According to the Measure of our Desire...

We can always have as much of God as we want.

He never short-changes

Or ignores

When He closes windows

He opens door

He never leaves us

Or forsakes

And He always has more grace

Than it takes

He never denies us

Access to His throne

And He sees us even

When we think we’re alone

He is a spark

Or a roaring fire

It simply depends

How much of Him we desire…

© Janet Martin

Lunar Lover

Tonight I want to allow you to take me

I no longer care to resist

Desire out-weighing my common senses

Wrap me in your body of mist

Tonight I need more than blue-moon endearment

Whispered through my window-pane

I need to mangle the hem of your raiment

 Barter with pleasure and pain

Tonight believing requires touch, seeing

Translucent; you taunt, I beseech

For all I can feel is the sense of your being

Are kisses that I cannot reach

© Janet Martin

It Seems...

Darling,

Are we the only ones

Apart tonight?

Darkness; it seems to amplify

Desire’s appetite

Oh, darling

I know I tell you

We are together far apart

But tonight it seems

I miss you

And I cannot

Deceive

My heart

Longing; it seems to conceive

Proportions of its own

And tonight it is not enough

To be together

All alone

For tonight I need to touch you

Yet, what is touch in the end?

But skin against skin; without you

Love, loss and longing blend

And perhaps all I really need

Is the junction of our thought

Brushing softly, tenderly

Over all it seems, is not

While I repeat

Dull poetry into the frozen air

Because it seems

That I am here

And you, well you

Are

There

But, darling

It seems grievously
Inadequate

This thought

Of

Blue

Sometimes it seems

Darkness ignites

My

Want

Of

You

J~

Collaboration of Contrasts

Truth does not change

Earth surrenders each season

Night fills the hollow of deepening blue

I cannot arrange

Love’s tempestuous reason

Longing still follows the having of you

The more that I love you

The deeper I hunger

The deeper I hunger the fuller I love

Mysterious paradox

Driving me onward

Searching for something I know nothing of

Out in the shadows

The poplar trees shiver

Here in the quiet of autumn’s midnight

Symmetrical contrasts

Collaborate, quiver

In bittersweet torment and tender delight

© Janet Martin

Vessel...a Morning Prayer

Lord,

Of all my dreams and my ambitions

Be they virtuous or grand

Let me desire most of all

To be a vessel in your hands

In all my gains and all my losses

May I ever bear in mind

That it is beneath life’s crosses

That your tender strength I find

Through life’s footfalls and its follies

When despair seeks to prevail

Let me cling to heaven’s promises

Of A Love that will not fail

Lord,

This is the day you’ve made

As its moments sweep time’s sand

Let me desire most of all

To be a vessel in your hands

© Janet Martin

Meek Obsessions

Oh God, awake in me today

A new and keen obsession

To serve you in the subtle sway

Of moments as they hasten

You seek, not glamorous success

Nor well-worded intention

But humble hearts of thankfulness

And meek, faithful submission

God, let my employment to you

Be more than long lip-measure

Teach me to seek the will of you

In love’s unfaltering treasure

The dust that shapes ephemeral skin

May form mortal assumption

But God, you know the heart within

Its passion and corruption

Oh God, awake in me today

A new and holy fire

To serve you in each smallest way

With reverent desire

© Janet Martin

Stirred by these words I read this morning...

Of Pinnacles and Passion

Are you disappointed?

He gazed tenderly

Into her eyes

Where first they met

Last night

In a dream

Are you disappointed?

He thought she had not heard

So her arms wrapped

Around his neck

And she replied

Without a word

J~

Intangible Obsessions

The intangible obsessions of the mind

Grasp at the tenure of time’s thinning air

There is nothing in its filament we find

To soothe our anguish, longing or despair

To want is but to waste our granted lot

A trampling of life’s bloom into the dust

How bitter is the gall of selfish thought

As we consume the draught of tainted lust

To pant and chase the fathoms of the wind

Is but to clutch the fabric of a sigh

The intangible obsessions of the mind

Are boundless as the reaches of the sky

To open wide the eye within our thought

To see what grace and love and life have lent

Will stir us to desire what we’ve got

And fill the void of futile discontent

© Janet Martin

Torn

I am like a young child, torn
Twixt impulse and obeying
Desire throbs upon the morn
With duty ever preying

The stalwart lupine tugs my gaze
Scattering my wishes
I am torn by summer’s ways
And stacks of dirty dishes

Laundry baskets weight my arms
I sense the charted hours
But life is short, the sun is warm
And fields are bright with flowers

Am I to tread the rigid line
Controlled by austere duty
While morning zephyrs tease the vine
Of summer’s rampant beauty?

Too soon the eye of June grows dull
And faded is its flower
Laundry hampers will be full
Long after summer’s hour

I am like a young child, torn
Two voices taunt my reason
Duty wakes with every morn
But summer for a season

Janet~

Some Days

On some days the hands that I hold are enough
I’m grateful through and through
Complete, complete in a moment of love…
…but on some days I wish it was you

On some days love is lithesome and fair
The sky is perfect blue
On some days I become keenly aware…
…that on some days I wish it was you


J~

Desire.....

I would like to tell you what I’m thinking
There’s so much that I would like to say
I’d like to walk with you in this fair evening
But darling, you are just too far way

I’d like to see the way the moonlight glances
Off your face where tender memories sway
I’d like to see the way the night enhances
You; but you are just too far away

I’d like to tell you with my touches
The things that my two lips can never say
But my dear I’ve come to know that such is
Love; for you are just too far away

I would like to tell you what I’m thinking
With your heartbeat needing what I say
I would like to be with you this evening
But my darling, you’re too far away

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin