SONG FOR THE LAST INTERVIEW (VERSION OF JUNE 10 2019)

'it will flame out like shining from shook foil'

-Gerard Manley Hopkins

(for Dr. Robert Joseph Connelly, UIW, San Antonio, in memoriam)

this is for the Word made whole
for the poetry-riven skies
for the strength to recognize a lie

for the breakable language
unbroken still
by the bent word

built for profit,
not for truth.

this is my sigh in the flowering
air for the glass blown disappearing act of
stars in the May apple regions

appearing,
disarming, chiming in the winds
that only angels bring

the pause (finally, in excoriating speech,
-your very own-)
where you collect yourself
if not your things

from one last day at work
or home
picking your report card up

in June from the ghost school;
for the ghosts of
cornbread heirlooms

dripping with the honeycomb;
for afternoons of strawberries
and cream -

for the Holy Ghost dressed in pale green
for the whole world seen
through stereoscopic Disney,

Christmas stenciled windows;
the least view of small
pink flowers bordering the sidewalk

goodbye...this is for God
who hears and sees the
honey tinged questions'
finding fault

so that permanent records
continue to reflect
your waywardness in

never having the exact
amount of change
this is for the second you feel

you have to leave with no reprieve
the childhood home, the iced teas
so much earlier than you dreamed

with only three dresses packed
in a
walnut, the Lord's prayer on a dime:

fixing the hall clock in your memory
the jelly glasses
and the willow-ware, the brightness of pennies

over other denominations...the sherbets, lime
the even times;
repairing your chiffon shadow

on the way with your personal sewing kit

to honor those who raised you
and read you fairy tales
as though from great distances.

this is for
no safe-houses on the horizon
least of all the yellow brick one

across the street
where children climb trees heedlessly
and eat the whole summer

an entire orchard of homemade
peach ice cream...
this is for the deep-starred journey

undertaken
for the fools' errands-
for the straw that will never

everland turn into gold
no matter how the Rumplestiltskins scold

listen to me:
questionable friends
make the journey a million times

harder and give you the wrong
directions to the castle so
that you never find

the singing bird.
this is for trudging on alone
for crossing the borders on your own

not looking back even when
the person who packed to come with you
changes their mind at sunrise

then runs to tell on you
like we were back in school

this is for living
like the silence on the moon
and soon and soon

far from the living room

you will withdraw from a tiny shell
at the exact right moment in the interview, a
shining like shook foil shaken-

three dresses of compressible splendor
kept against the rain and
wrapped in violet tissue:

the one of vivid stars
the one of ornate flame
the one of cloudless cloudless blue

and, as if on cue, the opal angels move-
scattering the inquisitors;
settling old accounts

in scripts of gold
with not one scintilla of
asking anyone for permission.

for you were watched over
even while crocodiles wept
my child my child at

every nightmare's exit

by the Word unbroken:
by music heard in the wake of angels,
by undetainable Light...

mary angela douglas revision of june 10, 2019

Turning Pink Hydrangeas Blue Or Vice Versa

turning pink hydrangeas blue the newspaper caption read,
depending on the soil (it said)..., but in my head a childhood quandry solved for once and all

when my sister and I running out of things to do

that summer pondered the question, philosophically too:
always the pink or blue, the dress, the velvet shoe,
the ribbon in your hair

which o which to wear
that was the summer of Disney's Sleeping Beauty
remember when the seats were plush velvet

and air conditioned cool the downtown theatre in humid Arkansas
the popcorn strewn, the real Coke syryp over ice
and expectation grew

preceded by cartoons,the Main Feature...

the fairies could not decide either!
and so, they concluded
both are best

and kept turning the dress
from blue to pink
from pink to blue

you know the rest

while she was dancing
Aurora woken from dreams.
and still it seems to me

the best solution
the pink titration or the blue
depends on whom you're talking to

perhaps a little tinted by the mood you're in
don't have to see the competition through
when blue can be changed to pink

and pink to blue. in a twinkling
whenever there is magic in your thinking.

mary angela douglas 8 june 2019

The Island Of Floating Away

it's an island and it's floating away

that Blessed Isle

who could dismiss that childhood

I knew judges that did.

but what map from school could receive it now

retrieved from chalk dust days or their

hereafters at home

I don't remember.

just fractions of things.

pennies on tables. apples added together,

an alphabet of gold

and it was mine

amid rings of glass, the green or the amethyst

and after class the wind through the trees

thinking of these, the music of Debussy;

kingdoms keeping company with clouds.

Green Ginger is the name of that land

the storybook said

you can't call it on your own.

it comes and goes

but not on command.

and then sets down.

alight, for the night is coming

and the Wave

alight.

it has come to save you

and the peach sun.

your favorite one to draw.

mary angela douglas 8 june 2019

Incident On A Train

I take you out of my pocket on the train
carefully 
and you shake off the rain

because this raincoat isn't waterproof
and fling the droplets all over the place
while I pray please Lord of the emerald bird

the topaz eyes, or of the sapphire, growing wise
you, in your rubiness please
make my bird, invisible

and I see the prayer has worked to set up
an invisible screen, kind of a Chinese one
with miniature dragons, thread jeweled suns

so that I and my pet will not be seen
and more to the point, not charged a fee.
here we are. the landscapes rolling by

the washlines with their wash to dry

in all the pastels. small children with their mouths agape
too stunned to wave...
but birdie wants some brunch,

and I'm not sure what's on the menu

for a firebird even a resplendent small one
or will have I have to feed it, sigh,
just poetry drafts again. old maps

a few saltines.
pimento cheese.
raspberry Canada Dry.

mary angela douglas 8 june 2019

Waiting

tonight I think of waiting.

everyone waits.
I wonder, did He wait too

long ago, when the world was new
for the seed to become a star
to illuminate

a pomegranate darkness
did he watch ferns and shade them with his hand
and place them near trees once they had full shade

was everything made from His waiting
even the peacock fan
all waiting was Love in Him.

somehow we could not wait enough
and so, we packed it in and left Eden.
and now everyone waits. for something.

parents wait for the dawn
hoping their children will live on
prisoners wait for their parole

or wonder, how can I grow old
behind bars
babies wait to be picked up

spinsters for the street car
sleepy children for the end of the story

refugees wait between lands
oh how can they
and many wait for sustenance

in vain. for anyone to call them by their name
not from an agency.
to be safe again in their own homes.

for the war to end.
and long to begin again.

so many wait alone and pray
their pain will not be great
when angels come to the gate

when finally they depart

and all, all wait with a broken heart
that was in my dream...
afraid that the boat of Heaven

will leave without them
some shortlisted year
that no one will know
they were ever even here.

mary angela douglas 7 june 2019

Deuteronomy 31:8 It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

Baby Doll's Silver Tap Shoe Song

(To all the Tin Pan Alley Songwriters of the Past)

I've got jelly bean gumption
candy consumption, on the brain
you think I'm the worst bumpkin

out in the rain

though I'm so chocolate cherry
you din, not so very
but I don't care what you think
cause I know I'm on the brink

of fame fame fame

I'm all peacock feather
you may say never
I say why

You think I don't know whether
birds can fly
but I don't care what you think

cause I know Im on the brink
of technicolor, there's no other, fame o fame

you think I am a silly
and Im worth nilly
passing me by

I think Im worth a million
maybe capillion
don't ask me why

cause I dont care what you think
when I dream I'm on the brink
of fame o fame o 

Christmas stocking, Interlochen,
no more hocking
fame fame fame.

mary angela douglas 3 june 2019

I Saw The Light Of Everything That Lives

I saw the light of everything that lives

beyond kirlian coronas, the breathing of leaves

the scars on stones relieved

down to the least pebble

waterfall strands with mended rainbows

the wounded petal of the sky

when singing birds flew nigh

the cry of little stars.away from home.

gather it all in, next I heard

stentorian angels sigh

that God is walking by

around the brief, the maplike corners

of the earth where the winds blew

differently than the winds you knew

in april's past

there is the terra incognita from the mast

there is the threshold of dream

the poets who lost their standing

on an earthquake seam.

where are we going

where have you been

everything asked of everything then

and pearl answered pearl

and the merry go spin

and the riddle

I cannot tell you.

mary angela douglas 31 may 2019

He Doesn't Like Magic

he doesn't like magic

unless it comes from him

(he thinks it comes from him)

swans flying in

from someone else's sky

depress him.

he's just the guy

for beribboned surprise, or, enterprise

the sudden folding of the fan

and then, the flourishing

of paper lilies.

the joe of all trades soda jerk.

replete with cherries.

he's THAT merry.or lemon ice,

who could be that nice.

he's the one with the wand that works.

the jumbled cups of many colours.

all the oranges in the air

disappearing everywhere;

the knave of hearts, a little dodgy, with

scarves, chiffon, stretched on and on

from a silver tophat, endless song

or mysterious cures for this and that

a gizmo that says Once Upon

"suspensions of belief":

just press HERE.

and skyrockets launch at his command

and bluebirds stream

on every reel, in every Land.

ooooh, for the taffied children.

the jelly bean raffles,guessed

the well made plans. ah, yes.

there's nothing nothing to conceal

it's all just sleight of hand.

he hopes you'll understand.


mary angela douglas 31, 30 may 2019

Waiting Your Turn At The Open Mic, With Light Refreshments Served

"My soul, be not disturbed
By planetary war;
Remain securely orbed
In this contracted star..."

Elinor Wylie, Address To My Soul

it isn't that there should be rules
only it would be good if you could stop the cymbals, noise in your head (the whole time someone else is reading their one poem)

of your own poetry and how nervous you feel to get up there yourself.don't worry.

all things have an end.
this moment is itself a single star blinking.

be still

know only that you are listening
to soul translation
from the original

like sea music coming out of a seashell
held close to the ear and pearlescent.
or static from an old radio, used up

in wartime's obsolescence
at least in part, you've only got
as far as that poet could get the transmission

to come through, without the text
you have to listen hard to catch it
the quartz instances, the heart slipping

on wet stones
then starting up, tremulous
quaking, fish or mermen,

who can tell
a shift in the music, a broken spell,
the ship is freed

the icebergs brood ineffectually
but we sail on.

what if in a huge field the poet before you
has suddenly come upon a rare flower
and drifting, you miss the name...

medicinal flower, the one that would have
healed...the hidden code revealed.
the phantom word in no dictionary at all.

there is life in the flow of words paid attention to,
if not in homage,
no matter how flawed

it may be the heartfelt flaw is the one beauty resplendent
in the antiseptic reading room
doled out by the library with a disclaimer.

where some are gathered
and certain angels, say, are whispering there:
by the back wall:

old speech teachers,beatific; language itself, pale
growing paler, murmuring to a few:
Speak louder, so they may hear you at the Poles...

you may be the last poets anywhere.
as in the last moments of everyone on earth
sometimes, there is gold in the last utterance

of Light
they will say later, in Heaven, on other planets.
referring to this event.

listen...
what if it is, will be, the next batter up,
the last words that you hear, the numbing toll,

the last cherry glaze on consciousness itself;
rustling of crab apple trees; indistinguishable
from moonlight.

mary angela douglas 29 may 2019

There Is No Wilderness

there is no wilderness
in which he will not write
of running streams
or label the stars in jars
and set them on shelves
for future, for tender, reference
counting the opaline his;
every instant, an amethyst.

you will say, perhaps,
why must he sieve the snows;
does he really need that many starfish?
or to carry the roses from Here to There
in a rundown workshop
all chimney smoke
and no wood...
to an infinite garden?
if he only could.

beware of him the mothers cry
clutching their infants close.
he comes from the tribe of wishes
shining into no mirror at all
and crystal pendants
on foreign chandeliers;
year on year,
gathering prisms like moss;
and into the great concertos
that have not yet arrived
he will dodge as into thickets.

why is he alive
at such a cost, contradiction
of being lost and labyrinthine too
pressing the words down carefully
into the Spring mud
as if they would fly away:
the scudding clouds.

and growing stranger day by day
radiant and painting the sun
in an unequal contest;
developing the film all night
ah he is armor bright,
inured to all affliction
so that tomorrow,
the contract with dawn
may be renewed.

mary angela douglas 26 may 2019

Van Gogh Seen Sideways Or From Great Distances, Abstracted, Influenced By Kabakov

to understand the founding of the sun
the enigma of clouds in their various 
dispositions of rose

there arose one
who had within himself
the reality of sunflowers

who burst upon the page
in saffron
who faded as the day fades.

as the day fades,
I think on my porch
my invisible wrap around porch

of him, while drinking my tea with mint;
not him exactly,
but the way that he saw clouds, 

the cloudiness in his work and in his stars
if, indeed, that may be called his;
maybe, for a little while, on loan

that comes and goes
that flows out windows
through the poplars

and into the green Beyond
into the green beyond
where the railing is
and its description.

mary angela douglas 25 may 2019

Esse quam videri

sometimes truly in a desultory mood
I wonder how is it possible that
so many seem to be seeming to

actually be doing something
so that it all rolls on
when in fact, it is nothing, or

worse than nothing
something to cause more pain
for those out in the rain

and for this nothing they are

praised, paid highly, even promoted
feted even and there is so much paperwork
old file cabinets even overflowing

to be gone through to be filed
on a daily basis
with intemperate notes in the margins

about those who've failed in life
so they say, talking among themselves
at the awards banquets

"but we've made progress."
oh they
as if they solved the great equations, parade,

solve nothing at all
and gaze at a person
as if, at a wall, inscrutably

thinking what's for lunch
I have a hunch;
meanwhile, those affected by the outcomes

suffer even more
because they are judged on top of judged
like a judgement layer cake

by those who don't admit
their own mistakes ever
and perhaps these people

the wall people
haven't even made mistakes
but have just been kicked unmercifully

or are something  to be stepped over
even when not stepped on

or else are not seen or heard
except by those who collect brownie
points for listening;

or more and more data, extrapolating
from those
who are regarded herd

a diseased herd at that,
so let's fix them.

and it is everywhere this way.
how long can this go on

I wonder as if trapped in some Aliceian dream or
as if some people would be relieved today
if an asteroid hit the earth or is on its way

right now

where the deck is not only stacked
it comes to life and flies in your face
and calls you when you're wounded, a disgrace

the face somehow they can't erase,

in the face of everything real, everything you feel
it's just
children trying to tie their shoes

while other children trip them up

or cases
in which there is no appeal
and everyone knows this but you

even when there are tons on the dockets
for those with empty pockets

for there are judges
pretending to judge
to be ruling on something

all the time
that make a miserable person
even more miserable

call out to God

because, truly

He is the only one
on some days who will NOT "start the conversation up"

keep the thread going, as they say

who actually does something instead
for those still alive from a thousand cuts

not giving socks to those on the street for instance
when what they really need, isn't it obvious
is a roof, four walls and a door that shuts.

a little sleeping in, not driven from the fold
where rain and judgement
can't seep in.

beyond the games of "let's pretend.'
we are charitable.

mary angela douglas 24 may 2019

Dispensations

in the eternal moment in your teardrop dispensation

suspended we survive

though we don't how we are still alive

waiting out the storms.

a crystalline peace descends

the wind picks up

loaded with fragrances

though we don't know

where the next dollar is

coming from

or who will come beating an old drum

and take our loved ones away.

the axe seems at the root

in the middle of the day and yet

it could happen this way

that angels will stand guard

at our decrepit doorsteps

freezing the axe stroke,

the bureaucratic stroke of the pen.

we are golden

who cannot turn the Ikon to the wall.

we are in your high tower.

the moment flowers between us oh Lord

and your deliverance is sure.


mary angela douglas 22 may 2019

The Rising (Final Draft)

beginning again on the green leafed path

with the dew on the grasses, our diamonds,

or the overhang of orchid clouds

amazed at our looming shadows on the ground

the alphabet,

all the colours!

and telling time out loud;

telling time by what He said:

“I will make all things new.”

he said this I think, I feel,

in golden letters.

in the tick of the fairy tale clock,

and I play nocturnes again

on my Grandmother’s Steinway piano

observe the irises

take comfort in the demitasse

the way my Grandmother pronounces it,

of hand painted roses, or violets;

on a background of cream. the late strawberries.

the view from the screen door

the sound of near bells

I implore you oh Heavens

for the calendar towel of linen in any year

with the old mill stream;

the songs my mother taught me

in a dream;

the songs without words.

the same cherished pines.

more time to remember

the way that we have come

the rising,

not the setting,

Son.

mary angela douglas 19 may 2019

The Rising

beginning again on the green leafed path
with the dew on the grasses, our diamonds,
or the overhang of orchid clouds

the alphabet,
all the colours!
and telling time out loud;

telling time by what He said:
"I will make all things new."
he said this I think, I feel,

in golden letters.
in the tick of the fairy tale clock,

and I play nocturnes again
on my Grandmother's Steinway piano
observe the irises

take comfort in the demitasse

of hand painted roses, or violets
on a background of cream, the late strawberries.
the view from the screen door.

I implore you oh Heavens

for the calendar towel of linen in any year
with the old mill stream;
the songs my mother taught me

in a dream;
the songs without words.
the same cherished pines.

more time to remember
the way that we have come

the rising,
not the setting,
Son.

mary angela douglas 19 may 2019

On Coming Upon The Phrase "Rosa Mystica"

to my Grandfather, Milton B. Young
and Grandmother, his Lucy

rosa mystica.
in my garden.
why, that was all of them,

all the rose bushes
my Grandfather ever planted
in one corner of our backyard

and how we regarded them,
my sister and I, being young
drinking them in

mystified they were ours
as much as for him.
and he wanted it that way.

and also, bouquets
for Grandmother.
for Mama.

each one our blossom
we wanted to save
and almost wept to see

rose petals.
the roses
weeping their lives away.

so we collected them
the unfortunate rose petals,
wrapped them in plastic wrap

hoping to make
rose perfume
that would stay

and we did feel
with glad hearts
when we stuck them inside

Grandmother's linen closet,
we had rescued them.

later on
they came to mouldering light
what is this?

Grandmother said.
so we took them back out to the garden
and laid them to rest

among their youngest sisters
still in bloom.
and felt a little gloomy

at our failed experiment.
so now I think
perversely, not looking up

the Latin, over catholicized,
bound to be definitions of
the phrase Rosa Mystica

this is what it means to me,

that delicate phrase...
God raised our petals up on that day
each one

a rosa mystica,
while we played
Mother, May I?

so say I.
This May.

mary angela douglas 16 may 2019

Knowing Better Doesn't Solve It

what is more divinely opulent than the red
of a maple leaf as it skitters before you
on the path

or on the pavement
on the way home from school
with that cider tang blue chill

in the air feeling as if
there were too much sparkling in God
and he had to reveal it

whether he felt within him to do so
in that moment or not
and I am the child or I was, I have not forgot,

the one caught in that instant
as I reach down in my plaid dress
to gather it in

to keep that colour alas
was always a something
not meant to come to pass

why then do I still feel
the need to collect each leaf
dancing to the ground,

each Ophelian leaf 
incapable of its own distress
as Shakespeare wrote of his heroine.

Shakespeare wrote in gold
though he wasn't sure of that
a something imperishable

and somehow, it has become imperishable
all that he wrote though he thought
his thought would be melting monuments.

the rich red leaf is even more finely composed
yet vanishes each to each.
why then do I feel

no matter how many autumns old
this compulsion to save it, them,
as if it could be so.

no matter how much I know
to the contrary
of what is possible.

here on earth.

mary angela douglas 16 may 2019

Today My Boat Had Golden Sails

today my boat had golden sails
pop up from the storybook
I read the mail

and paint the cottage
in lollipop swirling colours
and am not afraid

cornbread and honey;
just enough money.

this is the day that He has made
with a little help from me.
in a gown that's pure cherry.

I live under perpetually
a raspberry tinted sky,
the one of legend

with preserves put by.
with clover as far as the eye can see;
a June and glittering wind

that brings it all back to me.

mary angela douglas 15 may 2019

Something

even in a closed system, God can breathe on the pane
out of the ash a sudden ember
though the eye remains

shuttered.
there, on the border of dreams
one may not remember in the morning

something stirs the curtains
in a heralding way.
who can say what it is for sure.

was it the wind
the child awaking early wondered
something else, that gold let in

why pretend if not to know
something glows;it isn't us.
something

in search of what was when:
Eden, and the rusted gates.

mary angela douglas 14 may 2019

The Blind Artist

he thought he invented angels, clouds
the colour green at rest;
the face of God

in a clouded nest;
Orion in a forest pool.
numbered among the holy fools

as if he were the only one
he painted the eclipse...
from great museums one by one

his paintings disappeared
from startling year to year
all retrospectives

honored, as in a mist
and when I think of this I cried
while watercolours all subside

dissolved on film
and in the archives
bright as snows.

the ladders to the skies.
braille, of the secret rose.

mary angela douglas 14 may 2019

We Live On

we live on in the nursery of the world
despite unfinished grocery lists,
keys that plunge to the bottom

of any bag.
what's to be had now what's to give away
though Aurora's rosy fingers

still can tinge the day
at its earliest.
are we on our way

to somewhere we can't name.
I don't know.
but in my dreams

sometimes I'm in unknown towns
with familiar scenes.
in old factories

looking for the exit to the right street
the one to take me home.
but home is a ghost ship too

waiting its turn
at the stoplight
gazing ironically at the old trees.

when they sigh I remember
the poet Rilke almost said at times
who sighs anywhere in the world now

sighs for me.

mary angela douglas 10 may 2019