Friday, November 30, 2018

One More November Poem...


This is the one time of year when hubby is RIDICULOUSLY optimistic!
"only 21 more days til they start getting longer again" he exulted tonight on the phone!
(for new readers, hubby is a truck-driver and gone most of the time)
Late mornings and early twilight make for a lot more driving in the dark so I don't blame him for being glad but I love November's sparsely-clad countrysides, sere sweeps  
and supper-hour's navy-brusque dusk!

This poem is a good-bye to Sweet November...


Who takes you by your brooding sigh
To usher you across the field
And through the line where earth and sky
No day-gone-by hath yet repealed?

Who, duty-sound and honor-bound
Must undertake the tender due
Of severing the ties that crowned
The countryside with brooding blue

Who draws ajar the star-hinged sphere
Who bestows your final good-byes
Who blows a kiss, who sheds a tear
Before midnight tolls your demise

© Janet Martin



One More November, Please

PAD Challenge day 30! Oh my, time flies when we're having poem-fun. 
Can't believe another Chapbook challenge is done!
For today’s prompt, take the phrase “One More (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “One More Time,” “One More Night,” or “One More Piece of Chocolate.” 
I hope you have one more poem in you.



I told the mom I babysit for the other day that Victoria and I feel November-ripped-off!
So much SNOW!
We always look forward to its bleak landscapes and shades of bronze, browns and smoky blues...
I'll take one more November, if you please???
(this photo was last year)



I’d take another one of you
To drink your ache of bronze and brown
To marvel at your modest gown
Your halo, sullen, smoky blue

I’d take one more; your robe of white
With all its sequins, stars and such
Feels far too cold beneath my touch
It doesn’t fit or feel quite right

I’d take you dressed in dreary gray
Bereft of leaf and field of flow’r
I’d revel in your barren bow’r
I’d dance your dreariness away

I’d paint your picture on my heart
A masterpiece of aftermath
Where autumn’s flame etches each path
In quaint and quiet works of art

I’d take one more November, please
And tell winter to wait its turn
While we trace frost-embellished fern
And dark, stark limbs of leafless trees

© Janet Martin



Worth its While (a simple little poem about a simple little poem)






This poem, modest at its best
Will never win a prize
But it is just a small hello
In a world full of good-byes

This verse is just a little hug
Across the miles and years
To touch you where you are, my love
And kiss away your tears

This poem is a sort of thanks
A kindly wish, a prayer
In case this is my final chance
To let you know I care

And if perhaps it fills your heart
With sunshine of a smile
Then this poem has done its part
To make it worth its while

© Janet Martin

From a Middle-aged Poet to Those Testing Deep Word-Waters




I am too old to be fooled by your lies
Though you dressed them in the best disguise
Of words that slip smooth from the tongue
And would have seduced me when I was young

I am too old to be caught off-guard
By the flattery of a wanna-be Bard
Where unchaste word-play is no longer enough
To convince me of matters as serious as Love

I am too old to unlearn well-set traits
I don't have the energy for scholastic debates
Forgive me if I seem antiquated because I rhyme
It is all too true, you can blame Father Time

I am too old to be bothered by years
Or the threat of youth as it disappears
I am not in your debt for an apology
If I am not impressed by your undressed vanity

I am too old to shrug off your mistakes
And I’ll always love you, no matter what it takes
Because someday you’ll look back (if my prayers come true)
To feel like a mother to poets like you

© Janet Martin


In Defense of Poets...




The winds of change cannot persuade
The poet to give up her trade
Nor can progress replace the charge
Of unwrit poems still at large

The noisy world of buy and sell
Can never satisfy or quell
The surge that sweeps the deeps that bend
With poems waiting to be penned

How quiet the silence would be
Without whispers of poetry
To test and tease with quest and yen
The mysteries inside a pen

© Janet Martin