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No day-gone-by hath yet repealed?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