I WANTED TO BE CLEAR ABOUT THESE THINGS IN MY OWN MIND

 

I WANTED TO BE CLEAR ABOUT THESE THINGS IN MY OWN MIND

I wanted to be clear about these things in my own mind

Apple crisp, translucent as the green of April

To be in myself pale blue the colour of a Chopin etude

To go to sleep to the scent of apple boughs heavy with blossom

The humming of stars and planets like toy tops

I wanted to be clear that these images held me up

And not the posters of the spiels of the commercial

Appeals the politics of now

That beauty in its scarlet array upon the slightest autumn day

Was binding me to the earth and to my song.

mary angela douglas 16 july 2024

WHO WILL FILCH GOLDEN APPLES FOR THE KING

 

WHO WILL FILCH GOLDEN APPLES FOR THE KING

Who will filch golden apples for the King

Stealing into the mythic world to bring back tribute

The feather from the exotic bird that snaps in two

The hemispheres;who will retrieve

The blue agate of the earth to make recompense

Let the seas wash over a second Atlantis in the jade shadowed

Sorrow of a disaster perceived too late

still may we find another home even through blind faith

As many times as the tale can be told

By those who are living it

Or dreaming it as it recurs

And turning the music box slowly with an antique hand crank

In a snow starred reverie

So that the charming figures come to life

And the quadrille continues, my sainted love.

mary angela douglas 15 july 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

DOLORIFUGE

 

DOLORIFUGE

Lovely in meaning the word coined by Hardy

To the fury of his reviewers

A word of satin and honey a balm upon the miseries

In music kin to me, for me, a fugue

A fugue that softens grief one thinks of Bach

Illimitably beautiful oh my dolor what quenches you

The far flung fountains of the Spirit

Have come to be through a word so blessed

Like water spring water gushing from the rocks

Of all my restiveness.

mary angela douglas 15 july 2024

NEITHER PRINCESS NOR DRAGON

 

NEITHER PRINCESS NOR DRAGON

Neither princess nor dragon

I trod the golden road

Not expecting any favors

Doing as I was told

But still, straying when the clouds massed

In the Heavens the color of amethyst

When it was to you Lord God

I brought my lilied my baffled heart

My dandelion puff striations

Neither princess nor dragon

Shining in the dark.

mary angela douglas 14 july 2024

THE BAD GUEST

THE BAD GUEST (REVISED)

Was I a bad guest

I ask myself in myriad dreams

The vague kind but with a clear message

Through the mists.

Did I use up heedlessly all the

Rose shaped little soaps

Or help myself to the bbq potato chips

Like a bear in Yellowstone Park

Like there was no tomorrow

And without saying please

I don’t remember it that way

But I felt ill at ease though

I came bearing gifts every day

Though perhaps in small packages

Emblems of my esteem

A maple leaf of red and green

Small little tokens of kaleidoscope blue

And woke from a really bad dream of you

Where the door was slammed against me

In a raging blizzard.

mary angela douglas 14 july 2024

 

  

 

JUBILATION

 

JUBILATION

In a mood of jubilation

Bells are ringing chorales singing

In each snowbound cell of my heart

Let the pines rustle and the evergreens

In a breeze from Heaven quenching all fevers

Let me dance mysteriously in a freedom

Never before dreamed of

And catch at the golden tassels

On the robe of the Lord God

a small child playing

In the bluebell fields so paradisical, paradoxical

come down to earth in more vivid blue violet hues

oh let me remind you

our joy could be endlessly made of prisms.

Let sparkling never cease.

But only grief.

mary angela douglas 14 july 2024

OF ALL THE NAMES THAT MYTHIC NATURE HOLDS

 

OF ALL THE NAMES THAT MYTHIC NATUT\RE HOLDS

Of all the names that mythic nature holds

Caledonia, you are my home

My gold my hoard my distant strand

Whatever God has saved for man

Souvenir of Eden bewept,be spoken

Over the roiling of the world

Envy and strife

Will come to naught

The sly tripping on the stairs

By devils so aware of our innocent striving

Let them take a care

That upward God will wend us

On his wings of fire

And in his loving ire

Repay

Those who mocked us in the fray

To wound and dissemble our dreaming.

mary angela douglas 13 july 2024

 

WHEN YOU ARE WORDLESS WHEN SADNESS TRACES

 

WHEN YOU ARE WORDLESS WHEN SADNESS TRACES

When you are wordless when sadness traces

No clear pattern on your windowpane

Where the trees grow crooked in the landscape

And scar the dream skies

I will whisper a benediction

Music will weep out of the clouds suddenly

The sun will dance across your inner sky

Though the world martials all the reasons why

You cannot break out into blossom

And the appled days elude you

Bye and bye disconsolate children cry

Finding no place in the alphabet primer to begin

There will be rain flooding the world with rainbows.

Again.

mary angela douglas 12 july 2024

 

 

IMPARADISO

 

IMPARADISO

The air flows mild and imparadising

Through the chinks in the wall of language

I thought was impearled, I thought was upstanding

I thought could be sorted for all occasions

But life is no greeting card no poster on the wall

No attempt to stall the creditors

The air is bright with promise I promise to

Keep this silence secret and cherishing

Remembering how the winter air can break

Off in cruel and silver sunlight where we were once walking

That cannot warm

Oh language like baked bread I would break off a crust of you

And improvise

But still there remain

These pauses in the world wide conversation

We rehearse

In all our dreams

In search of it seems and at a loss

For the wayward translations.

mary angela douglas 12 july 2024

NOTE ON THE POEM:

I have coined the title IMPARADISO . Inspired by a friend of mine on twitter, acquaintance really whose words for the weekend included the word imparadise which according to him means "to make supremely happy"

His name is Cian McCarthy. He is @arealmofwonder on twitter and from Ireland and shares truly unique and beautiful obscure poems of famous or not so famous lyrical poets paired with lovely paintings and of course the word origin series. He is himself an aspiring musician, composer and author.

SAINTS LEAVE ON THE WIND THEY SAY

 

SAINTS LEAVE ON THE WIND THEY SAY

Saints leave on the wind they say

The fragrance of lilies

Heaped up roses

In my sere garden

The curled maple leaf blows

Never again to reach the Tree

That gave it life but I try not to be

Desultory

Let red gold flame

In a momentary wind

Circuitous toward Heaven

Let us be lily of the valley

Gladness

The blue and gold we were

Like a vestment we once wore.

That now is scattered everywhere

In the infinity of afternoon.

mary angela douglas 11 july 2024

BLUEBIRDS UNSCROLLED

 

BLUEBIRDS UNSCROLLED

Bluebirds unscrolled the fairytale proclamations

Holding the ribbons aloft

And we drifted with clouds as though

There were no cares no cares at all in the kingdoms

Of magenta and emerald of an unforeseen violet

Oh winds like a music from the North of anywhere

I have seen the angels at the four corners and

Said it is good oh my soul we should be here

Let us build a tabernacle to the pearl of this day

Never coming back

To the ungemmed stories

They told us when we were afraid

When we were sore afraid.

mary angela douglas 11 july 2024

 

 

MIDSUMMER NIGHT DREAM

 

MIDSUMMER NIGHT DREAM

Casting off the midsummer spells then

By honeyed moonlight planes in the painting shifting

The berrystained confusion

Let love be unfettered released like a dove to only God

The soul returning home

The names and places shifting to reveal

You loved only love as an ideal

Not as a place on the map

 and God is love and the characters in the play

Are figments

In the final season

Where the play has melted from the stage

And the mirrors and mirages abstain from dreaming.

mary angela douglas 11 july 2024

MESSAGE SCRIPTED IN GOLD

 

MESSAGE SCRIPTED IN GOLD

Message scripted in gold

To whom shall I send thee

At this sunset edge

Or shall you fly off

A cloud of music off the staff

And flag the unsuspecting

Traffic of perpetual angels

Now at the feast

I turn away

And from the grape shadows of my childhood

Message made of alabaster

Of the rose quartz quarried heart

What box shall I wrap thee in

What star flecked paper

At last

Post to what address

See I have taken the census of my soul

And inventoried all goods

And stored up my provisions for a

Winter that will not last

I will sing to radiance itself

I will become

The tag end of words

The unknown addresser to

The unknown addresse.

The tenant at the end of all lanes;

The chimes stirred by the sea.

If only you would remember me.

mary angela douglas 10 july 2024

FOR GEORGE HERBERT

 

FOR GEORGE HERBERT

The small birds chirped through the summer grass

They chirped you are not alone, you are not alone        

The Father watches from His throne

They sang. So heartfull and at ease.

All through my soul a sad long day

I heard that birdsong surge in waves

Like water gushing in a desert place

All withering done I found my sun

The dewdrop glistening the welcome crumb

I found a way to keep on praying

As if to May blossoms swaying

And sang and sang myself to sleep

And put away the need to weep.

mary angela douglas  8 july 2024

ENCOMPASSED

 

ENCOMPASSED

West of tears we had buried our hearts

In fine soil as in the ancient myths

North of our devastations

We had lived for Art

Rehearsing the ghostlike declamations

South of all roses, in a blooming land

I dreamed God carried us in His hands

And east of all dreams in the end it seemed

That all of time was just one gleam.

mary angela douglas 8 july 2024

THROUGH A SKY SO TRANSPARENT

 

THROUGH A SKY SO TRANSPARENT

Through a sky so transparent

I can see the glaze on clouds

I wanted to see in that dream

Of apple green, of a fission of roses

Of tears of chandeliered sapphire

Of the river that comes no more to the door

Of the road grown over with honeysuckle and fern

Of the nectar of time sipped clear to

The fading from the stage

Of the former participants

In the dream crowds

Into a white gold light

mary angela douglas 7 july 2024

LET THE SNOW FLY BLIND

 

LET THE SNOW FLY BLIND

Let the snow fly blind

The all seeing Eye will cherish it

And the traveler bent by wind in the story

The one obscure in the Japanese landscape

Even when the plum flowers douse him

Even far from the imperial courts

Where he has made his lodging

To live out his days in the orchards of poetry

So I wander too, not blind but happy

Through imagination’s periscope

To see these sequined scenes and to launch

My soul as upon the floodtide of dreams innumerable

Seems to me oh Lord God despite the traveler in

His importunate night, the possibility of his perishing

Upon a winter’s night

A pastime of inordinate delight

For which I cannot help but praise You.

mary angela douglas 7 july 2024

SOME THINGS THAT MAKE YOU CRY

 

SOME THINGS THAT MAKE YOU CRY

I wrote a poem about some things

That make you cry:

The war of words

A bird against the sky

The snow iced lawn

The hidden question why

Are fragile things mistreated

When we know they sigh

And we sigh too

For what we are denied

For what we have denied

That beauty passes

And that sweet innocence can die

But oh of things that I have understood

There is little I have wondered

That the world is full of good

For God is nigh

Though circumstance may say

Past Spring’s soft blushing rose

The hunters quiver full before the startled does,

I lie.

mary angela douglas 5 july 2024

NOT A THING YOU WOULD HAVE NOTICED FROM THE BEGINNING

 

NOT A THING YOU WOULD HAVE NOTICED FROM THE BEGINNING

Not a thing you would have noticed from the beginning

How the moon appeared in so many poems over Time

Each one a separate sky

Each one a golden link

In another story

Like a white rose unfolding

Age by age

Like a white boat vanishing

With no passengers

In a dream you walk

Each road as though

You were the ghost of that person

Who stood under the sky of that poem

And cried out to God

Or dissolved in dreams, apprenticed

to a different future

so that children gazing out on you bereft

might find comfort regardless of their historical period

And oh moon set sail on so many waters

Still you shine for me as well

Phasing through the well of poetry

Where you are reflected like a multifoliate inscrutable heart

As if you had no possibility

Of ever having only one surface

In this or any other’s dark.

mary angela douglas 4 july 2024

STARLINGS ARISE

 

STARLINGS ARISE

Starlings arise

And shed the blue black night

Becoming more distinct

In early morning light,

The moon like a chalk smudge

Against a silk screened sky

While I have put

Embroidered worries by

To memorize another orchid sunrise.

mary angela douglas 3 july 2024

MY SONG IS A SINGING SILENCE

 

MY SONG IS A SINGING SILENCE

My song is a singing silence

A thunderous non acclaim

A pouring out of rain

On an indifferent desert

Let tree sing anyway with its muted birds

And move with the green wind soundlessly

No need of renown

No need to muse

That the sky of my heart could grow confused.

Sing for the Lord

What else can matter.

We will bow down, the windy plains and I

Under a threatening sky

The small creatures under migrating stars,

make it rain roses

On the uncomprehending.

And raise a small curtain of light

Lest I fade away from seeing

I am not seen.

Song, its own reason for being.

Is for the King.

mary angela douglas 2 july 2024

ONE DAY FROM THIS INTERMITTENT WILDERNESS

 

ONE DAY FROM THIS INTERMITTENT WILDERNESS

One day from this intermittent wilderness

We shall emerge

The rocks we hauled for them yielding honey

The arid nights scented with lilies

The curved bell of sorrow slicing the air no longer

the harsh word turned back at all borders

the nets forever mended in which we were ensnared

oh on a dare you think that I lie that this is fabrication or

that I am a well meaning fool

you don’t yet know the shadow that falls across you now

one day will be ringed with light.

And what has been heavy so heavy for you on earth

Will break into peals of music

That have never known lamentation.

mary angela douglas 2 july 2024

THE BLIZZARD IS WHITE WITH FURY

 

THE BLIZZARD IS WHITE WITH FURY

the blizzard is white with fury

in the foreign novel

you read in the hot summer

trying to get cool

thinking of the blizzard

how difficult for the heroine

you think but you long for a breeze

you dream of ice cubes big as glaciers

swimming in your drink

you fan yourself with japanese fans

splashed with peonies

and sip on lemonade ceaselessly, so as to withstand

this summer

turning another page as if it were snowy drifts

you bury your face in the laureling sleet.

mary angela douglas 30 june 2024

I SHALL LOWER THE GOLDEN WORDS TO HALF MAST

 

I SHALL LOWER THE GOLDEN WORDS TO HALF MAST

I shall lower the golden words to half mast

When song shall no longer honored be

Among the felicities

I shall weep into the muddied streams of language

Made impoverished

By those who seem to wish It all away

All the lyric poets had to say

The flowering of such feeling

Their tears

at the mauve trees stirring

In such an abbreviated morning

Now that the shearers have come

And I with a covert heart wondering

Why should the world so widowed be

The orchards of such rich thought be razed;

And all amazement stilled.

mary angela douglas 30 june 2024

 

EVERY NIGHT OF THE WORLD

 

EVERY NIGHT OF THE WORLD

Every night of the world

We are falling off in our sleep

Into the mysterious

Deep and soundlessly

We wear new slippers

On a different not so terra firma

Softly learning to say goodbye

Beginning perhaps the long instruction period

And glide like a soul beginning to be

Innured to our distress

Let colors wheel by

And the infinite skies

No longer home or bit by bit

Weaned from it

To wander where the wind

Is causing the stars  to blink

As we blink back tears

Already missing earth

Toddling toward God and

Full of uncertain mirth

mary angela douglas 28 june 2024

THE AFTERLIFE OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

 

 

THE AFTERLIFE OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

 

As if it were not impossible things occur to you now

More vividly than before

Children stitch their shadows together so as to not be lost

In a farther chapter

And where a princess was thought to have disappeared from view

The hills shine crystal and crystal transmogorified

And sea anemones are such a deeper shade of cornflower blue

Than even you in second sight sought

To make them

Things occur to you and it seems more startling somehow

The charm of the stories seeping through into the lives of seraphs now

And the glorified who had forgotten home and weep now almost

inconsolably

For the way the stories unfolded then

Where the wind rustled the pages of books

As though they were roses.

And beauty withstood the fusillades of time

Opening the windows all around

To the lake effect snows of dream

mary angela douglas 28 june 2024

THE DREAM I HAVE IN STANDING STILL

 

THE DREAM I HAVE IN STANDING STILL

The dream I have in standing still

Draws roots and branches from the air

The singing birds from every realm

The moon in every color displayed

And shape and light and constancy

And silver am I as silver can be

At the center of serenity

mary angela douglas 27 june 2024

TO THE LISTENING ONE OUR FATHER

 

TO THE LISTENING ONE OUR FATHER

Who listens with the breath of the wind

Like the tides with the tides incoming and outgoing

Clear transparencies of emerald

So that this catches at your heart

And you a lone bird in a shattered tree

I can hear you listening to me

And your listening has the quality of a music

That will not let me go except to be entirely free

To speak with you in an echoing way the light into the darkness

The cooling waters into the cove.

The opal pavements into galaxies.

The obscure rose into blossoming.

mary angela douglas 26 june 2024

MEADOW FLOWERS YOU HAVE CAUSED TO GROW AT OUR FEET (FINAL VERSION AND FORMATTING)

  

MEADOW FLOWERS YOU HAVE CAUSED TO GROW AT OUR FEET

Meadow flowers you have caused to grow at our feet

Clouds you have massed and coloured fantastically

Above our heads

Trees you have made to show to us rootedness in the earth

And how to branch dreaming among the stars

How is it that we imagine you do not love us

That you do not care what happens

That you wound the watch and forgot it

You never rose up against us in our infancy

In the infancy of your world

Oh that we were still in Eden

There are times on earth in a honeyed light

We suddenly feel that we are

Breathing with you again the emerald air as it was there

Again, You dazzle us.

Without you we would have remained dust or utter nothingness

You did not take the rainbow from the sky

Your imprint fingerprint from our inmost souls

Without you without you

Oh how can we most gracious Lord God

You who have flung your wild and pure heart

Into the universe, in beautiful anguish 

For us in this maelstrom, ever be whole

Come back, to plant the lilies in our souls

in the new Jerusalem.

mary angela douglas 23 june 2024;26 june 2024

SOMEWHERE TODAY BY SOME SMALL STREAM

 

SOMEWHERE TODAY, BY SOME SMALL STREAM

Somewhere today, by some small stream

That bubbleS in a leafy woods a small fern uncurled itself

After the summer rains

This fragrance made the birds sing more

Not a notable event

This wont be on the evening news

Or greatly discussed

But in my wilderness I dream of it

And I know this also happened

Is happening

Is beautiful, and as it should be

mary angela douglas 24 june 2024

WORDS COULD FALL

 

WORDS COULD FALL

words could fall from great heights

petal soft from the Tree of Heaven

Springtime words, hush thee, sleep my child

Sweet child; words, breezes to

Cradle thee in thy morning sleeping;

Flower scented, the little winds bring only a

whisper of warming sun

Upon you, little one

In dreams it is always this way

That the day is forever breaking;

Their nightfall never comes.

mary angela douglas 23 june 2024

CIRCUMVENTION

 

CIRCUMVENTION

Sometimes I wonder

If the guardian angels of artists

At times hijack the work of art that is turning morose

And tilt it toward the Light laughing

So that suddenly leaden skies over looking the city

Flame up all cerise roses

I don’t know what happened

The artist will say, sing, paint, write, explain

I know I was seeing it all in black and white

But the film came out in colour

Water into wine, sunken into climbed

Elegy on the street converted to hands in the air Praise

When the music skips a beat

And the children start dancing

In the summer sprinklers

All crowned with purple clover from the vacant lots.

mary angela douglas 23 june 2024

MEADOW FLOWERS YOU HAVE PLANTED AT OUR FEET

 

MEADOW FLOWERS YOU HAVE CAUSED TO GROW AT OUR FEET

Meadow flowers you have caused to grow at our feet

Clouds you have massed and coloured fantastically

Above our heads

Trees you have made to show to us rootedness in the earth

And how to branch dreaming among the stars

How is it that we imagine you do not love us

That you do not care what happens

That you wound the watch and forgot it

You never rose up against us in our infancy

In the infancy of your world

Oh that we were still in Eden

There are times on earth in a honeyed light

We suddenly feel that we are

Breathing with you again the emerald air as it was there

Again, You dazzle us

Without you we would have remained dust

You did not take the rainbow from the sky

Your imprint fingerprint from our inmost souls

Without you without you

Oh how can we most gracious Lord God

You who have flung your wild and pure heart

Into the universe, in beautiful anguish 

For us in this maelstrom, ever be whole

Come back, to plant the lilies in our souls

in the new Jerusalem.

mary angela douglas 23 june 2024

ON A DAY WITH SWEET BUNS

 

ON A DAY WITH SWEET BUNS

On a day with sweet buns

It seemed the wind was coated with cinnamon

Cinnamon sugar 

And a hint of icing on them was close enough to birthday cake icing

To make it feel like it was almost your birthday again

And where were the candles then you almost thought to ask,

laughing

And a little nutmeg in the sweet bread, heaven

On a winter morning where you must wear your winter stockings

To school and a serious jacket though it may be cherry

Even in the South and there is a cranberry tint to the sky

We are wistful for Currier and Ives on tea trays

Because it is probably near Thanksgiving in any case

And so the sky cooperates and you are the gladdest thing

Coming and going from home when the heat vents  are open

And you are warm as toast and the Holy Ghost and Christmas

Are beckoning

Who knows what sweet buns portend…maybe with an orange rind dusting

I imagine,

Even now.

mary angela douglas 22 june 2024

LEMON SKY

 

Who can say with certainty

The lemon sky in the poem is not

A kind of lie by the poet

Who never thought of the sky that way

And if the sky were in fact on the witness stand

It would say so in a cloudy language but nevertheless clear

Or partly clear

In between gales of rain and flights of bluebirds

Under a lemon sky perhaps the poet made a fortune

The sky gets no royalties

Only the satisfaction of knowing

That it can turn to lemon

Anytime the Lord God pleases to make it happen.

and I will raise a glass of iced instant tea

from former days since I may no longer drink tea

With its splash of lemon

And nothing else added

To the sparkling and icy fact that

Yes, this is the truth.

And this poem means what it says

In a delicate way

And this poet loves,

You can and you may be certain, in fact,

The lemon sky.

mary angela douglas 21 june 2024

THE POETRY TRAIN

 

THE POETRY TRAIN

I like to ride my poetry train

I like its many compartments

In my dreams they are myriad

Some lined with pearl

Others upholstered in stars

Oh you are so gaudy the modern poets say

Don’t care I run this train

Im the conductor and the passenger too

The seats on my train are moss green velvet

While maybe you just make do

With barely a metaphor in view

No hard feelings

On this train we always invite the Romantics

To board

You know the ones in school with which perhaps

You may have been bored

Blake, Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley too

They ride first class

Indeed they do

They don’t spill ash

They don’t bash

They don’t talk trash

They give the clouds dreams to dream on

In the passing scenery

All on board I’d like to say

But it’s just not that way.

Peppermint bay next station

After that, the doll nation.

No cynics here.

This railway’s cleared

To love the lemon drop skies

And not to crack wise

at the Beautiful.

mary angela douglas 20 june 2024

ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF GARCIA LORCA

 

ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF GARCIA LORCA

For the assassinated poet, Federico Garcia Lorca, incomparable,

Lyric poet and playwright of Spain…

 

Moon my moon

Over the collapsed playhouse

Mise en scene

Moon of melon green

Hung among rafters

Floating above the cherubim

What have they done with him

What have they done with Garcia Lorca

Flee Madrid my soul they told him

Granada too

Elude the shadows for all of them

Have come for you

In the fabled hour their searchlights search for you

Like a razor’s edge parting the night from the night

And it is all the angels can do

To avoid the sight of the execution

In the hour foretold in the gypsy hour

In the hour where the cut bird cries out no more

In the white hour where the Holy Virgin cries

Garcia Lorca, what have they done to you

Your moon floats counterclockwise

And drowns in all the fountains

and she is so wrought

That she weeps lilies and carnations

Into a sea of fragrance like nard, like myrhh

and mourns for awhile

so that the summer skies also lose their blue.

In memory of you

In lamentation for you.

And even now

To the present hour

Ahora en este momento mismo.

mary angela douglas 19 june 2024;20 june 2024

COUNTING TO TEN THE BLUE DUSK BEGINS

 

COUNTING TO TEN THE BLUE DUSK BEGINS

Counting to ten the blue dusk begins

We hide in the silver moon

And no one finds us

And the moon isn’t telling

Free as the wind in the topmost trees

Free as we wanted to be in childhood

And sometimes were

To nibble in dreams the dish of succulent cherries

To ask to be excused from the table of the King

Who just poured cream all over

A day of rampant strawberries and picnics

Where will we not go that the buttermilk sun

Won’t charm us

It’s His kingdom

Let us deck ourselves in all the flowers

The lily and the rose remembered

The iris the morning glories

Neon trumpets of the joys

That cannot be alloyed.

mary angela douglas 19 june 2024

ENTER PIERROT, LAUGHING (FINAL REVISION WITH REFORMATTING)

 

ENTER PIERROT, LAUGHING

dusk falls in sepia tones

as it always does in the vintage photographs

but pierrot is a complex subject, even so,

fragile as a sifting snow

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 lamentation of coloured chalks

or in pastels,

is he feeling very well.

he’s out for a walk in infinity

in the beau geste you remember best

in carnival slippers on the moon’s crest

or quivering on a quaking wire…

the crowd to please his one desire

what was it you aspired to..

a long time ago I played La Polichinelle on the piano

was

translated into 

I only paint his mauve bright tears

his small smile of redacted fears

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;18 june 2024