Midnight Origami

The clock strikes twelve and folds away

What was today to yesterday

Oh, mystical origami

Where moments meld their filigree

And from tomorrow’s ether springs  

A new today unfolds its wings

The spending spree of ticking clocks

Does not buy time, but spills and locks

In mutual air, present to past

Surprising us with shadows cast

Along the bustling boulevard

Where dusk is like an old postcard

…and we with fingers clenched can’t keep

Today from history’s vast deep

Nor bar chimera's thoroughfare

Where a world of tomorrows stare

Like strangers through a frosted glass

Waiting their turn to come, to pass

…through midnight’s arc where yesterday

Steals and seals one more day away

While tomorrow becomes Today

There should be a great trembling sway

To think the ages shift, but no

Time spills its gift like

Softly

       falling

             flakes

                             of

                                       snow

© Janet Martin

As We Slow Down our Thought...

The noise has died away as daylight seeks its rest

The child forsakes his play, the bird returns to nest

As we slow down our thought where light is almost gone

Drawing the shade on one more day closer to That Last One

Silence becomes a hum save for the distant bark

Of dog baying at the full moon; or stragglers in the park

Reluctant to return behind closed doors to sleep

Knowing how soon the morning urges darkness to the deep

Duty is set aside; its toil must wait til dawn

The intimacy of ‘good-night’ beckons in every yawn

And yet, within the tug of slumber we resist

To fully taste the fading fringe of farewell’s purple mist

…where we laid bare our dreams and scattered laughter, tears

Now twilight folds into its ream the filament of years

The child is fast asleep, the little birdie too

We turn to see the slow release of deeper, deeper blue

Thought is a microscope where sound does not distract

The hush of night like Holy Ground vulnerable in black

But Hope is not deterred by colors of the air

How mightily the soul is stirred as we fill thought with prayer

© Janet Martin

Rebelling a Little...in mind only

The poetry of rain-song twists the air into a sigh

Where rush of eighteen-wheelers and mute moments hurry by

We cannot halt the rubric of Time’s customary mien

Of twilight over afternoon or tick-tock tambourine

Over archaic skylines dawn to midnight disappears

Face it my darling, we can never be immune to years

Subtle-soft, the hand of time strums laugh-lines where the curve

Of youth and ignorance rendered its innocence and verve

…and we could sprawl like children with our feet upon a cloud

But accruement of knowledge, love, has made us stiff and proud

And so, sedately we impose upon rain-riddled deep

A paragraph of proper prose before we go to sleep

But if we were carefree, my love, then you and I would go

And wander out among the stars like urchins through the snow

…firm attribute of middle-age exploits its faculty

We pause for one more second glance into night’s poetry

© Janet Martin

Something about the rush of an eighteen-wheeler rumbling by in the dark rain sparked...something...while I was drinking my middle-aged tea and headed for a middle-aged bedtime to read a middle-aged book;)

Almost Midnight

The hour is threadbare now and still

The moon a wraith o’er timbered hill

And where not very long ago

Dusk scrawled blue shadows on the snow

Now everything is dark and deep

Where all but waifs and poets sleep

…and what was new this very day

Seals in time’s grave its gold and gray

The air is rife with quietness

Almost midnight; that winsome tress

Where today pauses; sweet and strange

While clocks perform a swift exchange

...as today turns to Yesterday

And Tomorrow is now Today

The old refurbished, fresh and keen

Morning's slate waits, unmarked and clean

The clock strikes twelve, no grand applause

As all that is slips to what was

© Janet Martin

March Midnight

Cold darkness drips where daylight slips

To past’s infinity

The deepening of dusk’s offspring

Obliterates earth’s lea

How restless seems a dreamer’s dreams

Eager for spring’s respite

Yet cannot leap beyond the deep

Of March’s mute midnight

It probes the tears for vanished years

Searching from star to star

The tenderness of youthfulness

A shadow faint and far

Where longing is the ecstasy

Of things once held, then lost

And having is the agony

Of suffering love’s cost

The brook that sings where summer flings

Her leaf upon its sweep

Will stilly slip from winter’s grip

To tune the midnight deep

Its gypsy wind croons wild yet kind

Harmless, but I am told

It whirls and twirls our little girls

Across childhood’s threshold

The unclad arch of midnight March

Sighs for spring’s softer sash

Yet we are torn twixt it and morn

Where thief and thinker clash

As give and take of moments break

Across a phantom beach

And one more day is brushed away

To ports beyond our reach

© Janet Martin

Our 'baby' turns thirteen tomorrow ! oh my...

Sound of Midnight~

Sound of midnight fills the sky

Satin-opaque lullaby

Wind-song, vagrant and footloose

Slipping from moon-spangled noose

To ramble night’s argent hall

Spreading silence like a shawl

Save for sighing evergreen

Waving its four-season sheen

As fresh moments fall away

Jetty on ebony quay

Smooth and still its sonnets spill

Moon-halo, opiate trill

Tempest torn from its rampart

Waging, raging in the heart

And the air, tattooed with dark

Petrifies the snowflake spark

Amplifying somber hush

As a thousand echoes rush

Where sound of midnight fills the deep

And we would miss if fast asleep

J~

Now Drifts the Dirge of Dusk's Defeat...

Now drifts the dirge of dusk’s defeat

Across the surge of silver sea

A madrigal, somnolent, sweet

Clenching, wrenching the heart of me

The winnowing of zephyr-zest

In subtle, season-serenade

Gathers diurnal hours to rest

Muting daylight’s dulcet aubade

Gladness and sadness intertwine

A raw and riveting requiem

Drips from the honeysuckle vine

Stripped of its hazy summer dream

Where is the Maestro of the throng

Composing anthems overhead

Of sun and star-spun moment-song

As my glass slipper turns to lead?

Yet, I am drawn into this trance

Of love-and-mercy-meted grace

Beneath dusk’s drifting dirge I dance

And reach to touch the Maestro’s face

© Janet Martin

Of Beggar and King...

On such a night as this I should be glad

And so I am; but love can be so cruel

As solitude unravels from a spool

Where memories both thrill and make me sad…

The want of what is not could drive me mad

On such a night as this thought is a thief

Stealing from garden’s of repose, its bloom

I hold it to my cheek; thought can’t exhume

What Time has buried in its swollen sheaf

We gather but to yield love’s joy and grief

On such a night I would not change a thing

For dearer than love’s smile must be its tear

And Time is but the tenure of a year

Where no one is immune to its keen sting

Of being both a beggar and a king

 Janet Martin

Midnight... A Sonnet

Into the argent aftermath of Time

The fringes of this little day dissolve

And still the moments muster brave resolve

Dauntless they tumble from mute midnight’s clime

Where diamond daisies strew its meadowland

In regions boundless and unfathomed; vast

There is no future nor present and past

No seasons shifting this galactic strand

But here the moment-flow of hours rush

Illusive surge; weightless consuming force

Skimming earth’s canvas with a subtle brush

Youth slows beneath its ethereal discourse

Of fine-spun gossamer and evening blush

We are the Riders on a restless horse

The spinning-wheel of moments will not still

The Master-weaver is in full command

While baby drifts through fantasy’s dreamland
 And midnight blots from view the distant hill

The hour does not pause when it is full

Each year bleeds seamlessly into the next

Toward the unveiling of its pretext

Beneath this vapid seed and harvest hull

Where the postlude of mortal moment flows

Relentless in its joy and sorrow surge

Whispered in breezes where the bracken blows

And willows weep an everlasting dirge

The spinning-wheel of moments never slows

Until past-present-future will converge

But onward now toward our dreams we ride

Life’s vim is not restrained by reigns of Time

And happiness is not a thing sublime

Withheld until we reach the other Side

Against Time’s restless horse we kick our heels

Midnight echoes the pounding of its feet

The dust settles in memories bittersweet

We close our eyes and view its phantoms reels

And now the midnight rouses keen resolve

To cherish carefully our measured lot

Smooth, the consumption of its breaths dissolve

And soon today is but an afterthought

Where legacies of our loves evolve

The Rider and the Horse will soon be caught

© Janet Martin