WORDS AND MUSIC LATELY

 

mirage like music comes and goes

oh beautiful mirror beyond the sing along

that the heart can't help but gaze upon

but the words fail every time.

i'll go away with music then

and not with the lyrics from the same old bin

for the jeweled haze

of the music seems so beyond it all

from the words that can hardly manage a

scrawl;that could never stand on their own.

i'll go away with the music 

that refined

the after mirage and the after chime

and find the slot where my dreams have hid

and the language to live in them myself.

mary angela douglas 9 july 2022

EPHEMERAL

it is ephemeral
and twilight
girls in the blueness
pale in their summer's
unknowing
weep into my consciousness
but they do not mourn
for the subtle deaths
of their own shadows.

As
carnation-coloured the sun
bleeds softly into night
they are bleached with wonder
carelessly in the last lights
blurred shining as the sheen
of unpetaled flowers
dreamed of, yet unsought
they move, holding carefully
the velvet of themselves.

this moonblazing
diminishes everything
something has unclosed my heart
and let some darkness in

I am inarticulate
clanging madly
(but not ungentle)
at the gated stars.
because it was ephemeral and twilight
and the universe has unstrung me.

Mary Angela Douglas
Fontbonne College, St. Louis
April 8, 1970

YEATS IN THE SEVEN WOODS

 

all that wild summons he had set upon the winds

surely the winds must have turned away

for there was no hearing

and so he called again

past all hearing, bearing-

in the seven woods 

to no avail

except the moonlight beaded the desolate waters

like a veil never lifted, lifting

the sons and the daughters of dream

beyond the summers' green

and crowned thee with fame

and myth was stirred into an infinite flame

and poetry

though lamentation remained of all the lyric gifts

his best while his soul sang

what good was it to rename

the constellations in her honor

least of all to rechristen the old, old names.

mary angela douglas 3 july 2022

THE LAST TO BID GOODBYE

 

not every message comes coated in gold

lifted into Heaven in a rose apotheosis

a stillness in the wind, a cooling shade

sometimes relays to me

a feeling as though in a great cathedral

my soul, composed, serene

had stumbled on the living stream.

apart from music, how to measure time

I was never any good at learning

let there always be music then

so that the soul continues to breathe

despite the innundating noise

that floods the earth.

let the inner stars wax brilliantly

the string quartets be neverending

the memory of Beauty

the last to bid goodbye.

mary angela douglas 30 june 2022

ALICE THE SMALL AND BRAVE BEFORE THE FANTASTIC

"Alice the small and brave..." a faint voice glowed on the wind
oh why pretend she almost fumed..."before the fantastic".
and the voice resumed its nonsense.

then I woke up, said Alice later
not remembering what I saw in the mirrors.
not knowing what to write in chalk

on a slate that suddenly seemed too small
to hold it all.
what will the Red Queen say, the White,

preoccupied me. and wandering out of doors
in gardens not my own in my thin sleeves.
oh am I wiser then and am I really grown?

or who is pasting hearts of red in an antique album
fed and watered by imaginary springs?
never on birthdays would it be the same.

look deep when you dream.
so you'll remember where you were
in between cloud and cloud

when you couldn't hear your mother
her voice made of raspberries...
calling you into Tea.

mary angela douglas 2 may 2015;17 march

WITH EYES DEEPER THAN THAT

(revising the story of the shallow princess (Grimm’s fairytale) who dropped her golden plaything down a well, pouted about it, and was rewarded when she flung a frog into a wall)

[to Elizabeth Orton-Jones, children’s author of the lovely book, “Twig”]


…with eyes deeper than that
there’s a princess at the edge
of cooling waters
in my backyard-
looking for just a hint
of something lost and golden.

is it golden only because it’s lost?
or maybe, just partly-clouded
I mean, like a tiny cloud suspended in a pale blue marble
no one can get at.

will the
sky part, revealing a recollected sun
in purely sequined waters
cause diffuse false hope, momentarily…?
so that she dances in cerise dazzlement
on sea-green glass in the alee
and then, is hurt- suddenly…
and filled with common sense?


then this task is never done in daylight.
what will we do?
there’s the princess, stirring the water
with her see-through,jeweled hands, of course, and chiming to herself

“all is not lost”:
a song both lost and golden in the
flattening world I’ve glimpsed on sepia maps…
the ones indicating no treasure, no treasure
at all
that’s me at the window very small
filled with polished apple measures-
and late porridge on a Saturday;
only half-dusting the what-not in my
Grandmother’s living room-

using too much Lemon Pledge in just one spot
I’m so entranced
by the princess kneeling in taffeta sunlight

right by the crabgrass-
in her pale green ermine;
her budding crown.
is it time past or something close at hand
moving fair and fast
that slipped from slender majesty sometime
as cream poured from an earlier pitcher
might affect this year’s strawberry tartness?

or, like silk spooling with no sound into
an orchid stillness never found
because she did not turn around
in one instant only-
to catch the Goldeness
and was deemed negligent ever after
among other things-
and by only passing strangers
filled with common sense.

marigold petals sifted by far angels are
drifting now adown this amber
I can’t understand-
but then, I’m caught in it, too;
which is the greater miracle
or pavane?

I will put something shimmering on
from a dance-class closet, thin as lawn.
I will learn the steps and not be banished

running to meet her in the sky’s closing jewels.
I’ll bring her cinnamon buns from breakfast
pineapple-upside-down cake from school
-if I may, and in a light pink paper napkin, folded-
and orange tea-
and then I’ll find that

she is me only slightly faded and
later in the day
in peach-bright slippers and a pomegranate gown…
collecting postcards in sunset sudden hues.
oh may I be found a little golden and not lost,
to peer at last into Infinite waters
with a jeweled periscope my very own and a key under the mat

grown up in a veiled hat like my Grandmother’s
with its single velvet rose
and negligent, negligent in the flattening world

I will stare into the deep and cooling waters, too
some of us call, “music”-
with eyes even deeper than that.

mary angela douglas 12 may 2012

ESCORIAL

(for Professor Anthony J. Cervone)

last night I dreamed of the Escorial
of the paintings of saints with angular faces
Toledo in grey and the storms gathering

la vida es sueño or it may have been and the siglo de oro
the siglo de oro the infanta with roses in a square of light
and skies glisten dark plum overnight

and I am singing a vagrant's tune

Garcia Lorca,kaleidoscope moon

moon of the verdant green
moon of the everlastingly verdant green
over the sobbing balconies.

I'm in the book of the small blue flowers;

how shall I play my pavane for you for the hour is late.
the pavane for you and the piano locked.
the bell tower's weathering of storms grows pale

too hard to believe. or to contemplate

a children's lullaby etched in silver.
a paper bird before the war.
a paper bird singing with brilliant plumage

a bird that cannot sing anymore.

the stage sets adored in miniature thrashed.
the sky as pink as the Alhambra at last
all of Andalusia gleams the rust of autumn

and life as a dream of a dream in a dream is past:
tiene que ser de esta moda
a caged music flying into the gold

into the gold of the siglo de oro
Cervantes furtive at the windowpane
laughing at the thought of fame.

the matador's cape is lined in flame,

Segovia. the music of amber.

flamenco barters by the hour.
while I am in a high high tower
with clouds and angels beckoning.

I want to go back to the Escorial.
to the way that I felt then from only the pictures in books.Iberia, to
the oranges composed in a bowl of blue

and that was the whole summer I learned Spanish
the way that I wanted to.
the soul of it the subtle shadings.

as if the kings were looking for you.
all the hidden Magi, for legendary Spain...

were looking for you for costly,
for lost lost time..

in the preterit of dreams.

mary angela douglas 18 july 2020;24 june 2022

ON THE MAGI THAT AMAZED

to have come so far for one Star no matter how resplendent
how convinced they must have been of their own visions
and interpretations
to endure the cold, the deserts, never faltering as though
they had become themselves the Star as though the Star
dwelt in them and an inner music of royal purple infinitely,
relentlessly Vast
truly they were Kings and could not fail to
apprehend the Everlasting
so that God gave them increasing favor even to be warned in a dream
to depart another way from a crazed and covetous Herod.
and from the court astronomers...
all this was later, on the non return.
I loved singing about the three kings,
their gifts proffered in reverence
how the radiance of the child illuminated them on the detour back.
I thought they were my Magi too I loved them so much
I would have fed their camels I would have looked into their faces
and seen the Star in their faces almost blinding them
for the rest of their days
they would have been
that amazed.

mary angela douglas 12 december 2020

TO VALERIE MACON, FORMER POET LAUREATE OF NORTH CAROLINA OR; WORLD POETRY IN A SINGLE BOUND VALUTS OVER THE NITPICKERS

[to Valerie Macon, poet laureate of North Carolina, "above the fray..." sailing over it in sheer love of poetry for its own sake justified by love, not accolades and honorariums.. (July 12, 2014-July 17, 2014) a glorious though brief, reign...]

poetry appeared in the bark of old trees,
in the neighborhood you used to live in
springing up overnight, syringa in the moonlight

cloudy cloudy stars.

in familiar rains, intensifying the lilacs.
in the semi precious lanes of perhaps,

Fuquay-Varina. well, yes, why not?

in the little birds hopping near the mystical puddles
in the parking lots.
and "whishing" in the tails of the grey squirrels

and it was curled around the baby's finger
in the butterscotch sunlight and it never asked why, why
has no committee come to call on me

but burbled over the white stones in the creek,

the varicoloured,
in a wavery sound we knew was music laughing

and the angels, brookside, laughing

fit-to-be-tied:
"what is protocol?

does it have wings, too?"

mary angela douglas 15 july 2014;24 june 2022

Note on the Poem: people (some) were upset that the Governor of North Carolina appointed a new poet laureate of North Carolina,supposedly  skipping the normal protocolof consulting THEM first. All I have to say still, and had to say at the time  is, thank God, since He's the source of it, anyway! (of poetry, not protocol)

NOR BE THE GOLD FLOUNDER

(a very roundabout, off the trolley riff on a disquieting old legend from Quebec, with a generous sprinkling of other legends thrown in as well)


dark mirrors I will not reflect on you
nor find my reverse image burned in on the negative of the Sun, the Son
nor see my thumbnail tiny image in your vu finder overcome
sans the Disneyland
castles, pink clouds, the Springtide pianos and violins I loved
when laden with lilacs and their bright aftermaths.
keep your thunder claps your morose lightnings lurking tongues aplenty, skeletal horseman with no heart and impeccable gloves
your silver nitrate landscapes I am no part of you ,

you will not brand me your brand
nor castle the queen on the scorched the checkerboard earth
on which I stand, dreaming the dream of the flowers, nonetheless.

too long have I been scavenged by you oh aquamarine squint eyed squid,
ghost of a mariner sailing machine
near the wells that give forth no light
even in moonlight you revenant
of deserted courtyards

you the stolid derricks of iniquity, disquiet
you have pumped out your last and rasped in your
raspberry voice at the last repast

I will not rsvp for the balls held in your honor
oh ye eclipses of the sun the moon and the star showers left of
my imperiled quietude: the sole, lean word I keep for you is

depart you finaglers, caramel corn connivers and dissatisfied strivers
who will shrive YOU?
twisters of the grand mal prairie on the way to unfettered no man's land, no man's land

listen mister in your frock coat with the razzle dazzle butttons, button it.

Resolute, I will not weep I will not reap your whirlwinds nor sop in your rations as though I had no recourse from Heaven.
or no mother.

inflate yourselves and purr yourselves to sleep pour your own cream you sizzling griddled cats
you parade balloons sifting the childrens' sugar candies you thieves.

I will not rest in the vacuity of the sorrowful the surcharged deeps of your Junes from which
you think to fish me out.
nor be the gold flounder cut up on your kitchen table to furnish forth your Christmas.

mary angela douglas 30 july 2021;24 june 2022