Saturday, April 30, 2016

Dead End Day-dreams or Living The Dream

PAD Challenge Day 30: last day:(
For today’s prompt, write a dead end poem.. Take the phrase “dead end” and apply it to a noun,.


 Quote from a book pictured below...

They fill my head with visions of far fairer days to come
When I am not so busy with debt-dictated demands 
But after contemplation Methinks dreams are but the sum
Of common hope, and love the fire that fuels life's dreamlands

We never dream of loneliness or days when we are frail
And far too old to climb the hill of wild-bloom haply flung
And I have learned through tears well-earned, how dear this moment-grail
...how 'tis The Dream, not Destiny that keeps the spirit young

These are life's darling days, my dear, the dream, its serenade
We dance, not on yon cloud but on two feet if we are blessed
And I would like to dream, when day is done that we have made
A memory that we recall with tender happiness

Daydreams drive us toward an end we try to fantasize
Where shadow figurines, like strangers are kinder somehow
But circumstance alters the trance of Yonder-paradise
Thus we never secure the key to it because of Now

 
© Janet Martin

 

Friday, April 29, 2016

Ah, Fare Thee Well, Mademoiselle



Writer's Digest PAD Challenge day 29: (already!) For today’s prompt, write a haphazard poem. 

Her hair askew,
Missing a shoe,
Her dress in disrepair
And all around
On the green ground
Are hints that she was there.

Her plans half-made
She is way-laid
 By fairer next-of-kin
Who strolls amazed
On trails she blazed
On Mother Nature's skin

She will not see
The laden tree,
The garden flushed with bloom,
A pioneer
Her grin and tear
Threads Mother Nature's loom

...nor will she stroll
Where leaves cajole
A canopy of leaves
Or linger where
The dust-sweet air
Drips from dawn's tawny eaves

Ah, fare thee well,
Mademoiselle,
We love thy April ways
They set the stage
And turn time's page
To May-June-July days

 Janet Martin


Thursday, April 28, 2016

Important Mind-matter





The measure of a little thought
Is more mighty than we may know
For by the mind the hand is taught
How sure a little thought will show

So if perchance we think perhaps
Our thought can dally harmlessly
We should remember, touch reacts
To what we think no one can see

This matter of the mind is not
A plot where seeds fall unaware
The measure of a little thought
Will soon reveal what we plant there

© Janet Martin



  PAD Challenge Day 28: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Important (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem.



 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. 
Phil. 4:8

Important Arithmetic





Your hand
Plus mine
Equals
Joy Divine


© Janet Martin

  PAD Challenge Day 28: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Important (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem.

Important Notice for Today's Musicians



 PAD Challenge Day 28: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Important (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem.


Look, what on yonder shore doth break
Expanding like a golden lake
Until the dark is done away
In time’s new, ancient Thing; Today

Look, what appears where years have shown
We do not grasp in full the groan
Of love’s travail; atonement’s way
Covers the old with new; Today

Look, where the eon of the sky
Ebbed dark in vesper lullaby
Ah, see it spill its refilled tray
Where God has willed a new Today

Look, like an unsung melody
Sheet music splays from sea to sea
Ah, pray that we with rev’rence play
The harp strings that we call Today

© Janet Martin

Important Business, This Poetry

PAD Challenge Day 28: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Important (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem.





Important business this, the art
Of baring pieces of the heart
For stranger’s eyes to criticize
Or interpret, at least in part

Important business this, the dare
To splay heart pieces on thin air
For other lips and fingertips
To touch with much less thought or care

Important business this, the taunt
Of restless air requesting font
With lowly pen we trace its yen
And draw a poem from its vaunt

Important business this, the ought
That shapes a word that shapes a thought
That shapes a mind; ah, be not blind
To those who find what ink has wrought

Important business this, for we
Who teach not eyes, but hearts to see
As we lay bare on naked air
Heart-pieces shaped in poetry

© Janet Martin

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Where Midnight Poets Drink...





Now daylight stills its riot
Dark spills to hills and glens
It pours in blue, blue quiet
Like ink to poet’s pens

Time’s flesh and blood appointments
That stole the day afar
Are sequestered in silence
And pinioned with a star

Darling, the miles between us
Are not too dark or deep
See how swift thought traverses
And keeps the pen from sleep

The traveler of star-dust
Wherever she may stray
Is not alone or lost, love
A pen will find the way

As, large and wide the midnight
Fills earth and sky with ink
An ocean, blue and quiet
Where midnight-poets drink

© Janet Martin