Monday, November 13, 2017

Blip-value





This blip betrothed to He who grants the dance of sun on shadowed leaf
Who knows firsthand the sands that stir oceans of sentimental grief
Who splays dusk-grays on russet climes and times his yes and no just so
Mercy and misery entwined as by His faithful grace we go

This wait-and-see and wake-and-sleep and wonderment without reprieve
Tulle crepuscule of push and pull and highlights that we love and leave
Where undertones in overtures and epilogues sear and caress
As blues and golds fold and unfold into beholden happiness

These hours spurred, lent, bent and blurred and undeterred; starred, scarred, oh my
Have suffered hard and buffered soft, tribal assault of sob, smile, sigh
Where menial and noble in the hand become what they will be
When God tallies the sum of ‘inasmuch as ye did it to me

© Janet Martin

..a few 'teardrops' from my sentimental ocean:)



Quick-fall


My dear, if I was young like you
I'd dare to be a dreamer too
I'd scale those heights of knight and crown
From which I had not yet slipped down
And I would think that I could be
My biggest, bravest fantasy
Unhindered by the clock that walks
Across a year in velvet socks
And steals the thread that weaves the dream
Into a world of what has been

Janet Martin

Of Veiled Vows...

PAD Challenge day 12: For today’s prompt, write a transformative poem. 
A poem in which someone or something transforms.




Fall flares then fizzles, fades and falls
To deck the halls of fallow field
The heart that throbbed where fall enthralled
Bows to brave winter’s wilding wield

The merry medicine of mirth
Would siphon song like summer sod
Save for the gong that tolls where birth
Is veiled in vows fulfilled by God

He tunes the tide that wakes the bow’r
That breaks through earth to strake the bud
That musters flower's ordained hour
Soon lying lackluster in mud

Ah, death would be a doleful dread
If not for promises of ‘Spring’
When earth gives up its buried dead
In a grand resurrection fling

Fall flares then fizzles, fades and falls
To deck the halls of temp’ral tomb
The heart that throbbed awaits The Call
Where cold grave cups eternal bloom

© Janet Martin

As Lu// God Would Have It

Catching up on prompts for the poem-a-day challenge:) Busy weekend.
 Day 11: For today’s prompt, write an unlucky poem. 
Whether you believe in luck or not, 
you can still write a poem about a situation that others might deem unlucky.



"Oh, lucky you", we sigh, 
moved by the bit 
that eyes behold
While skin can veil a world of scarred
halls marked
with stories 
never told

Unlucky you, we wail
moved by the
scale of circumstance
Still, always at the
mercy of
Love's Blessing-laden
nail-scarred Hands


Janet~

As Luck God Would Have It

Toronto

PAD Challenge day 13: For today’s prompt, pick a city and make that the title of your poem;
 then, write your poem. 
The poem doesn’t have to be about the city…but it can be.
You can pick a big city, small city, medium-sized city, city that exists today, city that existed in the past, city that only exists in fiction, city that you create.




Beneath still-life street-lights
Spread like a shawl of stars
Above the hustle-bustle
Of city buses and cars, and cars
She does not know
As she comes and goes, and goes
She holds a part
Of her mother’s heart of hearts

Beneath silver-studded dome
Where stars dangle intangible poems
Above the quiet swell
Where field, hill and dell
Cradle the timbre of home, sweet home
She knows there is a door
Ever slightly ajar, ajar
To welcome her home from afar, from afar

© Janet Martin


the line with 'like a shawl of stars' was inspired by and is credited to one of my Gr.1 Sunday School students. He described, as he looked out of the plane while flying home from Germany…the stars like a quilt!
Way to go, Joshua D. Can't wait to see where your pen will take you!



Friday, November 10, 2017

Going Somewhere after This?

PAD Challenge day 10: For today’s prompt, write a going somewhere poem.

 nothing is ours to keep soon all things melt like snow
an intangible echo-heap of living's come and go...

Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, 
the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed;  
and the spirit will return to God who gave it.
 Eccles.12:7


nothing is ours to keep 
still we, merchants of dust
 harvest, harbor, have-hold and heap
 hands and hearts with its Must

whispers of wanderlust
turn into wonder when
we pause to marvel at what God
entrusted to mere men

...then we should choke on boast
and humbly call to mind
the thing we should remember most
in mere moments designed

...that after this we go
To God; there is no doubt 
that this is simply the intro
To what life is about


© Janet Martin

Of Fall's First Snowfall









While it was dark the Artist’s brush
Smoothed autumn’s tarnished sweeps away
The world soft-swaddled in white hush
Where winter’s pristine shadows splay

While wond’rers slept the artist swept
Earth clean of weary grays and brown
And what seemed brooding and bereft
Is redressed in a dazzling gown

We flock to gawk, wowed and wide-eyed
Like tourists in a foreign world
To marvel at a countryside
That Artist After Dark unfurled

© Janet Martin


Good-bye Forever...





I would love you longer
But time must have its say
It steals you from my grasp and turns you
Into yesterday

Sometimes I overlook you
In living’s to and fro
Until the hour took you, love
Where I can never go

Forgive my jolly folly
While you are sweet and kind
I, footloose, dance upon a path
We always leave behind

And on those bluer days, love
I start to realize
How often you have come to be
Life’s beautiful surprise

…and I would love your longer
But Time seems to deem fit
To always whisk you from my arms
After we dance a bit

Goodnight and fare thee well, love
We will not meet again
But thank-you for the sweet sorrow
That comes with parting’s pain

© Janet Martin