Authors

We all have one
An original
Mystery and suspense
Romance, non-fiction
It doesn’t require
Pencil or pen
Simply moments
Cast in Time
I wonder
As you walk by
What’s being written
In the story of your life?

Janet~

The Veil

Today the sky’s a purple wall
Heavy with thoughts of rain
I cannot see too far at all
Into its ethereal plain
Yesterday it wore the soft hue
Of warmth and golden sun
Melting across the endless blue
Where cherubs play and run

Today we stand perhaps to gaze
Upon its mystery
Marveling at the dazzling haze
Of midnight’s starry sea
A canvas where the morning dawns
Or sunset tints the lea
A curtain twixt Time’s little yawn
And God’s infinity

Some day the elements will shake
And every eye behold
As through the veil a throng shall break
On chariots of gold
Today we see a skies facade
And heaven is concealed
Someday we’ll see the face of God
And Holiness revealed

Janet~

The other night I dreamed that I was staring at the sky
at a strange white speck which began to expand, and suddenly in
the space of a breath it burst across the sky; God and legions of angels
so bright I could not see! All I remember was being dumb-founded and saying 'this is it! this is The Day! it's over, it's over...and then I woke...

'I thought of this passage of scripture in Acts 1...


6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

and this verse in Matthew 24:

30 “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth[c] will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.

Yanked from a Dream...

The morning’s verdict comes too soon
On night’s like this
But dawn is fading out the moon
With silent kiss
Her curves align intricately
Against the dark
As day becomes a silver sea
And night the spark

I close my eyes willing night’s spell
To linger on
It is no use; for I can tell
That you are gone
The warmth of you against my skin
Is hard to bear
Ten-thousand memories hovering
On stringent air

The morning’s verdict will not sway
Its fingertips
Methodically tug you away
From sleep-warm lips
Smoothly the smiling day invades
The dreamer’s bliss
And with the dawn you slip away
No farewell kiss

J~

Autumn's Farewell Song

Bright hills are stripped of crimson hue
The stark skeletal limb resides
Where daylight, sharp with frozen dew
Transforms dull fields to silver tides
And frosty, jagged petals flow
In umber streams, upon the grass
As from the limb, like russet snow
Unwary flakes of autumn pass

The flower garden, stripped of charm
Has sown its glory in the earth
Until the sun begins to warm
The grave where lies its dormant mirth
The tune of meadow-lark and finch
Becomes the blue-jay’s raucous cry
As autumn’s shoulder, inch by inch
Forces earth’s solemn lullaby

The wind, like heaven’s giant broom
Sweeps gallantly across the yard
As leaves like scattered children run
Ahead of bristles pushing hard
Where once they whispered to the moon
They chatter softly at my feet
I pause and listen to the tune
Of autumn’s farewell, bittersweet

Janet

Yes, those are 'the glasses;)
referring to a few comments...

An Extra-ordinary Day

At a glance it’s nothing special
Just an ordinary day
Creeping up against the shadows
In an ordinary way
But if you observe it closely
You can see the Giver’s face
In this extra-ordinary gift
Another day of grace

Janet

This Saturday looked very ordinary at first glance…
Baking, work outside, finish up laundry, throw in the wood,
Do groceries…sigh. I looked a little closer. It’s not raining,
The sun has transformed the lawn into a golden platter
On which God is handing me an extra-ordinary gift, a day of grace!

Could It Be?

http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2011/10/thuhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrsday-think-tank-72-writers-block.html


I don’t think I’ll ever write anything I like again
I used to think I might be able to write…a little, now and then
Something sensible or humorous or practical or wise
But now I am beginning to realize
Where words once taunted and laughed out loud
There is thick, wooly cotton
And thunderclouds
And silence presses on my head
Like a heavy rock
Could it be?
I utter with dread,
Could it be writer’s block?

Reminiscing...

The hollow gaze of midnight’s moon
The lapping waves of ancient June
The faded edge of summer’s tune
Kindles a sudden yearning
The empty boardwalk at the beach
The lingering essence of a peach
The breath of whispers out of reach
Ignites a quiet burning

The salty kiss of ocean breeze
The wantonness of willow trees
The ebb and flow of memories
Descends from unplumbed arches
The howl of coyotes on the wind
The breakers crashing in my mind
The footfall of days left behind
Rigid, the hour marches

Teal canvas flush with sky and sea
The artists brush a mystery
A portrait of wild ecstasy
Within my heart is sighing
Soft, murm’ring lips against my ear
The scent of peach, love’s tender tear
The warmth of knowing you are near
Enhances autumn’s crying

J~

Headaches

http://margoroby.wordpress.com/


They all stared at the odd little creature
Isn’t that what zoos were for?
I had a headache and wanted to go home

I watched the carousel go round and round
As other children smiled and flew to the moon
It costs money to fly to the moon

I stood behind the fat wooden Mother Hubbard
They all laughed because I looked funny
It’s hard to see yourself

Nylon kerchiefs itch and invite curious stares
We stood, watching the monkeys and laughed
I saw someone look at me and laugh, as if I were a monkey

Now I know that candy floss is not something from a book
It’s pale green and pink and other people eat it.
I had a headache and wanted to go home

Janet Martin

Since Margo’s Prompt on Tuesday I have been trying to decide
whether I want to write this.(We were asked to write about our first recollection of a trip to an amusement park, and sensory imagery)I'm not sure how old I was, but approx. 10 yrs old. Drifts of memory may have two trips blurred together
with distinct, similar flavors…
I was raised in a culture where we did NOT look like ‘everyone else’, and I was always keenly aware of the polite and impolite curious stares and smirks…I had a headache and wanted to go home!

Sonnet of Reconciliation

Where once the lusty breeze greeted the dawn
Or breathed imaginations on the dusk
Where sunset gathered shadows on the lawn
In orchards bent with fantasy and musk
Where once I lived each season’s mindless dash
Considered not the fortune of my youth
But reveled in the temporary splash
Before the quiet reckoning of truth
As all my boasts like bits of painted chaff
Rose to the starry vaults to make God laugh

Where once the thought of us stole every hour
And parting drove the heart quite nearly wild
As tight-lipped bud softly began to flower
Shedding the innocence of summer’s child
Before the slow decay of autumn’s grip
Tugged from our hand youths sweet and selfish glove
And carefree passion vanished from the lip
Replaced by kinder lines of grief and love
As calloused fingers fold in evening prayer
And humble benedictions brush the air

Janet Martin

No Quitter

‘I give up, I quit
It isn’t fair’
Yet, as those words bit the air
I knew
That it wasn’t true
And it’s not up to me
Or you
To decide
To quit trying
Because of wounded pride
Or because we’re tired
Or because it isn’t fair
And we beat the guiltless air
When everyone will have
Their own battle to fight
We’ve all been sad
And that’s all right
A war is not won
By the soldier who quits
But by he who bends
His face to the wind
Though the odds are against him
And he’s tired of it
The person who wins
Is the one who won’t quit

J~

Things...

I can rearrange my furniture
And add some fresh appeal
To corners growing stagnant,
I can walk around and steal
A vase, a book, a picture frame
And take it from the shelf
Wiggle and twist and turn them ‘round
Until I please myself

But there are things I cannot touch
Or ever re-arrange
Time does not seem to matter much
These things I cannot change
Are carefully protected
In my heart’s tender embrace
And all the changes in the world
Can’t tear them from their place


Things are but trimmings in a house
To move from room to room
But love and joy and peace, my friend
These make a house a home
My love for you brings me great joy
This great joy brings me peace
I pray that God will bless each one
Who enters here, with these

J~

After pulling my library together into one space I was left with an empty corner...
So I lugged in the book-case with all my poetry books from another room, dragged up a chair from the rec room and filled this corner...of course, in the process I created new empty spaces:))

Hind-sight

You took me where
I did not want to go
My cries filled the air
As I pleaded, ‘no’
Now, in hind-sight
I look at the end
This was the road
That led to a friend

J~

Genuine Compassion

We shake our heads and cluck our tongues
And ‘tsk-tsk’ over that and this
As ‘bad news’ makes its daily rounds
Beneath the guise of ‘no gossip’
The ‘did you hear?’ and ‘did you know’s?’
Becomes the fodder for the tongue
As fast and furious ‘bad news’ flows
And none are spared, not old nor young
But raised eye-brows and holy gasps
And verbal nuance clouds the air
As on and on the woes are passed
Of love’s misfortunes and despair
No longer private is the name
Of he who stumbled on life’s path
But in a public hall of shame
Looms penance in the gossip’s wrath
And woe to he who must endure
‘Pious compassion’ of the just
Mauling not what is good and pure
But agonies of man-kind’s lust…
…‘Let he who never yet hath sinned
Be the first to cast a stone’
Ten-thousand ‘should-haves’ cannot do
What one whispered prayer has done

Janet Martin

Morning Prayer

Open my mind, Lord
To feel every moment
Wide as an ocean
Let my visage be
Not in the seeing
But simply the knowing
That life is a footprint
In eternity


Open my eyes, Lord
And help me to feel it
A whisper of heaven
In every breath
Open my eyes, Lord
In moments reveal it
Without Your great mercy
My life would be death

Open my heart, Lord
Oh, let my vision
Not be deceived
By the world around me
Open my heart, Lord
Someday in your Kingdom
You will unveil
What these eyes cannot see

Janet Martin

October Rain Song

The dark reached long into the day
And earth could not persuade
The heavens to decline the gray
For summer’s warmer shade

The rain weeps in perpetual grief
Its tempo, high then low
Plucking the valiant autumn leaf
Into the river’s flow

The traffic hisses in the street
The wind rattles the doors
Beneath umbrellas, hurried feet
Hasten to work-place shores

The dark reached far across the hour
In desolate requiem
A dirge to every leaf and flow’r
As earth becomes a stream

Janet Martin

It was so dark at 8:00 a.m. when the kids got on the bus,
that I had to strain to see Victoria's rapidly fluttering hand
waving good-bye.

Awareness

There’s a consciousness in living
That endears life’s simple hours
And the secret of its treasure
Does not lie in mystic powers

There’s a consciousness in living
That keens both the heart and mind
To the gift within a moment
And the brevity of Time

There’s a consciousness in living
That makes sacred every breath
And enriches what we’re holding
It’s the consciousness of death

Janet Martin

Satisfied

When my head’s full of words
With a pen in my hand
When my Muse is stirred
In evening’s dark strand
When the sky laughs its colors
From lips of gray-blue
And I forget trouble
Distracted by you
When my heart’s full of dreaming
And my heads full of rhymes
And I break all the statutes
Of meter and time
And the words just keep pouring
From my fingertips
Like the sun in the morning
Or the smile on my lips
When I feel like flying
With two feet on the ground
And I hear you near me
In the night’s quiet sound
When the sorrow and sadness
Of life disappears
Wrapped in the music
Of an old poet’s tears
And I feel the warmth
Of your sigh on my skin
And I hear the longing
Of you on the wind
When seeing is nothing
And blindness is sight
As faith guides me onward
Through shadow and light
When paper and passion
And pleasure collide
To meet for a moment
In briefest delight
Then is the heartbeat
Of love’s tender bliss
The having and holding
Of what was and what is
As I hold your closer
And I draw you home
With nothing but paper
A pen and a poem

J~

Perfect

There’s nothing like love’s tender kisses
Warm against a cold, dark night
There’s nothing like a quickened heart-beat
In the softened candle-light
There’s nothing like intimate whispers
When the world lies fast asleep
There’s nothing like the quiet knowing
Promises were meant to keep

There’s nothing quite as truly lovely
As two people, lost in love
There’s nothing that is quite as lonely
As the thought of what once was
There’s nothing quite as pure and perfect
In this little walk of strife
Than finding ‘mongst the countless masses
A soul mate to share your life

J~

Summer Heart

Sometimes, on nights like tonight
In the rain, no longer a warm splatter of kisses
But a mass of hissing serpents
Lashing 'gainst my window-pane,
I find myself unable
To teach my heart simple words
Like good-bye, letting go or trust

Sometimes, on nights like tonight
As daylight dissolves an hour too soon
In dark blue fingers of twilight
Raking across the weeping sky
I find myself
Reaching into the wet darkness
Against the obvious

Sometimes, on nights like tonight
As reasoning unravels without constraint
In echoes of desperation
Across the deepening farewell
I find myself
Returning to the moment
Of having and holding and us

J~

Gratitude

Against the blue and frosted slope

I see a somber throng

Like matadors robbed of their cloaks

Or minstrels with no song

A thickened sort of quiet lies

Against the rugged cusp

Where winds, like stiff-starched orderlies

Have stripped sweet summer’s lust

And up into the vaulted sky

I hear the murmur of good-bye

Against the ruby thread of dawn

I see a silhouette

A lonesome sort of picture drawn

In frames of sorrow, yet

A battle-song of beauty moans

From thorns without their bloom

In dark and muted undertones

It warms earth’s stricken tomb

As petal-tear of flow’r and leaf

Imbrues the sphere with nature’s grief

Against the tumult of the heart

A tender peace resides

For as in seasons of the earth

God’s faithfulness abides

When life is rich with vibrant bloom

Or stripped of mortal cheer

He whispers in the aching gloom

To tell us He is near

And over autumn’s garb subdued

We breathe a prayer of gratitude

Janet Martin

The landscape shivers in the still of dawn,

Naked and stark as summer’s final chapter decks the frosty ground…

A sad beauty prevails…

It tugs the spectator’s heart in equal forces of joy and grief

Ah, tis true as the old poet said, ‘there is a flower in every leaf’

Puzzled

For all of your words

Only one dims my eye

I guess I never heard

When you said good-bye

For all of the promises

You breathed in my ear

There is no sign of them

Now, but a tear

For all of the moments

I clench in my fist

I’m drawn to the one

I must have missed…

J~

Method of Madness

We string them together

Dark wood,

Gray stone

Sparkling jewel,

Winsome charm,

Wine-red ruby,

Lustrous pearl

Violet amethyst,

Obsidian swirl

Dazzling diamond

Copper, brass,

The teardrop

And sapphire

Tempered glass

We string them together

The sunshine and rain

Notes of life, love,

Of pleasure and pain

Sometimes harsh, bone-chilling

Sometimes smooth and warm

And when it’s all said and done

We have…

…a poem

J~

Whispers of Him

A spangle of daisies

On springs meadow-land

A breeze, slow and lazy

Across the white sand

A breath-taking canvas

As daylight grows dim

Yet, still mankind glimpses

But whispers of Him

The glory of nature

Contained in a seed

The strength of man’s stature

Dependent on bread

As rain from the heavens

Turns bare fallow green

Mankind is given

Soft whispers of Him

Infinite resplendence

Extended in space

Nothing but Providence

To keep it in place

And on the blue circle

A wee baby’s birth

Whispers of an angel

Descending to earth

Hurricane lashing

On vulnerable shores

As dark seas come crashing

Through earth’s fragile doors

Rainbows of promise

A tiny bird sings

And yet mankind glimpses

But whispers of Him

The ring of a hammer

The flash of a sword

The insolent clamor

For the death of our Lord

The cry of redemption

As His breath grows dim

And still mankind glimpses

But whispers of Him

Janet Martin

Each season in life reminds me of His whispers...

Job 26: 14 says...

'And these are but the outer fringe of his works;
how faint the whisper we hear of him!'

Enlightened?

As seasons sweep earth’s scattered shores

And time begins and ends its wars

As history knocks upon our doors

What have we learned?

Are we, who live earth’s latter years

Are we much wiser than our peers?

Have we gained wisdom by their tears?

What have we learned?

As mothers, sweethearts, lovers cry

As newborn babies live, to die

As hatred calls and we reply

What have we learned?

Through all the badges, medals earned

Through building bridges, once we burned

As history’s vivid proof returns

What have we learned?

Through all earth’s battles, won or lost

In pages tallying its cost

With great technology, our boast

What have we learned?

Today we have the luxury

Of unprecedented technology

How wise, how wise we ought to be

What have we learned?

Janet Martin~

Inspired in part, by last night's 60 minutes broadcast on the life of Steve Jobs.

His analysis of life- 'we come alone, we leave alone. Everything between those two points

no longer matters'. quoted loosely...the sadness of his words gripped my thoughts. I can't forget it.

He said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD." Job 1:21

Allowances

I would allow you, my darling

To persuade me with your lips

To walk, once more to the parting

But then, not as passing ships

Would we drift on silent oceans

Into heart-breaks endless night

But this time our love and devotion

Would dare to remain and fight

I would allow you, my darling

To brush misgiving aside

November is long without loving

How dull is its fireside

I would allow you to whisper

Those words I chose not to hear

I would not restrain the winter

If you came to meet me, my dear

The clock on the mantle reminds me

How moments flit through the heart

And though you are sitting beside me

Somehow we are oceans apart

When did we come to the crossroad?

Where did love’s passion divide?

Why do we choose to be lonely

While sitting here, side by side?

I would allow you my darling

To sway me with word’s delight

But somehow its lure is a weapon

Sharpened by misuse and spite

Would it make any difference

If we found a new way to start?

Or have years of hard, practiced silence

Molded an iron-clad heart?

J~

This is not autobiographical…

But it could be, if we chose stubborn pride.

The Perfect Shade of Blue

http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/wordle-27/

Ragged, clouds, rusted out, nods, glaze, blade, bridges, drag, stretched,

straighten, rolling, beginning,

every now and then I still can see it

spilling from the ragged edge of a cloud

or tinting frost-glazed crab-grass

beneath the bridge

where we sat, dreaming out loud

and heaven would pass

softly beneath fingertips

and smiling lips

as long, barefoot afternoons

stretched across our sighs

reaching to the blue moon

and we would drag our toes across

the gurgling surface of June’s beginning,

but the rolling force of love's rushing streams

straightens our lop-sided fantasies

pointing our faces forward instead of back

to where I still can see

the perfect shade of blue

before you closed your eyes

and cold November's sky

nods over rusted-out dreams.

J~

Listening to the Silence

http://carryontuesdayprompt.blogspot.com/2011/10/carry-on-tuesday-128.htmlhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

They say that walls cannot talk
and it may be true most of the time.
It has been years since I passed the little cabin
tucked between hemlock, cedar and pine.
The windows that used to laugh and beg
are lonely, dark and sad.
The room no longer smells of spruce
or fresh paint and turpentine.
The wind moans through hollow black eyes
teasing the ivy vine
dangling in the yawn where a door once creaked.
I am sitting alone listening to the silence.

It was hot that night
and the moon was so low that the pine spires
nearly touched its lenient, friendly smile
The breeze tousled the ferns and whispered
in a reckless sense of style
as the night cajoled us with nature’s orchestra
It was hot that night and we were alone.
Too far away from home for fear
and still too close for comfort.
In the quiet I hear you asking,
mostly with your eyes,
and I hear my reply, in like manner.
I am sitting alone, listening to the silence.

Janet Martin

Melody of Hope

There’s a lonely sort of pining in the quiet dawn of fall
When the green and crimson awning of the autumn tree is null
As, in thought we place a kiss upon the meek and weathered stance
Of this brave, forlorn battalion stripped of glory and romance

Yet, the oak retains its grandeur though its vesture warms the sod
There’s a raw and naked splendor in this mighty work of God
Like a forest in an acorn or a warrior in the womb
The redolence of late autumn succors promise in its tomb

There’s a winsome sort of sadness in the silent autumn’s eve
Amplified by absent cricket-song and percussion of leaf
As the wind in rising dissonance tosses the pine-tree spire
In rehearsal for performances of chilling repertoire

Yet, within its melancholy note a stirring passion grips
The tender ache within our throat and restless fingertips
For the song of lonely pining and the sorrow in its eye
Are the soulful new beginnings of an evening in July

Janet Martin

Points to Ponder

So, where do people really go when they ‘just go away’?
And how can melancholy flow in twenty shades of gray?
Are love and sorrow intertwined; pure gold or tainted brass?
When we are old will bitter wine or sugar fill our glass?

Does joy or sadness dominate the measure of our thought?
Do we regret mistakes we’ve made or just that we got caught?
Will laughter or heartache consume the ever-hastening years?
If one should die before we wake will love sweeten our tears?

Did God make new-born babies extra-dear because He knew
That life with all its maybe’s needs a perfect smile or two?
Are wrinkles really all that bad, or looking old a sin?
If God allowed us to go back, oh, where would we begin?

Are we the kind of friend to others, we should like to have?
As brother defends brother, is there one that is born brave?
If freedom’s cost is worth the fight will we redeem it then,
By how we live upon this earth and treat our fellowmen?

Janet Martin

Avenues

The cold sky scowls and runs its icy fingers down my spine
Your memory prowls and skulks in shadows with no clear design
Gray melancholy raindrops weep from heaven’s darkened berth
To shards of summer’s withered heap and June’s forgotten mirth

Desire wanes within the clutch of Autumn’s empty shell
To crave lost passion’s candid touch imbues a silent hell
There is no window to the past; no door that we can choose
To wander in the trampled grass of bygone avenues

The tree does not become a tree by dying in the cold
And we begin who we will be long before we are old
The dreamer does not die until his will to dream is gone
So too my love for you will thrive; true love is never done

The cold sky scowls and runs its icy fingers down my spine
The blue wind howls and thoughts of you flow dark as blood-red wine
A kaleidoscope of love and grief and longing paints the day
As summer in each little leaf is coldly swept away

J~

Today is wet and nasty and cold...and 'I'm gonna cry if I want to.'
and then I'll enjoy it, perfect for staying indoors and doing things we love
like reading and writing, perhaps.
and if the sky is scowling at you, smile back! It really does feel good:)

Fair-weather Friend

You seemed so small and miniscule
Too trite to mind or fear
I rather liked your vestibule
Of non-committal cheer
No rules to which I must conform
No lesson to be taught
But simply leniency and charm
Within your idle thought

You made no list of goals to reach
Offered no reprimands
No sweat and tears did you beseech
Nor labor from my hands
But strove to lure me from the desk
Of wisdom’s finer school
Assuring me of happiness
In musings of a fool

You did not scold nor did you praise
But offered me instead
The very best of all things base
To soothe deception’s lead
How cold, infatuation’s end
How sad its lesson taught
A loathsome and fair-weather friend
This thing called idle thought

Janet Martin


Guard your roving thoughts with a jealous care, for speech is but the dialer of thoughts, and every fool can plainly read in your words what is the hour of your thoughts.
Alfred Lord Tennyson

What Then?

I think perhaps I’ll go fishing today
Or maybe I could watch the Yankees play
I could stay home and read a good book
Or I could go on-line and take a look
Household duties firmly, kindly beckon
I should tackle those jobs first, I reckon
I could call a friend, ask her out for tea
Or simply stay indoors and watch TV
I could teach my baby to count to ten…
I could write a fine novel, but what then?

I could climb mountains and stand on their peaks
Or become famous by mere words I speak
I could ride tall waves, have a reckless time
Be noted as brave for walls that I climb
I could be lazy or shallow or bold
Or focus on gleanings in pastures gold
I could hoard pennies, a miserly fool
Or gain great knowledge by staying in school
I could be remembered a while ‘mongst men
For some great accomplishment, but what then?

When the curtain falls on life’s final scene
When my Maker calls and I hear my name
When I stand at last as all men will do
When life is past at my final adieu
When I leave my shoes on eternity's shore
And He reads my reviews at Heaven's door
What will He see as He takes a long look
At pages I’ve written in my life’s book
As I look at Him and He holds my hand
Will this life have been worth it; oh, what then?

Janet Martin

I re-vamped an ‘oldie’ from the archives,
Remembering it when I saw the prompt, The Show Must Go On…

Observations...

http://ellasedge.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-do-you-see.html


I was inspired by the above post...


I see the wind, its sorrow weeps
On autumn’s tear-stained face
And valiant blooms in ragged heaps
Return to their birth-place
The echo of a jaded love
Lies silent now and still
As summer sleeps in tattered heaps
Against the stricken hill

I see the joys of girls and boys
Abandoned in their flight
And all the music we called noise
Now somehow seems just right
They fly away on wings of play
Like birds, answering a call
And far too soon June’s afternoon
Succumbs to tides of fall

I see the years in tender tears
And hurried moments pass
Too soon the vibrant bloom appears
Too soon it dusts the grass
Too soon the limb of summer’s hymn
Extols its sad farewell
As I embrace the time and place
Where once our shadows fell

J~

The Show Must Go On

http://carryontuesdayprompt.blogspot.com/2011/10/carry-on-tuesday-127.html


The show must go on
The play in our palm
Is not quite written yet
The show must go on
From dusk until dawn
And all through the day ahead
When our Maker calls
And the curtain falls
Will we hear the angels applaud?
As gladly we rise
To accept our prize
Safe in the arms of God

Janet

It's You

It’s an ache in my chest that will not go away
It’s a soft blue caress when the skyline is gray
It’s a whisper of hope when I feel like I’m through
It’s you…

It’s a smile on my lips when my heart’s in my throat
It’s your warm finger-tips beneath winter’s harsh coat
It’s the long in love’s suffering, yes, that is true
It’s you

It’s the want in my wish, love; the song in my dance
It’s one thing I am sure of in life’s game of chance
It’s a heart full of laughter though bills are past due
It’s you

It’s the breeze that blows troubles like bubbles afar
It’s a piece of my childhood, like evening’s first star
It’s everything that I dream of coming home to
It’s you

Yes, it’s you, little girl
Little bright-eyed boy
Life’s smile in the world
Love’s heart-beat of joy
It darling and beautiful
And so precious too
It’s everything wonderful
It’s you

In Poetry and Love...

I know, sometimes I use words that I should not
Words that finer poets of today simply would not
Taboo subjects seem to be discarded or ignored
Taboo to whom I wonder; then what is the truth for?
I cannot let my Fear of the mighty Unknown dissuade
my love for you; nor let it undermine the poetry we’ve made
Prime-ministers and presidents and kings are merely men
Their offices and roles relinquished time and time again
Rain washes the earth; as confession does the soul
When I am all alone with you, eternities may roll
For I begin to realize how, in love’s subtle way
Ten-thousand years might easily dissolve in one half-day
In love and poetry for me there are no laws to break
I wish that you were here with me for love and prose’s sake
Yet with this passion I am never really all alone
For you are in my heart, love, and God is on His throne
Prayer does make a difference; if I just let go and trust
Faith small as a mustard seed can reduce rock hills to dust
I cannot see God or the wind, but still I know
They are in the faithful dawn and in the breeze that blows
Taboo excuses faint of heart and weak;
I believe we find the answers if we dare to seek
In poetry and Love we find the Truth
Ah, methinks these well may be the fount of virtual youth
I know, sometimes I use words that I should not
It is hard to tether or control the flow of thought
Love is not a feeling or a thing produced by men
Poetry is not concealed within a lowly pen
I believe in sacred Power from above
And there is really no taboo in poetry or love

Janet Martin

Haunted

The moon hung low outside my north window
Before the deep sky swallowed it up whole
Barring the lucid eye to midnight’s soul
Bustle dies beneath night’s giant shadow

The ragged tree offers no resistance
To breezes tugging at her faded dress
Silence weaves a somber cloak of darkness
Tonight the leaves are too heavy to dance

The stage, weighted with rain and sullen wind
Is perfectly arranged, my dear, for you
Hov’ring like silver threads of frozen dew
Elusive yet so heavy on my mind

The moon hung low outside my north window
The greedy sky snuffs out its valiant spark
I cannot see you for it is too dark
But I feel you shivering in the shadow

J~

Old Man

He sits in his chair by the window,
And watches care-free children at play,
Listening to the sound of their laughter
As in it he is carried away,
Back to the days in his memory,
And oh, its tender music is sweet,
Before silent years when he’s simply
The old man who lives down the street

Once he was that boy on the sidewalk
So full of endless vigor and vim,
Spending happy hours on the ball-field,
Playing until the daylight grew dim,
The laughter drifting through the window
Could well be his friends as they’d meet,
Never dreaming someday he would be
The old man who lives down the street

He studies the faces of young love
Arm in arm they go, strolling by,
And he smiles in wistful reflection
As a teardrop escapes from his eye,
For he too was once a young lover
With many a fair girl at his feet,
And his youthful dreams never pictured
A lonely old man down the street

He sees weary mothers and daddies
With lively dear youngsters in tow,
Their chatter and quarrels and laughter
Are just as they were long ago,
When all of that clamor was heaven,
To be busy and weary was sweet,
Now he rocks, alone in the silence,
An old man who lives down the street

He remembers the hours of working
With a family to feed and to teach,
Bills over-due and dreams waiting
And one always out of his reach,
Mindless of the years as they flew by
Filled up with endless dead-lines to meet,
Too busy to think of an old man
Alone in a house down the street

Now he sits in his chair by the window
And watches people hurrying by,
If you stop you would see him smiling,
But often with a tear in his eye,
For everyone is still so busy
With too many a dead-line to meet,
No time to sit down just to visit
An old man who lives down the street

Janet Martin

Domesticated Bliss

She stares with ill-disguised sympathy
at my work-worn hands fumbling for the right change.
I return her gaze with ease
as meticulously manicured fingers accept politely
two quarters, a dime and three pennies

A labor of love is not drudgery
though, at the glance of a passer-by
it consists of mundane and modest task.
There is more to domestication than meets the eye
offering a wealthy threshold for which I dare not ask

I will not judge you in your platinum halo
your painted eyes and stiletto stance
if you return the same.
How can I tell you that garden-soil is not dirt
and to dig in it is no labor of shame?

…but rather a work of unrequited wonder
as seed sprouts producing fruit and bloom
and beauty; the reward of toil.
Soon earth reclaims its solemn dues
and life returns to soil

Outside these walls of humble bliss
awaits a bombardment of decorated dust,
a ceaseless, bullish quandary
I return to quiet toil in thankfulness
amongst shovels, pots, pans and laundry

Janet

Okay, I confess…
It is with deflated enthusiasm with which I survey
The after-math of a week-end…
But I determine to find within its squalor, bliss!

Yours Forever

http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/
Forgive, shoulder, topples, shallows, bolt, broken, gathered, dancing, drop, burst, causes, feet, hoops.



My thoughts of you like shadow-hoops
Skim o’er the dancing shallows
I feel you warm against my mind
And cold against my shoulder

I gathered once, so tenderly
Your words easily spoken
Dreams topple in futility
As hearts lay sadly broken

To forgive you is easy, love
Forgetting seems unending
I cannot drop like work-worn gloves
The causes I’m defending

The door to you I cannot bolt
Or seal with firm endeavor
My feet may seek unbroken roads
My heart is yours forever

Janet Martin

Sunday Wordle

October's Song

Yellow leaves dive onto the windowsill
Like drunken finches pitching to their rest
They fold in pungent layers ‘gainst the mill
Where rusty patches quilt a sodden nest
Two seasons worth the chill-wind starves and fasts
Its vigor now is urgent; desperate; harsh
It tugs in bullish rage at pristine mast
And lines with gold, the lily-crested marsh
The cattail shivers in its iron wrath
The milk-weed spills to sea, a silky path

Silence threads begging limbs, exposed and bare
Betrayed by tresses, tattered and wind-blown
If glory to the woman is her hair
Then beauty to the tree must be its gown
The lowered sky offers no modest shroud
But rather it enhances her distress
A backdrop dark with tumbled glow’ring cloud
Triumphant in its frigid, blue caress
It paints against the cold horizon-line
A petrified, yet delicate design

The field accepts a shrug of verdant green
The folly of a lush, transient disguise
Short-lived, the comfort of deception’s sheen
Too soon beneath a frozen sheet it lies
Yellow leaves tumble to earth's greedy tomb
Swift, phantom fingers pluck valiant remains
None shall escape its purple-knuckled plume
None can withstand ruthless November rains
As they succumb to death's dark calliope
Waiting for Spring in womb's of quiet hope

Janet Martin

Missing You

Today it is not enough
To know the same rain
Creases our worlds
I long for warm fingers on my back
Sunshine,
The mouth of the sea
Teasing your toes
And mine
I want you more today
In the rain
Its patter amplifying
The pain
Of emptiness where
You used to be
All around me
Before trees swept scarlet tears
Into pictures of
By-gone years
And faded love
The sodden leaves
Losing their chatter,
Dead beneath my feet
It is the end of another summer
Time turns the corner
At the end of the street
It does not see me
Begin to wave good-bye
Stark chimney-flutes
Like giant corn-pipes
Slice the moping sky

J~

Heart Lessons

In youth we desire
To hold and touch
The things so dear to us
But life takes as it gives
Teaching us in its Passing
How to hold in our hearts
What we can no longer hold
In our arms
Teaching us
That we own nothing
And what life gives
Briefly at best
It will re-claim
That love comes in moments
Not a lifetime
That joy is something we choose
Not something that arrives on our doorstep
Like a parcel, special-delivery
A heart is surely stronger than arms
And larger
There is always room
For one more

Janet

There is a sense of loss in the sudden silence
As morning clamor fades gradually,
moving to the end of the driveway
then carried away on a big yellow bus.
Realization leaps from the clutter left behind
and we wash dishes thankfully.
We hold in our hearts those who would have stayed
And those who choose to leave…


Note: Emily, our oldest daughter, drives to school.
Above is the 'clamour' (aka arguing, teasing, debating,)
that moves to the end of the driveway before being carried off on the bus:)
Melissa 17,
Matt 13,
Victoria 10

Good Times!

He and I

You drink Red Bull
I love coffee or tea
You watch Sport’s Center
I read poetry
You tell me a joke
And laugh til you cry
And all I can muster
Is ‘oh my’
I gasp at the sunset
You say, it's like many before
You wink at a nice ****
And I kick yours;)
I love to run
You prefer sitting
You like playing golf
I prefer knitting (and I hate knitting)
You love people and crowds
I, a tree-lined nook
You turn the TV up loud
I grab a book
You love to talk
I’m kind of an introvert
I start clearing the table
You ask, where’s dessert?
You drive your Peterbilt, shift those gears
All over the continent; I haven’t traveled in years
You thought I'd never change
And I thought you would
But at the end of the day
Things are still pretty good
Because when we turn on the stereo
Oh, baby, you and I both know
We love the same music, you and me
Oh, we’ve got a good thing going, don’t we?
Alan Jackson, George Strait, Josh Turner, George Jones
Tim McGraw, Celine Dion, Don Williams, Brooks and Dunn
Jim Reeves, Charlie Pride and Alison Krauss
Merle Haggard, and Porter, Conway, Mel Tillis
Daniel ‘O Donnell and Lady Antebellum
Rascal Flatts, Michael Johnson, Marty Stuart, Dwight Yoakum
Dean Brody, George Canyon, Paul Brandt, and much more
Let’s close the windows and lock the door
Turn up the music hon, it’s just you and me
We’ve got a good thing going, don’t we?

Janet Martin

Yes, this is the humorous truth about 'he and I'.
But one thing we enjoy together is music.

What spawned this poem after 23 years of marriage?
He called this morning to tell me a joke, and while he was
wheezing with laughter I was waiting for the punch-line
then realized there was no more...he had said it!

The Heavens Declare...

The heavens declare your eternal glory

Infinite wonder and power and love

Symbol of mercy in every morning

As the deep awning of night you remove

Grand is the sky of a moon-caressed midnight

Grander the glory of dawn’s ruby sun

Vision of rapture, the cover of twilight

Foretaste of beauty surrounding Your throne

Who can foretell the vast shades of your choosing?

Who can declare how night’s glory will rise?

Who can define the palette you are using

Or brush out the gray of November’s low skies?

There is no artist, oh God, you have gifted

That outshines the grandeur or work of Your Eye

When the dark curtain of night has been lifted

Who can arrange one square inch of the sky?

The sun, moon and stars in celestial clockwork

Cannot be altered by one mortal hand

Who, as we gaze at the canvas above us

Doth the intent of the Lord understand?

Infinite mystery, unfathomed wonder

Floor of the vault where His holy feet tread

Mouth spewing lightning and violent thunder

Sea of serenity when its wrath has been shed

Beneath it we marvel, beneath it we tremble

Beneath it we gaze at the eye of the One

Who spoke into Being all things universal

His glory exceeds the moon, stars and the sun

The heavens declare and no man can deny it

Lord, there is none who escapes Your vast Eye

The heavens declare and all man will believe it

When You re-appear on the clouds of the sky

Janet Martin~

The other night I went for my run as twilight deepened to moonlight.

The sky, an awesome and absolute declaration of His glory and might!

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalms 19:1

“Dominion and awe belong to God;
he establishes order in the heights of heaven. Job 25:2

He spreads out the northern skies over empty space;
he suspends the earth over nothing.
He wraps up the waters in his clouds,
yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.
He covers the face of the full moon,
spreading his clouds over it.
He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters
for a boundary between light and darkness.
The pillars of the heavens quake,
aghast at his rebuke.
By his power he churned up the sea;
by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces.
By his breath the skies became fair;
his hand pierced the gliding serpent.
And these are but the outer fringe of his works;
how faint the whisper we hear of him!
Who then can understand the thunder of his power?” Job 26:7-14

“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. Matthew 24:30

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. 2 Peter 3:10