― Anaïs Nin
Thursday, April 19, 2012
We Write...
― Anaïs Nin
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Off the Cuff #3
http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2011/12/thttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhursday-think-tank-78-off-cuff.html
Focus, she commanded
And tapped my head sharply with her pointer stick
I stared at the numbers blankly
And composed an answer, double-quick
How could I make her understand
My senses were merely blurred
By the alluring, blissful enchantment
Of this beautiful thing called a word?
Janet~
Off the Cuff #2
http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2011/12/thursday-think-tank-78-off-cuff.htmlhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Oh, yes they are free
They don’t cost you a dime
All they take from you
Is a small thing known as Time
Oh, yes they are free
This torturous chain
Of consonants and vowels
Life’s most pleasing pain
So if they should taunt
Grab them by their guile
And turn them into
Your personal style
Janet
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Soul-song
http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2011/12/think-tank-thursday.html
If you listen
Well, I guess that
You won’t hear a thing
It’s another kind
Of language
Caught in whispers
Deep within
And I can feel my heartbeat
In a tender sort of pain
Its timbre, blue and bitter-sweet
Yet, warm as summer rain
I feel it rise within me
In a sweeping melody
As its tenure rushes through me
Like a storm on midnight’s sea
For its whisper is an ocean
Yet its ocean but a sigh
And its lone proof of existence
Is a teardrop in my eye
If you listen closely
Well, you still won’t hear a thing
But I can hear it clearly
In a montage deep within
Its lips upon my memory
And its voice against each breath
Its notes a sudden longing
And an aching in my chest
Not a flicker, not a murmur
Not a single, tiny trace
Of the orchestra within me
But the half-smile on my face
J~
Thursday, September 29, 2011
No 'Free' in Freedom...
Somberly, up the quiet tree-lined street
The steady stream of solemn ranks are led,
As sun-beams dance to the drummer’s beat
Filtering through the branches overhead
Beyond the tears and past the trees
The music of a small child’s laughter swells
Stark contrast to the infantry
Bowing ‘neath the tolling of the bells
Then, as the bag-pipe sound exalts
The melody of sweet Amazing Grace
The banner-covered coffin halts
For it has reached its final resting place
The last note fades, the cannon flies
Echoing across a distant shore
But none as stirring as the mother’s cries
“There’s no ‘free’ in freedom anymore
Put down your banners, lay down your guns
My sweet baby boy has died
Tributes, salutes, many battles won
Won’t bring him back” she cried
“Take away all the roses for nothing will be
Like it ever was before
The price of freedom is too hard for me
There’s no ‘free’ in freedom anymore”
Freedom (part two)
Up the rocky skull-strewn trail
A teaming, screaming throng of hatred surged
Swarming ‘round a form so pale
Upon a place called Calvary they converged
Beyond the tumult, wild and raging
Not a solitary friend is found
Stark contrast to the shouts and praising
As the palm-tree branches decked the ground
Then as the sound of steel on steel
Rings beyond the horror on the hill
As they drive in each cruel nail
‘Gainst the cries of ‘Father, not My will’
And as they raise the blood-stained cross
In victory the maddened thousands roar
As Mary weeps her deepest loss
“There’s no ‘free’ in freedom anymore
Take away your hammers, lay down your swords
My dear precious son has died”
As the lightning flashed and the thunder roared
There at His feet she cried
“Take away all your hatred, your jeers and chanting
For you have slain my Lord
Take away all your weapons, your raging and ranting
There’s no ‘free’ in freedom anymore”
There’s no ‘free’ in freedom, oh what a price
So that we may be set free
There’s no ‘free’ in freedom, love's sacrifice
Is beyond understanding for me
There’s no ‘free’ in freedom, let us value each day
And cherish each living breath
Oh, what a price someone needs to pay
For the cost of freedom is death
Janet Martin
A comment on the previous poem caused me to dig into the archives.
Suddenly I'm thinking of the cost of freedom...
Somebody's Love (another 'red' poem)
He loved his mom’s apple strudel
His eyes were kind and blue
He loved a girl named Caroline
And oh, she loved him too
They were going to be married
As soon as the war was done
And maybe if they were lucky
Someday they would have a son
He always loved to play football
Was the high school quarter-back
He didn’t play for a medal
Just played for the love of it
He had a collie named Rover
Best pals, the two of them
Now Rover whimpers every night
Wondering what's taking so long
He was a generous fellow
Walking the second mile
When other were inclined to say no
He offered, with a smile
But nobody knows his attributes
As he lies in the crimson snow
They’ve come to gather the fallen dead
Here lies another John Doe
Beneath each cross in Flanders’ Field
Beneath the sound of a gun
Beneath the weapon or the shield
Is somebody's precious son
Beneath the watchful eye above
The bloodied fallen lie
Oh, pray for they are somebody’s love
For you and yours they die
Janet~
'son' is a generic term here
We pray for all the sons and daughters!
Red is for poppies and rivers of blood.
Red is for freedom.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Ode to a Rainy Eve
The cold rain hastes the ending of a day
The dark pine moans within its weeping knell
The landscape dims in folds of cobalt-gray
Beneath the tolling of the evening bell
The absence of the lusty cricket choir
Magnifies the musky sense of gloom
Hovering o’er the garden’s silent bower
Heavy with the parting of its bloom
Now fades the sky-line in the gathering eve
And now the dark and daylight intertwine
Until the dark prevails; light slips beneath
The edge of dusk on the horizon line
The night lies dormant in this solitude
Save for the leaf clinging with muted breath
To sodden arm of birch or maple wood
Before it sleeps in cradles of the earth
The cold rain hastes the ending of the day
Profluent sonnet drifting o’er the lee
As remnant sighs of summer slip away
To grace the silent shores of memory
Janet Martin
This is another rain poem I posted recently...
The rain stirs my muse,
I love the rain:)