Tuesday, October 31, 2017

It's Halloween



Someone requested a Halloween poem and I realized I have never written a single one,
partly because Halloween in rural Ontario is a little quieter than town-Halloween.
We didn't go trick-or-treating as youngsters but sometimes we would sneak up to the attic and take clothes from mother's 'younger days box', stuff pillows into dresses til they fit, find funny hats and shoes, then we would knock at our own door and see if we could trick them into a treat...
or we would dash about the yard scaring siblings because everything seemed so deliciously-spooky!
 There was always a few neighbors who came in their costumes and I think we were almost as excited to see them as they were to 'be' them:)
I still remember staring at a boy who we played with all the time
but he was wearing a sad clown mask and laughing under it oh, how I hated it!!
I have approx. 10 treat bags ready just in case because my kids from daycare sometimes come.




The trees that laughed all afternoon moan, menacing and black
They claw the air where wide-eyed witches venture through the towns
Consorting with strange creatures each sporting a pail or sack
Fairies, black cats and princesses, robots, jail-birds and clowns

Mickey Mouse with a lady-bug, a vampire and a cow
Pumpkins with feet, a skeleton, gorillas, monsters, oh
Their quest for treats makes streets not quite as sinister somehow
While along jack-o-lanterened walks, white ghosts and goblins go

Wild shadows leap and lunge, toss trees, they screech and scratch and wail
Or so it seems; the wind, it screams and gives us good goose-bumps
Where dry leaves rattle like the bones of summer up for sale
The whole world is a haunted house full of hisses and thumps

…and it would be too scary to knock and say ‘trick or treat’  
(But mom or dad stands not too far away with watchful eye)
And soon flat sacks grow fat with loot sticky, salty and sweet
While overhead a host of phantom ghosts and witches fly

© Janet Martin

Monday, October 30, 2017

This Flight of Night and Day...

 
from Here in the Real WorldChasin' that Neon Rainbow  etc,to this one, The Older I Get
Interesting how an artist's writing and song choices change with the years:)
The older we get the more, not less, we start thinking about what's ahead
and what's important!!




This flight that leads to heights unfathomed grants another rung
Our senses tuned more meekly to It than when we were young
Thought’s scope of bold imagination turns a keener ken
To hope and soul salvation and mortality of men

It is a holy-fear-riled Thing; this breath-by-breath approach
Toward the Lord, where severing of skin and soul encroach
…and there is no escaping what will come and never pass
Love’s ultimatum shaping so much more than days of grass

No, no, don’t turn your head away and say it isn’t so
Our personal appointment date with God, ah, who can know?!
Don’t turn your heart from Him yet somehow think it will be well
Or slap each other’s backs and laugh and say ‘see you in hell’

Love does not leave us grasping blindly at some shrine engraved
Look at the cross, repent, believe and cursed soul will be saved
How awful is the thought of death and then The Judgement Day
If Unbelief, with final breath let’s heaven slip away

This flight of night and day is like a staircase through the stars
But laid beneath man’s bumbling breach on cradle-to-grave bars
And only by the grace of He who suffered Calvary
Are we prepared to not run scared when Mercy’s face we see

Holy, holy, someday we all will see Him, Love Sublime
From Righteous Wrath of He who bled on their behalf and died

How is it hope and dread are so intricately entwined
Souls clothed in blips of dust-to-dust will soon leave earth behind
As daily grind, heave-ho, yes-no slips through an Awesome Door
This flight of night and day folded into Forevermore

© Janet Martin




Saturday, October 28, 2017

Of Waning Leaf-applause



Sharing a few awesome autumn masterpieces captured
as I shuttle Daughter from music-lesson to driving-lesson to friend's house etc.
It's like driving through an art-gallery! 
Yes, even in the rain:)




The yard, a cardamom leaf-pond
The air a shawl of tears
The heart, awash with here and gone
Like ocean-pummeled piers

The salt of sorrow seasons joy
How bittersweet its taste
Where yester-hour’s girl and boy
Shoulders vectors of haste

The green that sprouted summer’s whoop
Is sere and silent now
Save for the wind that strums the stoop
That missed the mill somehow

The garden is asleep yet leaps
With blooms of yesterday
Where furrows fold but cannot keep
An echo-world at bay

The rawness of fall’s fond caress
Stirs Something stark and sure
Its surge of love and loneliness
Merges loss and allure

…where we are always on the verge
Of what will be, what was
Encapsulated in a splurge
Of waning leaf-applause

© Janet Martin

Feeling Fall







Nature’s nutmeg nuances titillate the naked eye
Cinnamon-ginger splashes scintillate declining leaf
Earth is a buffet laden with squash soup and pumpkin pie
Yum, yum we hum and savour autumn’s sighing stoop and sheaf

Posh pink and purple flowers cease; snuffed like starlight at dawn
Blossoms burn out and strew the ash of wonder’s seraph-hymn
The sash that binds the clash of earth and sky turns red and bronze
Before mulled hue of gray and blue culls color from the limb

The day turns dark at dinner now; the lights of home-sweet-home
Dot dusky streets like welcome beacons to work-weary throngs
The smell of supper mingled with wood-smoke evokes a poem
Stoked by echoes of childhood and time’s very present songs

Change moves its mouth against my ear; it whispers Wild Unknowns
And makes me taste more slowly the haste poured from Here to There
A wine fine-pressed of apples, grapes and pungent undertones
It steals my breath where life and death hang heavy on the air

How is it, farewell tugging hard on heart-strings, throbs and thrills
And drapes around our being a mantle of glorious grief
Want, torn between the weaning wind that veers and sobs, instills
With vexatious arousal, wild hunger and sweet relief

© Janet Martin






Friday, October 27, 2017

Sunrise

The path of the righteous is like the morning sun,
shining ever bright til the full light of day.
Prov.4:18

Glorious 'hellos' from the heavens this week!






Like a whisper in the welkin
Like a bow slid sweet and slow
On a violin of heavens
In a nocturne-crescendo
Like a giggle on the skyline
Like a candle in the dark
Like a light and shadow artist
Painting pictures on the park
Like a bud of rose unfolding
Into flower full of bloom
Like a blazoning of trumpet
Over earth’s mist-mantled room
After distant drum-roll prelude
On a deep, blue brooding stage
Like an opera-singer reaching
For the last note on the page
Like the apron of a matron
With a pocket spilling gold
Like the laughter from a heaven
That should be wrinkled and old
Like a medal for the runner
In the middle of a race
Like a kiss to seal God’s order
To extend love’s day of grace
Like a grand band euphonious
Like a royal wedding march
Like a hallelujah chorus
In a glorious vaulted arch
Like a masterpiece arrangement
On a coral music sheet
Like top-dollar entertainment
To a world-wide front-row seat
Charging nothing for the wonder
Of hope’s color-splendored Prize
Like pink cotton-candy thunder
Is the waking of the skies

© Janet Martin