Dust-dancers

How swift Time’s moment-must

Draws timid feet to dance

The courtship of its fickle dust

A strange, fleeting romance

How smooth morrow ensues

What soon is yesterday

Foolish, the dreamer that pursues

What tick-tock tugs away

How amateur we are

Even experience

Is but a wily harbinger

Of untried ‘whence-to-thence’

Thus, in this little place

Of live-laugh-love-and-learn

We should anoint this dust with grace

For there is no return

…to its brief Before Death

Then God’s eternity

Come darling, steal my very breath

Ere time steals it from me

© Janet Martin

When You Dance With the Devil

This week's Wikem

 renowned for his brilliance, guile, and versatility...

Renowned for his brilliance, guile, and versatility

I should have kept my guard in place

And never let him kiss my face

In such a cunning bliss

At all

Renowned for his brilliance, guile, and versatility

I should have known in advance

That I didn’t stand a chance

And when you dance with the devil

You fall

© Janet Martin

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Pet. 5:8

The Dance We Had...

I love you, time’s smooth sally        Unveiling moment-spheres

Since our farewell cannot unchain  The heart from yester-years

     Its wherefore and its therefore    Flowers, then falls away

   Where thought is like a wanderer        In fields of yesterday

    The banquet-hall of Bygone  Echoes with phantom cheers

   Where tender-sweet remembering  Kisses the cheek

with tears        …and I will always love you

Thus I am sweetly sad  Not because

   Past becomes us   But for

the dance we

 had

Janet~

                                                            

Dance Card

Today I want to touch with gentle hands

Life's music written where I cannot see

The composition of a sweet, slow dance

Unraveling in moment-melody

The names and faces on this card are blurred

With ease Time’s Unknown glides across the air

Like midnight, often far more felt than heard

I sense her whispers running through my hair

Love’s live-laugh-loving lilt, its hold-let-go,

Its intermingling of gritty and grand

Of whirling, twirling wonderment and woe

Oh, let me trace each line with gentle hand

Hope places purpose in each daring step

Where faith and fear approach to take my arm

And often I am torn between the grip

Of precious peace and breath-stealing alarm

But oh, today I want to touch Time’s curve

With gentle hand, enjoy its offering

For this slow dance is more than I deserve

And darling, I don’t want to miss a thing

© Janet Martin

Dawn's Dance-card

Come, oh my love, the sea of night recedes from ether beach

Its smattering of star and half-smile moon caught on its crest

As morning quells blue lullaby and beckons us to reach

To take her hand proffered, drawing us to living’s test

The feather-tree outside our winter-pane is in full-bloom

And I would be inclined to brush away its frigid sheaf

But we cannot haste moments nor their tasted drop exhume

In time, in God’s good time the limb will don spring’s lacy leaf

Come, oh my love, for who can tell what wafts upon the wing

Of silver-gray teasing the fainter shadows from yon sphere

I cannot bear to walk alone life’s sacred suffering

‘Tis easier to dance with your half-sigh against my ear

The willingness of clock caress compels us not to sleep

Already we can see the first-fruits of fair morning fade

‘T’would be a pity love, to miss what we can never keep

By slumbering through wide-flung frames of memories unmade

Someday perhaps when Duty-reins soften their rigid stance

Then you and I will sleep ‘til noon if we are so inclined

But until then, oh, come my love, we dare not miss the chance

To dance upon an hour soon, too soon left far behind…

© Janet Martin

We Write is sharing this video today...ah yes, let's dance to the music God gives us! Let it get caught in our toes and carry us...where? Who knows? Meanwhile, Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee!

Let's Dance

 

All flesh is as the grass

And man is as its flower

We pass this way but once, my love

Let’s fully taste each hour

The bud that spills the rose

Soon renders its romance

My love, the imminence of death

Inspires us to dance

Sweet summer scrawls its sigh

Across the hazy slope

And oh, my love, I sense its haste

Beneath this sun-spun hope

Ah, morning noon and night

How seamlessly you pass

Let’s take this chance to dance, my love

For flesh is as the grass

© Janet Martin

Save the Last Dance For Me

Doggerel Dance

 

Free, fluent motion

Smooth serenade-swirl

He, macho matador

She, just a girl

Suavely he lures her

Vows melt in her clutch

She covets his candor

He covets her touch

Sashay, slow and sultry

Of glance meeting glance

Sweet, sizzling circle

Tempestuous dance

Vortex of longing

Unravels and slips

He rushes toward her

She brushes his lips

Dangerous desire

Urgency implores

The cape falls beneath him

Somewhere the crowd roars

Apex of surrender

 Two shadows entwined

This is the tango

Of Muse and the mind

© Janet Martin

Poetry Jam invites us to Poetry of Dance

Image Source

Tug-of-war Tango

Oh, quell this eager, effervescent surge

Kissing my mouth while subtly it steals

Rending my heart while tenderly it heals

Author of love song, lullaby and dirge

Oh still the rampage of this ruthless stream

Luring the child from mother’s pleading eye

Yet, she has prayed her young-ling learns to fly

She will not snuff the splendor of a dream

Oh, quench the fount of moment-melody

May I have one more dance; curve melding curve?

Yet, one half-step is more than I deserve

Passion and pain align intricately

Oh, hold me close, for I cannot resist

The imminence of what is yet to be

And love is such a precious agony

Twixt farewell tears and waiting to be kissed

Oh tease me, tease me not, hold me, let go

I cannot bear, yet must endure its ploy

Of bitter-sweetest misery and joy

Wrought by the tempo of life's moment-flow

© Janet Martin

Waterfall- Jon Schmidt

Triumphs of a Moment

Image Source: pinterest

Can our arms embrace a memory?

Can they reach into the past

And retrieve a tender moment

Where its shadow long is cast?

Can lips whisper into being

What has slipped beyond the blue

Where the murmur of the night-wind

Rouses tear-framed thoughts of you?

Can we have within our holding

More than half-breaths as they slip

In vexation, melting softly

Like a snowflake on the lip?

There's no fulfillment in a shadow

Misery and mercy ache

In the vanquishment of moments

And the memories they make

Can our arms embrace the echo

As it drifts from down-cast skies?

...oh, it’s almost like we’re dancing

But I cannot find your eyes

© Janet Martin~

Of 'Hopeless Semantic' Scribbles...

and yes, I'm a hopeless romantic too;))
(have you done this? I know I have; not with a camera but while I wait on my daughters at the mall)

It was meant to be

my relationship with you

vowels, consonants

woven into

a whimsical wish

or a beautiful dance

of passion, desire

and romance

Of wisdom, surrender

of fantasy

and oh, darling

of endless possibility

 Janet Martin

Of Muddles and Music...

Dance through the muddle of life

For oh, when the music stops

You’ll wish for the tune of clattering spoon

The music of messes and mops

Sing through the muddle of life

For oh, when the house is still

How oft we will hear the music drift near

The way that a memory will

Laugh through the muddle of life

For oh, life is too short to fret

And we do not care to fill its brief share

With days we would rather forget

Love through the muddle of life

For oh, if we choose to wait

For the perfect time and the perfect rhyme

Well then, it might be too late

© Janet Martin

Sometimes when its ‘teen-age noisy, messy’ I need to remind myself of this! And dance, sing, laugh, love.

...As We Dance

Darling, oh come and dance with me

For time offers no guarantee

Today will soon be yesterday

And that’s how lifetimes slip away

See how fleet years of painted hope

Whisper upon the purple slope

Feel the breath-kiss of moments pass

A murmur on time’s trampled grass

Darling, how can we bear to waste

Love-moments as they glide in haste

Across the ball-room of the earth

Where seasons spill their meager mirth?

The cold wind broods upon the stones

In blue and moody undertones

The blush of youth, the crown of age

Will settle ‘neath time’s silver sage

Longing and loss and love impart

Their want in oceans of the heart

Fulfillment is a mystic glance

Bestowed in moments as we dance

© Janet Martin

Save the last dance for me...J~

Beautiful Dance

You come to me gently

Yet with purposed intention

I covet your candor

And fear your perception

But as you embrace me

I do not refuse

Your kiss to my hunger

An invisible noose

You crease every silence

With naught but your stare

I close my eyes darling,

Yet, I know you are there

I wait for your whisper

You tenderly taunt

For you know you are master

Of my infinite want

Sensuous sorrow

Benevolent bliss

Darling, I never

Have danced quite like this

Oh, how you move me

In pure passion stirred

Beautiful dance

Of the Muse and the word

© Janet Martin