Where We Live Now

in our old attic
Christmas bulbed or
stacked up with old

seed catalogues from
riotous Springs amid
the tinseled strings of

a universe of lost and found

in the backyards on our own
between birthdays of the pastel or

in between star and star
of the far sighted astronomers
at Court

in hiding from the Queen
in the pink stuccoed mansions
by the palms of the Unseen

of our favorite colouring books
or paper dolled,
wherever the children decide.

stepping on bride trains rhinestone gauzed
or in the board game closet
spooning the jam of persimmon or fig

passed by for the flower girl gig
the stigmata but not the need to live for

the verses of an early Spring,
gold spelling bees, the cloud regattas
the riddles on the wing of

our distracted angels

in the sod block under the wild rose sky
of the prairies floating by,
in lilac illusions gingered conclusions

in fairytale feasts and the table ware ruby set
like a sunset kingdom should be

on our knees
in the least sigh or silver whim of God
toward the sparkle of The End

mary angela douglas 22 march 2017

Could Forever Have Been

the flower face the face of snow
melts into the afterglow of Light
lit long ago

thus is the long ago of words
still seen a glimmering a
player piano roll of ghosts

still singing fata morganas
of the Christmas bells still ringing
past long julys and fortifications

past crumpled marigold reasons why and the sand pails.
the flower face the face of snow
misplaced in the land of the neon velvets

of the foundering city at night, displaced

while the babies looked on
whole kingdoms sobbing fractions
and birds and flowers doomed to repeat

and fated to flower again my sweet
on the nether side of discarded reasons why
in magnified rainbows in petaling skies

magnificats fantastically altered
fantastically altered kaleidoscope wise
as any language past melting

could be 
could have forever been.

mary angela douglas 22 march 2017

Still Dreaming It All Up

(to my father, Robert R. "Bob" Douglas, newspaperman extraordinaire who did not like poetry, this poem I dedicate by virtue of the one line: "the smell of newsprint like a kind of faith")

how grown up we felt at our small desks
reading The Weekly Reader hot off the press
take one and pass it back

(with color illustrations, graphs)

the childsize news in brief;
the smell of newsprint like a kind of faith.
even if we weren't the hall monitors

the sugar plums in the play
we still had our allowance
for the book fairs in late may

like a renaissance on parade

so they seem to me, looking back
a lavish paegentry I guess
or later ordering from the summer newsletters

four paperbacks for a dollar choose carefully
like holiday candy sight unseen
but with thrilling pint sized blurbs

will you have orange, or raspberry creams?

imagine this adventure under leafy trees...
reading the high seas, the treasure, kidnapped;
Jane Eyre, when the lightning struck the oak

or rainsoaked on the road to who knows what comes next

under any pretext reading on

while sipping strawberry fanta sodas or wearing your plastic shades
with rhinestones purchased at the five and dime.
could later riches ever measure up in Time

I would have thought had I been cognizant enough
in my white dress at the jr. high graduation
wishing gardenias into my hair.

in a dress of cutwork percale, Grandmother's pearls

as we sang our wistful anthems to the earth,
still dreaming it all up.

mary angela douglas 21 march 2017;6 august 2022

Fata Morgana Of The Half Day At Work

like the trains that never arrive
in the middle of the day
so that you walked home

dismissed a half day from work
a long long way.
turning a page

in your armchair
and waking up later
one hundred years behind

to the middle distance
with your name on it
and the tartan thermos

with the glass lining

these clouds float through your mind
you can't dismiss
erase so hard as you may

leaving holes in the paper
where the stars shine through
the multiplex carbon copies'

bonbon colors: pink mint yellow blue,
old menus you can't use anyway
dance programs mimeographed

waiting for the ghost train

to the ghost job
no longer open for you.
with a violet crayon, your best one

on a large sheet of paper
torn in half
you will draw a place to live in

a magic dog
a fridge full of chocolate
and someone's round of cheese

all you want is a place to sneeze in
far from public view
it's up to you they cry on tv

but its up to God
you say and close your eyes
and wake up on the other side

of dream
where the pink clouds
line themselves up in rows

in a shot silk sky

prepared to drift endlessly away

mary angela douglas 20 march 2017

For Robert Osborne, Monarch of Movies

for Robert Osborne, In Memorium d. march 6, 2017

dreaming my dream as if it were an old movie
in sepia tones or the interiors with the luxuriant
contrasts

in a vast house of lamps with little prisms
ornate mirrors, and corridors of snow
or sunlit orchid paths or a lone hill

where the riders ride away.
the riders ride away.
it is sunset in techicolour

oh stay cry the summers from the page
turned into films that we watch over and over
but there is no delay

the old clocks tick and the cherry branches
and the axe is at hand,
the orchard stilled.

gone is the familiar presence
and the rider on the hill.

mary angela douglas 20 march 2017

Queens Of The May

the tinfoil treasures of the candy wrapper eras...
skimming the surface of the summers
we read on

in paperback palaces of our own devising
old costume jewelry pirating away
or home with t.v. gingerale 

cherry cough dropping and lollipoping the precious 
respites from school, and dubious carnivals
and the P.T.A.

how can we regret the time we

dreamed away all coconut cake and cherried
we made merry
when riches were any home spent day

the backyard leaves the meteors fluttering

down, the five and dime town, the breath of iris and
the moon for free and Grandmother's pearls
the Christmas necklaces of the stars

and the attic decorations displayed
how everygreen and always
peppermint striped and threaded with fairy slipper

bells ah fabric of the early spring skies all
pale blue moire
the color we wanted to dance in

with a thousand petticoat clouds o
queens of the May.

mary angela douglas 20 march 2017

Some Things I Wanted To Ask Him (Meaning, God)

how did it come to You to make glow in the dark stars
or pick the fantastic wall paper, ceiling too for earth
so marbelizing blue and green

so that little children everywhere
were happy under the tree roofs branching
and wrote in the dust your diamond name

with sticks and outlined their playhouse outside
with the innate moonlight of your milky quartz
oh blue jay feather falling farther from me

than childhood I loved you as Rilke
his peacock feather.
and do You send your sunset messages to everyone

and if you do
why does it feel do I feel oh every time
and for the longest time

with the rose the violet the tangerine

unfolding in late afternoon's skies
that only this letter
is meant for me?

mary angela douglas 20 march 2017

Gingham

can anyone surpass the glory of sandwiches

wrapped in wax paper

the pink lemonade cake on the

silver cakestand?

and you're dressed in a gingham, plaid dress well sashed

rushing in after school to the birthday

of all pinkitude courtesy of Grandmother.

here we would repose 

forever in the kingdom of Rose

I would have wished if wishes had been

clearer then.

as it is I see it still on transparencies

when I cast back again

with a jeweled rod to hook

one scene after the other

mercurial, not cast in stone

but wearing, like gingham, well

after many washings on my own

autumn sunned in a pinafore wind.

mary angela douglas 18 march 2017

The Musicbox With Curlicue Birds And Flowers

the musicbox with curlicue birds and flowers
and the tune sprinkled with light
through now, how distant hours! the

childhood forests with the slanting rays

from heaven the ladder swung down
of sun mote gold this is what I hear
cried the daughter of the musicales

in her pink tulle on ballet slippered afternoons
how have we grown old I mused
remembering the sequined tune

gardenia moment on the side lawn
in late spring, our aprils completed

the musicbox with curlicue birds and flowers
the bone china regencies
and all the mysteries of faded song.

forgive the moments in the shade.
lost in the din of the big parades
and all we thought that we could win

left stranded somewhere
farther back than hearts could mend

I see you by the luminous door
as you were then
still going out with all to win:

and then the song comes clear my friend

in music we will live again.
in music we will live again.

mary angela douglas 18 march 2017

The Tolling Of Bells For The Strawberry Sky

the tolling of bells for the strawberry sky
the reasons why we mourn the passing
of the cream filled days

we have counted on our grass stained fingers
conmingling the fingerpaint colors
toward the last days

do you hear the bells and do you fear
there is no salve to soothe the children
lost this way

in the woods and far from those who cared
I saw in a vision swinging through bright air
the flocks of God to feed them

the wild strawberries peeking through vast snows
the return of cream and sugar to the blue blue tables
oh but this was a dream cried my angels

this was a dream

mary angela douglas 17 march 2017

The Diamond Wind and Where It Has Gone

God lets his diamond face shine through
those pinpricks in the sky we call the stars
her mother sighed or maybe it was the wind

through the night curtains
in the way back when of all whens
taken into account.

rummaging in the dresser drawers
we found the rhinestone tiara
while the grandmother slept music

and we learned the stories of the glass mountains
the golden apples rolling down again
and the knights disfigured making the

attempt no more so that old candles wept their wax
into the cornices of the moon.
and I have gathered the lilacs and the lilac blues

and the pinks wept the princess
and angels harvested her tears
and this went on for years

in ink understood and bound with ribbons
of the letters reserved and not sent back
we found in the attic of the stars

and behind God's diamond face...
in the beginning of sorrows.

mary angela douglas 16 march 2017

Poetry Brittle

let's make poetry brittle all afternoon.
use buttery words, the best ingredients.
oh toffee coloured is the need to resume

making rhymes or not
and all the images you've got
spilled out in hard candy array.

oh confectionary roses,
isinglass through the looking glass ways
into an Easter Egg panorama

and pirate forays on the coast of
all that can be imagined
on an ordinary day.

lets whip up something memorable
layered with strawberries
or the milky way.

mary angela douglas 15 march 2017

We Loved Old Road Maps

[to my grandfather, Milton B. Young, King of the Triple A Trip Tik]

we loved old road maps of cheerful design
the brochure people motoring
with wide smiles

the mother in red lipstick, an orange shirtwaist dress
her chiffon scarf blowing in a motoring wind
the father sure of the route.steady hands on the wheel.

a twinkle set to go off in either eye
as if it were Christmas on the Fourth of July.

the backseat children leaning forward
as if expecting the world for dessert.
or burgundy cherry ice cream at the next Howard Johnson's.

old roadmaps so waffle cone crisp in their delineations.

so perfect folded up impossible to fold back up again
except as a magic trick.
on any road you could find another service station

another road map, in case this one wasn't working.
if only life had been that way. All Firestone caroled,
the routes marked out in red and blue

and everything to scale.
as it is.
we are glad

there is any road at all.

mary angela douglas 15 march 2017

Were You The Earthquake They Predicted

to Jesus Christ, the Lord, friend and saviour

were you the earthquake they predicted
then buried alive
but you survived

a king in no hiding
kingdomless they said at the last minute
were you in it

or were you somewhere else
all the time
communing with

what should have been
what could have been
with only the green leaves for friends

the waves of the sea
walk upon the glass of our hearts
that we might not shatter

let all that matters in the world
slip away
holding onto the day you

came back
cooking us fish
with the honey glaze.

mary angela douglas 14 march 2017

On The Great Novelists Neglected

perhaps they think we have forgotten
those passages where mignonette blooms
on dresses of pale blue silk

where people confer over great or small matters
keeping their distance.
where a letter can spell doom

a gesture, finality.
the sound of carriage wheels speed happiness,
a fireside out of the rains.

perhaps the flower pressed into a book
would live again
the margins begin to snow...

blow the dust off your indifference
and let the old novels
glow

said a ministering angel once
where you almost lingered
in an out of the way shop.

isn't it enough to know
they lived once, and wrote and wrote
all this at times without a drop of mercy

shown to them

and isn't it amiss we have left
their gardens alone
and left their heroines adrift

their heroes far from home
because we are modern.
and do not know

what we do not know.

mary angela douglas 11 march 2017

Imagination, Memory's Dower

to William Shakespeare this small book of days
and to my mother, Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas

beyond the coast of what is seen
in dreams, in the rustle of pages
in the green of a shadow on

a greener wall, being small
caught in the rain
distracted from pain

have you really witnessed
so many snows as this
you wonder to yourself in bliss

crystaled in the cold or blown
from the petaling trees of april magnified
magnifying a white white glory

have you really existed under the stars

you could not see in the city lights
or borne the flights of others on
your back or tracked beauty itself

have you really can you really
look back on so much gold squandered
and still there is more

the coinage of days

imagination's stored it up for you
in silos of the night
not ill met by moonlight, Titania

not ill met.
with my small border of roses, lilies
flowerets crowned and remembered, yet.

mary angela douglas 9 march 2017

If The Apple Blossom, The Cherry Or The Plum

if the apple blossom, the cherry or the plum
were pink or white or peach or any such colour
perhaps we did not know in the beginning

only beginning to sense the lavishness
and in amaze that God put flowers on the trees
and that the wind took them away

so that they scattered at our feet
and we were the flower girls then and twirled
ourselves soft petals in the winds

and this was april, sometimes march
very rarely may but anyway spring
and we could spell all the pastels

the colour green and break off into singing
anything we were so glad to live in the world with flowers
to feel ourselves flowerlike

the honor of this,  to dream we were the
bridesmaids of Song
we longed for o our whole lives long.

mary angela douglas 9 march 2017

On Beautiful Imagination

we were half in love with beautiful imagination
turning the clouds to stallions we were on our way:
the straw straw moments into gold on heavy days

transformed in colourful displays.

in great weariness of soul we slipped away:
there was beautiful imagination
a cherished fountain flowing

a glory fold on fold of the richest fabric made
and in the heat, the deprivation
we stooped in a fairy tale shade

and all was green again
and cool and cooling
and we were saved

becasue of beautiful imagination.
in unrelenting hunger
or facing the doors slammed like thunder

carrying nothing in our hands
but the luggage of dreams
oh seam on seam I would stitch

our souls together in one phrase
turning aside the evil ways
it's beautiful imagination

and the day full of diamonds again
the way God called it by, just yesterday,
our own jeweled names.

mary angela douglas 7 march 2017

What Shall I Send But An Envelope Of Stars

what shall I send but an envelope of stars
a box of the sun
then you will have radiance until

Kingdom Come

wherever your path winds
a rubied thread to guide you
through the labyrinthine mines

and time ticking the snows away
into the Divine
or should I send slippers

winged, thrice dipped in the Beyond the wing
of an enchanted bird
that your footsteps should

not tread the earth
in time of war or conundrum
or salve of roses

to heal the wintering scar
unstoppered flowers
where the sorrows are

mary angela douglas 6 march 2017

Secret Flights

you imagine snow, snow at the poles
snowfall on distant diamond stars
or falling within

in your mind there are no tracks
only the blessedness of snow
covering the artifacts

so that you no longer remember
what you don't want to know
and there are the secret flights of birds

tinged with the gold of ancient lore
enchanted forever
beyond the margins of the world

these are your flights also
in the interval you can think of them
don't let go

of the snows of the mind
of the secret flights
you are going away

where all is velvet
antiphon echoing in a hidden chamber
beauty salvaging the wreckage

mary angela douglas 6 march 2017

To Oz From An Evergreen Distance

history should have been this
the emerald turreted
the way toward and

homeward the silk balloon missed
but not the waking from the dream.
oh from seam to chartreuse seam

I would stitch you
as if you were a heart
and not a pincushion.

as if you were the star
that would never go out
not even in a daylight sky.

not even afterwards.

this is the myth of
never saying goodbye,
the perennial view.

and that is only one of
all the reasons
ozland that

we love you.

mary angela douglas 4 march 2017

Who Knows When

I remember the starlight retreats into silence
the cooling wind through the night windows
the curtains flowing as if from unseen hands

or angels, the shattering of the midnight skies
and pouring rains outside.
and you are quilted in

the child of lets begin oh everything before we sleep
the scattered game pieces and the dolls
the let's play everything as if it were Christmas morning.

does growing old tick it all away
so that we no longer dare to say or think this way?
let us imagine 

that we have summers berry full ahead of us
and take it all out of the closet
round up all the dolls again

and give them rides in the driveway wagon
over the gravel and grass to
Who Knows When

mary angela douglas 4 march 2017

Vestibule

dry sticks rubbed together in a high wind
flecks nor sparks nor anything at all
but we saw light, it flooded the door

and when you opened it,
there was more.
this was in the realm of dream

dreamed once, dreamed twice
the auction of beauty free
from the picket lines the

asking for redress, political designs;
the clear belled conscience
and the rest the green lined vestibule

of those who know
they know
the kingdom lives within

and cannot be bought and sold.
and what is more,
not even voted for.

mary angela douglas 1 march 2017

Song To Be Sung In An Overpoliticized Age

was it the silver and the shining
a cleaness as of rainwashed air
and we were staring at the angels

hidden in clouds never dreaming outloud
outloud outloud...
now all is volume turned up loud louder and

loudest

circus crowd magnified but then
it was sweetness, light as silk shod, the
apple blossom falling on the lawns imperceptible

as time and amenable as snows on holiday
then it was the december rose
watched over by caroling caroling

the shimmer of bells awakening and the glass held
ones most pure crystalline the gold
leaf flaking off the sun and we

catching it every mote like the Perseid
all golden coined we were then pristine
least note carved on the early piano

accentuated
full of the lavish stories the ones
where the pictures held the colours breaking

the rainbow bubble of words
above our lullay lullay the lilacs on the
palings of the storybook house scattering

in the cherry sprigged time then we were
sliding down the slides in pinafores
and dresses of a strange design ornate

as kaleidoscope shifting

we were matching our pocketbooks to
the vivid patent leather shine
with the least ruffle happy

and the apricot sash tied.
and prayers and prayers with
the angels in the air for the blue skied

and those who did not lie who merely loved.
and now you will tell me I or mine
must shut the book of riddles

and declaim upon the wonders of
the political. this I will never do
remembering the lyres breaking

out into blossom on the least picnic pretext
under a new made sun
and the tunafish sandwich

eaten at home as if at a royal feast
down to each last crumb
and the ice cream lingering, never

melting that fast our strawberry chocolate vanilla
forevers come to pass
and painting it all over and over again

the sherbets the vermillions
the sun in a vaircoloured sky
with the watercolor box open to view

and all the possibilities
that we knew
the pinks and greens of the watermelon time

the orange rind the cupboard of the
damson plum and rhyme
we will not barter now or anytime;

we did not then

mary angela douglas 1 march 2017

A Visitation

song itself came to the back stairs of the castle
in a drenching rain
like the princess in old fairy stories, refrains

of the tunes we softly used to dream
bringing blossoms to a neglected altar-

driven out
seeking refuge
tears indistingishable from rain

and her cloth of gold is frayed
her silken shoes worn.
petal thin she hardly stands

like a wish pebble thrown, alone
half drowned in an ancient fountain.
but her eyes shine candlelit within

like a thousand thousand candelabra
or the night skies branching plum tinged
over a wordless Spring.

mary angela douglas 1 march 2017