douglas april 16, 2016

The Singular Dream Of The Elephant Man

[after the film by David Lynch]

consummatum est

beauty could not quite forsake 
forsake him in his dream,
her house made of

bits of broken mirrors
where the moons streamed
behind clouds not unkindly and

the stream almost murmured my dear,
my dear (the narration's not too clear)
and he thought in his

dream if only Andromeda were
not caught in the branches,
I could rescue her;

I would be happy and silver. and
restless in sleep
he moved, distressing the pillow of Mars,

setting off the alarms: oh let my son,

his mothers prayed, along his spiky way
sleep, sleep far from the jeering
and the jar of ointment

broken, at his feet

mary angela douglas 15 april 2016

It Isn't So Much Magic As It Is, Beauty

it isn't so much magic as it is, beauty
she said to herself coming upon the scene suddenly:
the unexpected snowfalls, the lemon leaf reigning

then falling at your feet and the sweep of it
the panorama close at hand.
how can I let you understand that this is

something dreamed yet wide awake.
a flaking of stars; transpositions of where you are
to where you could never be, had never been.

and this is mystery and the red rose gathered and
still rooted in the ground and the lost and found, the when
of every childhood minute you gazed at the sky

willing the clouds to stay

not so much wondering
as dreaming, why
can't they?

mary angela douglas 15 april 2016

Up Close

in a tangle of images blue
butterflies mimic the sky
who calls this poetry

yet we will
eat ice cream the whole
summer long

guarded by the guardian
trees and fall down scraping
our knees calling the small

wounds "strawberries."
it is the wind the wind through
the trees or startling the

rose bushes makes us gleam
the way we are to those who love us
pushing off from the swings

and hoping
to see the face
of familiar stars

up close in daylight.

mary angela douglas 15 april 2016

Going Home

I remember the rosebud stories coming into view
when the mists cleared; the falling away of wings
(this, they called snows);

the cabbages and kings; the children's garden
and the feelings of these things first learned
and penny saved is a penny earned and

pennies themselves, the copper glow when they
were new seeming to me like small suns in
my shoes; the penny loafer mornings and

the bus ride when you are too small to ring 
the bell to get off.
then you do not know that the frost in the air

signals anything but Christmas weather
and are simply glad when parties are at school
before the holidays because it means

closer to home and closer to home is
always better than anything.
now you feel the same in the waning days:

the wish for home is best; the stars gathering in
the West and twilight itself seems like a dream
that folded into the long ago,

the roses blowing on the evening wind;
their scents the nearest to what you would say
if you could find the way.

and this is all I know
what I knew then, and rest from distress from
the long unwinding of the road back;

the red and gold swept from the Falls,
the appled journeys and the turning
into the old lanes welcoming you again

and this is best and most beautiful of all.

mary angela douglas 14 april 2016

Allergic To Coffee, Not On The Scene

you can never be the Bride of your time
I said to my soul waiting for no sugar to show
when you're adorned with faerie lights

at the drop of the morning paper on the mat.
and Soul poured the coffee down the sink
a little perturbed we can't drink that anymore

because we just can't.
we might as well go back to drafty castles
moldy tapestries on the walls

and all that she mistily stormed.
who's in a mood now I said
but she never listens to me

when I'm right
but just goes off in her own light
like some kind of Tinkerbell.in a rainbow funk.

and this children, is called a solliloquy
(look it up) or it used to be
before we only got the potato parings

instead of Real Poetry
with the moonlight left in.

mary angela douglas 13 april 2016

To Christopher Morley In Heaven At The Feasts

Dear Mr. Morley Wherever You Are Now
thanks to the scrumptiousness of your prose
I have ordered your Mince Pie and Plum Pudding

instead of mere groceries.
Indeed, because of you I almost grow thinner
except that this never happens no matter

what diet I don't go on.
which proves to me that words are indeed fattening
or how else can my face still be pumpkin

round, glowing even.
I am glad you don't seem to have written
any other books such as perhaps Chocolate Fudge Cake

With Raspberry Sauce;

Asparagus Drowned in Creamery Butter
or Receipts of the Lost, The Dessert Filled Kingdoms
say of New York or the tram bright neighborhoods

of Philadelphia.
Cream Cheese?, your muses ask, a little beseechingly
as I write on...Mint Jelly?

mary angela douglas 13 april 2016

There Were Lilac Wasps In The Picture

there were lilac wasps in the picture.
I loved them there.
not in the air, where I was walking

in dirt dobber brown, angry auburn
in a brightening light,
the sun from out the clouds.

in the picture the lilac wasps cannot sting.
is this why we sing, to take the sting
out of life or the little disparate moments

when we feel too apart?
moonlight cannot come and go
for the lilac wasps in the raspberry shrub

and there's the rub and why
we're stuck on Art
though not stuck in it.

mary angela douglas 12 april 2016

Storyteller

did he pluck the crystal apples out of the air
some lost winter day?
who can say.

we can't tell you that, they'll tell you
down at the factories, along the narrow ways
above the frightening gorges

and the sky is gorgeous and it is your flower
or meant to be changing moment by moment, splendidly
but you are paid, if you are paid, by the hour

and never to look at the skies.

and so a life goes by unless you're the one
who tells the stories spinning their gold 
from pure nothing

making a coat so fine and of any time at all,
a wedding. and there stepping out on a downtown curb
is Cinderella in a dress paneled with the sun

in sleeves of silver

and everything else disappears and maybe
for years and years then
at least that's one way of looking at things.

mary angela douglas 12 april 2016

Please Turn The Page

the skillet is for decoration really
we don't eat pancakes, eggs, sausages;
we just dream about them.

and fruit salad, ambrosia, little pink
cupcakes. more and more I can really
imagine a good meal

and almost feel full from it
but my allowance goes into books
and books and books until I think

I'm going to turn into one, one day
and when someone speaks to me
I'll just have to manage somehow

to say: please turn the page
like the read-along-with-the-book
children's records

back in the day.
whose day?
The day?

was there really only the one day?
then it happens. the chime you've
been waiting for after the best illustration

ever, the tinkerbell voice declaims:
oh, please, little child listening oh, please


(fairy dust scattering ping)
turn the page.

mary angela douglas 12 april 2016

The Kingdom Of Left Behind

the kingdom of left behind grows on its own,

stone turning into flowers;

ferns skipping a step, forget the coal

and diamond shine and gradually the seas decline

and a home appears with sheer curtains,

lilacs on the winds

that blow the let's be dours away and all the

nickering clouds have come to stay in a blue

silk sky-corral

and you wear pastels so that that cannot say

to you any longer- those who happen by:

with any real clarity

sunrise,sunset; which it is then

the end or the beginning?

mary angela douglas 12 april 2016

We Never Did

it was raining gold at all the childrens' birthday parties;
a soft gold tasting of butterscotch? sun spots? caramels
wrapped or toffees and this stole the show

from the cake slice with it rose;
the dish of tri striped lusciousness.
oh strawberry chocolate and vanilla when I grow up I
will name my children for you. I promise to.

but we never did.
grow up, I mean.

mary angela douglas 12 april 2016

This Is My Confession To The Roses

this is my confession to the roses.
I have never forgotten you
since childhood's breathless sighting
impressed you on the pink and cream of my mind;

in each succeeding year and cherished just the same

though your petals
have blown far, far from these demesnes
of fear, of dying for our daily bread

of wondering, wandering  inside my head:

what has the world to do with you
that still, your fragrance holds;
your colours and the beauty of your opening

onto wars; within, without and everywhere
hidden behind faux doors of gold, the merciless.
if I forget you, kingdom of the rose

how will my soul know how to
blossom into death?
or recognize

the breath of God
on waking again.

mary angela douglas 12 april 2016

Could We Help It That We Thought

[to my mother, Mary Adalyn]

could we help it that we thought
the galaxies should be made of flowers?
and that they should pelt down on us all hours
when you read Rumplestiltskin to us

as though it were fact-

when poetry was Poetry,
the golden intractable and snowy
when we wished it so;

and holly berried, making us merry

as if we were by the fireside
after long and drenching rains;
and Rochester calling  Jane, Jane
beyond our suburbs.

and now, draw by the fire again I will
though others think it an ill thing.
let the sleet plie  on the roof tops
when we will make a play where the Snow Queen

turns suddenly kind;where April shines into
oblivious glades and breaks into
small rose afterthoughts.
where the buttermilk churned makes it all

turn fine again when we go hunt in the grass
the waxy eggs in their pastel modes;
caught by our  own peach sashes on the sticker bush.
and we, we never will grow old, we pledge.

and the half moon smiles.

mary angela douglas 11 april 2016

They Want Us To Believe In The Dark Ages

they want us to believe in the Dark
Ages.
we resist, throwing up colourful
flares
as if they were party streamers

and pretend it's a holiday

not an emergency that never quite
goes away.
and they send telegrams, furiously,
day and night:
lo, the Ship is sinking out of sight
but you

say to yourself,
what ship am I on?
we're landlocked here.

but they persist in fears
and long for you to do the same.
and dream that meteors will

shatter your quiet.

then I'll be starlight,
you say to yourself.
then I'll be starlight.

mary angela douglas 11 april 2016

You Imagine Yourself On Dry Land Sometimes

you imagine yourself on dry land sometimes
at least at the picnics under the trees
the pink cake glowing and the little sandwiches

and no disease, no sudden arguments out of nowhere
hurt the breeze, the idyll there.
you imagine yourself free as air

for that moment and think there can be
another moment, and another that gleams;
stitch it down and then embroider it, please

and this is Time then as it should be
and you string the gem bedight minutes together

and wear them as a necklace
in the workaday world ah but Cinderella
they will break the pearls and scatter them

and they will roll under the radiator
in your apartment under the colorful the disorderly shelves
and then,

where is your wishing well then our princess
caw all the crows.
you will go to the window in a fragile state

blinking back tears when a something says
all glimmery, Wait oh daughter of new distresses
multiple years

then from the clouds God releases His laceworks again

and there they are shining all over the lawn
and you feel crowned and overawed
all at the same time

and as if your dress is silken suddenly blooming
with all the flowers
and you will put by the blundering hours

and feel this is not the end turn the page
there are further Wonders...

mary angela douglas 11 april 2016

Will There Be A Cottage There

will there be a cottage there
sweetpeas spilling over the palings,
small pink roses

the ruffling breeze
through the baby's hair
playing in the yard

and will there really be no wars
these were my imaginations of Heaven
the bluebirds always near

even when soaring.
honeysuckle glad, our tunes
on eternal summer afternoons

children on the swings, launching off
into beautiful things,unending;
and the small pools rainbow clad.

and we will drop our sadness there
as into  crystal well
said Grandmother, turning the india paper

pages as though there were clouds
or will it be, only the wind

and all of us
feeling so emerald
in the shade of immortal trees.

mary angela douglas 11 april 2016