Showing posts with label poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poem. Show all posts

Monday, February 5, 2018

The Page We Write Life's Poem On...






its parchment is like grass spread earthy-green with petal-fray
it catches fancy footwork where life and death intersect
and flowers before eyes in masterpieces of decay
for soon the hour spills its bloom to tombs hunger-bedecked

its scribble sheet of cold and heat and dirt in fingernails
hails blue sky tent pitched overhead like heaven’s giddy grin
where we lug have-and-hold sometimes like seed-potato pails
sometimes like gold pilfered to vaults cradled in carts of skin

its gifted ink of pastel pink on dusk’s pastoral leas
of winter-bronze on polished ponds as black heaven grows dim
of moody blue and ruby hues and saffron-tickled seas
is like four-season beauty of trees etched on twilight’s scrim

its vellum is a star-strewn middle night, an afternoon
of landscaped thoroughfares begging to feel the touch of feet
the page we write life’s poem on is like a slice of moon
enticing us to pen another verse of Bittersweet

© Janet Martin


Monday, January 25, 2016

Come, Climb, Dance or Fly a Poem





Come with me, dare to taste the yen of poetry, for oh
The heart can traverse fathoms where a foot will never go
Come, let its letters fuel what fetters of stringent law
Can never render; wonder, the accomplishment of awe

The foot for all its purpose practices pure principle
Of backward, forward, upward, onward walk-run-dance-stumble
The heart, oh but the heart can fly on syllables where ink
Turns letters into pictures and gray day to raving pink

Come with me then and step across cold thresholds steeped in fact
Climb past these elemental vestibules to worlds intact
Where lyric, lilt and rhyme render splendor with tender verse
And do not think too hard, for bards are exempt from Law’s curse

Kick off your wooden shoes, slip into gossamer and silk
Then climb the vine that leads to lands that flow with honeyed milk
And do not be afraid to dance, or at the least to try
For in the arms of poetry to fall is but to fly

© Janet Martin

Thursday, August 21, 2014

We Are Not All Poets





We are not all poets
Though inwardly we crave
To touch that verbal talisman
With everything we have

Covet-able capstone
Is the poet’s lot
Yet, we are not all poets
In spite of our jot

Ingenious wordsmiths
Far and few between
Inspire the rest of us
To try and try again

We are not all poets
But God pours poetry
In, above, around us
In everything we see

© Janet Martin


Sunday, March 3, 2013

Solace



 My 'Happy-place' is the corner of our living-room or The Poet's Den where I recently moved my ever-expanding poetry collection.

Poetic Bloomings invites us the share our 'happy place' today.

Soft surrender like no other
It’s a bit like coming home
To the arms of gentle mother
In the comfort of a poem

Timeless treasure tunes the silence
Promises from God to men
Murmur in the troubled darkness
As His whisper moves my pen

Ache of longing, fear of morrow
Flows in quiet tenderness
Melding pleasure, pain and sorrow
In this think-in-ink caress

Healer of heart-ache and hunger
Troubadour of sonnet-song
Passion, prayer and promise murmur
In the solace of a poem

© Janet Martin

Monday, February 25, 2013

Travail of a Poem...a sonnet



 

When your hour comes there’s an ache surreal
Where thought cannot quell the urge you beseech
Grasping at whispers just beyond my reach
I close my eyes, leaning to your appeal
As unformed longing groans, moans for release
Borne on a surge of pleading mystery
Pain, pleasure and purpose blend intimately
Stoking a measure of formless increase
For your invocation of throbbing travail
Rushes in torrents through bulwarks of flesh
Testing heart-levees, boldly you enmesh
Your ethereal murmurs beneath skin’s frail veil
I tremble for, pray, who am I to spell
The poem to shape your relentless swell?

Somewhere within wanton fathoms converge
The startling summons of consonants lash
Nature of mortal and immortal clash
Yet who would rally to stifle the surge
Of word that is willing to be much more
And hope that is yearning to spill in rhyme?
I cannot argue with trifles like Time
Where oceans of unwoven lines implore
Man is not born to appease his own want
Or drift like a bateau without port or goal
Though lackadaisical havens may taunt
We are the vessels that harbor a soul
Earnestly then, we bend into the gale
Trusting the Hand on our helm to prevail

The fruit of our toil is more dear and sweet
When we have endured its labor and fear
What is life’s spoil but a day or a year?
A pulse of moments that never repeat
Humbly we bow, not because we are weak
But because in weakness Love intercedes
Succoring mortal and immortal needs
The pen would fall like a tear on the cheek
Save for the comfort that somewhere, somehow
Far down the age its extolment remains
To smile to the one who thirsts for the rains
Found in the ink-drops that earnestly flow
Shaping the whispers of comfort and Home
Wrapped in the tender-sweet arms of a poem

© Janet Martin

It's no use...one cannot fight the urge of a poem:)

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Birth of a Poem





Joy of first snowfall
Prayer breathing hope
Whisper of longing
Summer’s calliope
Thrumming of raindrop
Echo of sigh
Little boy freckles
Youth slipping by
Dance of a season
Sparkle of tears
Kisses of farewell
Flicker of years
Gleam of love’s promise
Dream of a child
Twilight around us
The wind, wooly, wild
Grace of new morning
Surge of the sea
Laughter of children
Baby so wee
Free, phantom fingers
Strumming the corn
These are some things
Whereby a poem is born

© Janet Martin

Poetics Aside Prompt: A 'birth' poem

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Autumn's Gloaming





Corn-rows, in regimental symmetry
Gleam; an auburn tide in autumn’s gloaming
On twilight’s crest the scarlet rivalry
Of maple and sumac spike daylight's folding 
The full moon embellishes night’s collar
Dull meadow’s surge; silver, a still-life ocean
Echoes, reminiscent of a summer
Converge; filling dusk shadows with emotion
Time reaches out with gossamer embrace
To pluck another season from earth’s face

***

Is there an antidote for summer-sorrow?
Is grief the flip-side of love’s lithesome joy?
Is there a balm of laughter in tomorrow
To soothe the anguish life seems to employ?
In Time’s quadrille we are reckless dancers
Oft squandering a song we should revere
Distracted as we search for temporal answers
To questions that will never disappear
How subtle the descent of heaven’s scrim
How silently the bloom falls from the limb

***

The poet weeps into the autumn dark
The tenure of thought curves against lament
Until a poem lights a valiant spark
And re-ignites the passion that was spent
Each season is part of Love’s Masterpiece
The moment-threads of life fall into place
In spite of history’s soundless increase
And Time’s insistent kisses on our face
On summer’s tomb the crimson poppy blows
Somewhere a Groom reserves love’s sweetest rose

© Janet Martin