Hello Again After An Unexpected Break!

Due to a power-surge a few days ago we were suddenly out of internet...
back on this morning after they figured out our router simply needs to be reset😊!
(reminded me if this 'chuckle')

This was the poem I was posting when the power-surge went through...

Early Morning Musing Whilst Dead-heading Flowers

Now the hour is a vendor and the flower is a sigh

As it scatters summer’s splendour where our footsteps hasten by

Stirring dust that softly settles leaving little to its name

Like the full bloom strews its petals and returns from whence it came

Now the moment metes the tempo in time’s unchained melody

Touch releases the memento that composes Memory

Love and longing compose lyrics for an audience of one

Vain to entertain hysterics for what cannot be undone

Now new day raises the curtain to earth’s awesome theater

Where nobody knows for certain what is about to occur

For this fling with fragile beauty kindles ire in a beast

Challenging the charge of Duty with fires of dreamer’s feast

Now the willing garden beckons like a poem without page

And the tiller of it reckons with the war before the wage

And the craving for sweet summer cannot satisfy its tooth

Where each twilight is a bummer where each blossom is a booth

Now the box that holds the presents we wished for on winter’s day

Unlocks a breath-stealing essence; Death stalking its primal prey

And the rose we hinged our hopes on startles us with thorny socks

Darling, so it goes, each season has both caress and hard knocks

Now the hour is a vendor, we, contenders of its stock

Born to become seasoned spenders on the circle of the clock

Where the Bud unfolds its pinion in a fugitive salute

Then falls prey to the Dominion that nobody can refute

© Janet Martin

Shameless No Apologies, Please...

 I had a few people tease me a little this week-end about how 

"oops, Janet's likely thinking of a poem!"

 It's strange but that is not really how this poem-thing works. 

At least, not as easily as I wish it would! 

The poem-press has a strange mechanics/mind of its own!

 but that being said,okay, it's fair...

my being teased that anything you say-do-are

 might be used in a poem!

So please accept my no-apologies! 😏

 It's back!! ...'the plush rush of a breeze that sounds like water-fall in trees...

Would you accept my modest ‘please?’

And shameless ‘no apologies’

For being drawn (both hand and heart)

By a palette of poem-art

By the plush rush of a breeze

That sounds like water-fall in trees

By the murmur of an afternoon

That always steals summer too soon

By how love’s walk-talk-grin-tease-wink

Keens commonness with poem-ink

By how nothing is quite as it seems

Where a world of near-poetry teems

And I am dearly blessed and cursed

By being want-of-word immersed

And yes…you, my dear, might kindly be

Immortalized in poetry

Because something you kindled stirred

The spark that strikes the poem-chord

And mustered from nothing at all

The music of a madrigal

Because (p-s-s-s-t, just between you and I)

A poem-well cannot run dry

As long as there are blooms and birds

And tots learning to pronounce words

And seasons stunning us with sheaves

Where we, torn twixt Time’s trusts and thieves

Learn to hold on while letting go

As long as there is sun on snow

Or stars on late-afternoon lakes

Or joy-bursts when we have what it takes

By the grace of God, to keep keeping on

As long as there is dusk and dawn

Or you and I, not yet sight-blind

Moved by moments soon left behind

Where an ocean of ages cries and laughs

With pages of unpenned paragraphs

I ask, will you accept my ‘please?’

And shameless no apologies

For attempting now and then

To snare star-surges in a pen

And ponder into poetry

A piece of what will never be

Again

© Janet Martin

To Hubby For Putting Up With A Poet-Wife

 PAD Challenge day 11: For today’s prompt, write a dedication poem.

I guess that I deserve the smirks, side-jokes, eye-rolls and such

They tell the unflattering truth without adjective’s touch

Since those green years of youth and all the ups and downs we’ve had

Quite unaware, I groomed the quirks that sometimes drive you mad

But even if I could I wouldn’t like it very much

To never need to find a rhyming word that ends in ‘uch’

The way I am is due, in part to features God-designed

The rest, I guess is creature-strength and weakness intertwined

And all the idiosyncrasies that make this poet thus

Are not exactly matters with much merit to discuss

So all I ask is for us to be more patient and kind

A person fifty-plus is hard to re-invent, I find

I love the way you say you love the way I, ‘my-oh-my!’

You put up with my craned-neck-stares at what you call The Sky

And even when you mutter ‘oh, no not again’, I know

You wouldn’t really change me (at least I tell myself so)

So, thank-you Hubby, you deserve a medal a mile high

For putting up with….oh, wow, look! A cloud, a tree, a…sigh

You say a four-line poem is a perfect work of art

But you have never held a poem-ocean in your heart

Or borne the dash of ether breakers crashing deep within

Or felt the whisper of an almost-poem brush your skin

So I will dedicate this poem to you, every part

And ask your kind indulgence from the bottom of my heart

© Janet Martin

Five-Foot-Three...

 Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be tall.

Especially when I'm stretching to snag something off the top kitchen-shelf with a wooden spoon😉

I was born five inches too short

To fulfill fantasy

Because the Good Lord saw it fit

To make me five foot three

So, though I need a stool to reach

The highest kitchen shelf

I’ll be as thankful as can be

Because I am myself

And though, foolishly, I admit

I sometimes envy those

Who always seem ‘the perfect fit’

For any style of clothes

I do not care to waste away

On wish-futility

But make the most of every day

That takes my five-foot three

…so when I think my height a curse

As some far shelf I rue

I’ll remember it could be worse

I could be five-foot-two

© Janet Martin

A Tribute to Coffee...

 Coffee can capture circular art wherever you set it!

Sometimes when I'm grinding coffee beans in the evening

 to set the coffee-maker for the morrow

I almost wish it was morning...it smells SO good!

 Today while kiddos napped I celebrated the last day of February 

with a sunny back-porch siesta/snooze!

I never can articulate

The secret of your brew

But nothing else exhilarates

My inner Me like you

Ah, you are morning’s perfect host

High noon’s hip-hip-hooray

With you I raise a twilight-toast

To salute end of day

A fit-for-all-occasions

Celebration in a cup

And when I go to bed at night

I can’t wait to wake up

© Janet Martin

Dessert Coffee; 1 strong, black fresh-brewed coffee
1 tbsp heavy cream
1 tbsp maple syrup (or more if you prefer sweeter)