Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Winter Sonnet of the Summer-heart





Blow then, oh mistral of the barren deep
Torment the frozen landscape with your wrath
And seal the womb where summer lilies sleep
‘Neath echoes of a dusty, garden path
Splay on the earth your frigid spite and scorn
Well, well you know that you cannot allay
The overtures of spring-tides swelling morn
Where songbirds herald the dawning of the day
The quill cannot dispense a warmer breeze
Or paint the dainty danseuse on the snow
As you employ cold winter’s maladies
Where hellions of January blow
But we cling to the proof of centuries
Soon you must go where all your kindred go

***

Blow then, for numbered are your numbing brawls
The purple pansy and the daffodil
Will soon reply to Mother Nature’s calls
Brushing your grudges from the ridge and rill
For April, with a guiltless damsel’s smile
Will kiss the brooding bluster from your mouth
As you relinquish to her gentle guile
Your tempest for the zephyr of the south
The mellow-yellow noon of lustrous June
The emerald rhapsody of middle-May
The aura of April’s first ardent swoon
Gleams like a rainbow on your frosted fray
Before the lure of cerulean croon
Will melt your brusque and bully scowl away

***

Blow then, oh merchant of ice-gilded glee
Harassing ocher hills in hoary rage
Screaming in sleet-spiked mutinous melee
Shivering cold, across earth's glacial stage
For all your predecessors testify
That soon the hour of your squall is spent
And soon the frozen fury in your eye
Will soften, slowly soften and relent
To the fair maiden with the lingering glance
And when she reaches for your waning will
You rush toward her begging for a dance
The trellis, heavy with mid-winter chill
Will  bear green buds burgeoning with romance
Where honey-bees return to drink their fill

© Janet Martin

Unrestrained...





 Poet's United is contemplating Fences

It does no good
Whether steel or wood
Or entwined with summer’s most fragrant bloom
Whether passing through clover
Or holding would-be lover
Or soldered in turrets of wrought-iron gloom

It is no use
No chain-link ruse
Or rampart to the bluest blue
Can ever restrain
Or begin to contain
This rambling, roving thought of you…

J~

Be Aware...the Sunday Whirl on Wednesday





Beware; lest we no longer see
The wealth that spills from filaments
Not made with hands; the sea, the lands
The air and its rare firmaments

God does not charge the world at large
For every gift that he imbues
Of rain-drop pearl, and ice-art swirl
Of linen-cloud strewn avenues

But He requires that we desire
To care for His created things
For to disdain earth’s glorious plain
Is to disdain His offerings

And if within our bone-cell-skin
We do not sense this divine grace
Then, when He knocks, will the cold rocks
Call out to His tender embrace?

The sticky mess of selfishness
Confuses and deceives because
We do not see with clarity
The sacred charge He gave to us

© Janet Martin

I found the word 'sticky' to be a bit of a stickler:)

 92




Colombian Comrade

Glance around you and pick something that is lifeless (husbands DON’T count) and personify it. Breathe life into it and make it the hero of your poem this week!

Can there be too much of you, darling?
I suppose only time can tell
You’ve been with me for a long time, dear
And oh, you know me well

Full-bodied, faithful companion
You never disappoint
Rousing easily life’s passion in me
My slumb’ring senses you anoint

Ravishing Colombian lover
Bold, brawny fruit of desire
Rushing through me like an ebony sea
Keening a beautiful fire

While all of life’s vexing indictments
Its pestering perplexities
Dissolve in your glow like the sun-drenched snow
And other minorities

Can there be too much of you, darling?
Life would be cold without you
So I’ll take my chances for your kiss enhances
Everything else I must do

Darling, you know how to please me
Your pleasure I cannot decline
Good morning kiss of Colombian bliss
Coffee, dearest coffee of mine


© Janet Martin





The Tyburn

Poetic Bloomings invites us to attempt the Tyburn form.

The TYBURN is a six line poem consisting of 2, 2, 2, 2, 9, 9 syllables.
The first four lines rhyme and are all descriptive words. The last two lines rhyme and incorporate the first, second, third, and fourth lines as the 5th through 8th syllables.
More instruction: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Tyburn-Poem

 Photo


Very
Merry
Cherry
Sherry
A very merry day, don’t you think?
Warmed by a third cherry, sherry drink

***

Rushing
Gushing
Blushing
Hushing
Life’s moments; a rushing, gushing stream
Its mem’ries a blushing, hushing gleam 

Janet~

A challenging form. Yes, the first one 'twists' the rules a little:)



Wonder-drenched...



The dawn is drenched in grace un-quenched
As oceans of His mercy swell
From eons of immortal love
In shades that tongue can never tell

Now we lift up our fragile cup
Oh, what is man that God should fill
Our wayward wants while heaven flaunts
But whispers of His wondrous will?

Though sorrow-streams and broken dreams
Have laid their grief upon our brow
And though we strain beneath life’s pain
Humbly beneath His touch we bow

For this is He who died for me
That rends the dark with molten sun
We cannot know His thought, and so
We whisper, not my will be done

The dawn is drenched in hope unclenched
God is not dead, not does he sleep
Unfathomed vaults His Hand exalts
As morning spills across its deep

© Janet Martin

‘Mom, your boots are squeaking’, laughs Victoria, as we watch His wonder unfold in 22 below temps.

Now an hour later...



Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Towards the Unveiling...



 

Life’s fortune of transient bestowal
Is fragile; joy and grief align
In a never-ceasing turmoil
Oft bereft of clear design
The dividend of trial and trouble
Shrouded in a tear-spun veil
Spurs us on to Hope Eternal
And a Love that will not fail

Who but One can see tomorrow?
Who but One can know the why?
As life’s tears of joy and sorrow
Shape our journey to the sky
While we groan beneath the weight
Of love’s cross; pilgrims and soldiers
Bound for heaven’s gleaming gate

…so we hope, not in the offerings
Of this world; no, our sight
Is fixed beyond earth’s meager off-spring
And this battle we must fight
Where someday love’s greatest mystery
Will its grand reason unveil
In the arms of precious Jesus
And His love that did not fail

© Janet Martin

The friends who I have requested prayer for previously need them now like never before. Pray for their safety, for wisdom and trust…





Monday, January 21, 2013

The Wonderment of You, My Love





The wonderment of you, my love
Evokes a glimmer in my eye
And in the dead of winter-dread
I hear a love-song drifting by
Where melody of green-leaf tree
Seduces me as dreams implore
While imminence of bitter winds
Threaten bold outside my door

The wonderment of you, my love
While show-men brag and weak men boast
This flesh-blood veil conceals a grail
Cupping the vaunt that matter most
Intangible, its ecstasy
Indelible its hard-fought gain
Alloy of love’s great mystery
We do not flaunt its sacred pain

The wonderment of you, my love
Though blood of pen may seek to spell
Its fantasy in poetry
It cannot its full fortune tell
For how can word shape oceans stirred
Or speak of things too rare for script
Where rushing tides cannot be heard
Beneath the brush of finger-tips

The wonderment of you, my love
In declarations barely breathed
From depths beneath to heights above
Its utterances are bequeathed
In soft-sigh kiss, in whispered bliss
And in the trembling touch of thought
The wonderment of you, my love
Perfects the void of what is not
 

Janet~