Showing posts with label poet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poet. Show all posts

Saturday, December 9, 2023

Sweet Saturday-morning Skirmish (between Poet and Prudence)



This daily/weekly Saturday morning tango is blissfully
unfamiliar to some, yet, I wouldn't trade it for a world of shiny
'ballroom' floors, as much as I dearly admire and strive to acquire
  brief glossy-floor bliss once in a while!
I try to balance ballads, oops I mean battles
with a bit of both poem and prudence. ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜…๐Ÿ’–

This beautiful battleground is composed of longing to linger on pages 
of past poets/artists



or tackling present responsibilities like prepping for Christmas!
Today's task; homemade chocolate bars



In the above recipe to clarify amounts;
 approx. 8-9 cups rice krispies, 2 cups peanuts and 11/2 cups coconut.)

Sometimes the battle is a toss-up between
pausing without pressure to percolate in the pure pleasure
of God's poetry in every season...

Whether gray...


...or gold!



...or vacuuming and fussing over delightful details
because Victoria is having friends 
over for a Christmas party this weekend!


Sweet Saturday Skirmish๐Ÿ’“๐Ÿ’“๐Ÿ’“

Coffee pot beams with Columbian brew; ready/drained with of extra refills



Coffee pot beams with Columbian brew; ready with extra refills
Duty and Dream dance, a skippety-do; Poet and Prudence clash wills
Wonder is waiting with gifts still unfurled, often where we least suppose
Dawn is deflating night’s slumbering world with a sky full of hellos

Tuning spent ages with notes rearranged in compositions brand new
Learning’s lent pages divinely exchanged by He who loves me and you
Fueling reason with thankful reply for mercy’s replenished fount
Every season chock-full of surprises, too prolific to count

…thus, in the matter of work-to-do lists versus perhaps-poetry
Always a Saturday morning untwists two worlds that cannot agree
One (but a guess) a shining specimen of domestic excellence
One, happiness, pressed like wine from a pen never drained of Imminence

….coffee-pot beams with Columbian prose; ready with refills galore
Poet and Prudence tango, nose to nose ‘cross Saturday’s ballroom-floor
Weathering whispers that spar between ink and plain practicality
Untethering silver rivers that wink into….oh, which will it be

© Janet Martin


And hopefully this is my/our daily prayer;
'So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do,
do it all for the glory of God.
1 Cor.10;31

Saturday, September 9, 2023

A Little Ink Reminder...



Life/love is poetry
waiting to be written...




Some days poem-possibility is like fruit, ripe for harvest and preserving,


...other days require (soul)-searching!

Ps.139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.

...but every poet does well to remember Who bestows the ink
then, to be diligent and conscientious in our reply!

***
The troubles of this world could drain the poet’s pen of verse
Its weight of care could crush the lyric-spring within the heart
But what doth it profit a man to clench a fist and curse
When all it takes is each of us to do our willing part
To make this world a kinder place for our fellowman
To help each other weather trouble’s trouble while we can

The poet’s charge is more than ink-caper to paper pressed
But rather, an attempt to keep us wonderfully awed
A page can capture beauty, like a cloud by pink caressed
To replay when the day grows dark and we start to doubt God
Poetry preserves pictures long after seasons have set
So we remember tinctures we might otherwise forget

…the laughter after it has passed, the once-upon-childhood
Before the way time flies teaches the fledgling how to fly
It gentles bitter aftermath of love misunderstood
As the whisper of God compels the poet to reply
And rally us to be more humbly glad for me-‘n-you
Remembering who we will answer to when life is through

The trouble of this world will always be; the poet knows
The pen is mightier than sword; font is a holy thing
For the sacred longevity of written word bestows
Accountability for all touched by its rendering
Thus, before thought entrusts its erring tendencies to ink
The poet ought to ask the Author of Love how to think

The troubles of this world could drain the poet’s pen of rhyme
Its weight of care could crush the raring rush to write and write
Without the One whose replenishes joy, time after time
And overflows the wellspring of the heart with sheer delight
To share without exception, every hymn that frets to spill
And follow the direction of the Hand that lets the quill

...where the trouble that groans is never greater than His grace
Though pleasure/measure of a poem cannot erase creature-care
Like a soft kiss upon the cheek, a handshake or embrace
A poem can kindle a smile, a tear, a song, a prayer
To cheer each other on with kindness and humility
A little ink-reminder of God, spilled in poetry  

© Janet Martin

Happy September Saturday!






Thursday, March 16, 2023

Poet's Tea

 




You may feast
on information
Theory,
theology
scientific explanation
hypothesis,
philosophy
I prefer
to sup on sips
Of ink
teased into
poetry

I prefer
the art
Of heart-shaped
Hopes
and Nope’s sting
reconciled
By possibility
Still waiting,
for ink-oceans
to run
wild

© Janet Martin



Thursday, January 19, 2023

Rekindled Delight

 


Across a landscape ethereal
And not yet tamed by time
To journeymen of syllable
Unfurls a world of rhyme
And stars that poets climb

Sometimes knowledge alone is cursed
And deaf to the wild sound
That plagues the lowly bard with thirst
For wisdom not yet found
And lyrics still unbound

How ephemeral is the gate
That swings softly ajar
To usher through glimmers that bait
Poems that not yet are
Save in one fallen star

…snared on a shimmer of surprise
To thwart the stinging bite
Of words cut down to arrow size
To spur the songsters flight
In rekindled delight

The bull's eye of a poet's heart
Weathers many-a-test
Long suffering is worth the art 
And hunger worth the quest
Of sorrow at its best

© Janet Martin

Friday, December 30, 2022

The Poet's Yoke

 




A waltz with words that waft and twirl across a ballroom floor
The laughter of a little girl drifting from worlds of yore
A sense of imminence immersed in steadfast, common care
Of workaday and bills to pay and suppers to prepare

A sentimental ballad slipping through matters of fact
The art of bearing verses while keeping faรงade intact
And balancing the beckoning of worlds in want of ink
With sensible responses like cleaning the kitchen sink

To siphon from life’s thrum the rolling of a sort of sea
Rife with glints of spent summer and tomorrow’s mystery
Requires tireless patience while panning for lilt and rhyme
(This is not for the faint of heart, the art stealing time)

The poet’s yoke is made of air yet weighs a whisper-ton
With lyrics waiting to be snared and tamed and poem-spun
From brooding skies and sparkling eyes, from goodbyes and hellos
Each day unfurls a paradise of poems to compose

The merchant laughs and stuffs the chaff of trade into his sack
The maiden blushes; hopes he looks while she is looking back
The traffic rushes, the rain hisses underneath each wheel
The poet smiles and gathers manna for another meal

The poet's yoke is lily-soft yet claws the cloak of souls
With merciless persistence because always death's bell tolls
And who knows when the pen may fall prey to its solemn chime 
As the poet turns to behold the Giver of the rhyme 
 
Oh, pray they serve with honor the onus of pen and page
Because the life of written word survives from age to age
And who knows who will pause to read the stuff of wrangled ink
Therefore, the yoke should weigh enough to make the poet think

© Janet Martin

Okay, that's all for today, folks!
Wow! and maybe this year!
 Depends how tomorrow goes!
With much love, 
Janet

Wishing for us all, for 2023
 a fresh awareness of God
and a deeper reverence for Him,
 from whom all blessings flow


Monday, November 14, 2022

Quest of the Poet



Last week as I walked through a parking lot this leaf landed at my feet.
so, I picked it up...


It inspired the first stanza of this poem.

To pick up fallen leaves and press them into summertime
To woo from echo-sheaves, a few mementos, into rhyme
To enrich Ordinary with the wealthiness of less
Where lyrics of God’s glory author hope and happiness

To siphon from life’s ups and downs, keepsakes of common ground
To mend and dazzle heart shaped cups with treasures that confound
To showcase living’s simple joys with meek and thankful awe
To marvel at the patient poise of nature’s steadfast law

To thwart the sting and blight of biting words with beauty’s kiss
Life is too short to slight the sweep of so much we might miss
To cheer the wage of weariness with wonder to behold
Tendered to page through tears and tests of longing etched with gold

To leave unpenned the vile and vulgar, the boorish and base
But rather, weave a sense of smiles and friendship in its place
To hoist with holy feeling, love’s banners unfurled in font
And be a voice of healing in a broken world of want

To meet each other, heart to heart, through art of ink-finesse
Though ever face to face apart, together nonetheless
To find a diamond in the ruffled feathers of a thought
To bind the weathered wounds of love with blue forget-me-not

To will the jot and tittle of Becoming into bloom
And spill a little sunshine to a shadow-darkened room
To cast a glim of gladness into sadness that must be
And melt away brute madness with the torch of poetry

To lavish parchment pallor with the splendor of mid-June
And whisper to full color gray November’s afternoon
To coax a spark from embers of a dying place in time
And turn what one remembers into legacies of rhyme

© Janet Martin



Yesterday we woke to winter's wonderland!
Today the sun is doing its best to make it disappear

...before the next forecasted flurry!


Thursday, November 10, 2022

Tug of Ink


PAD Challenge day 10: For today's prompt, write a struggle poem.

To board dawn's gleaming barge
While seasons ebb and flow...



To know when to say ‘yes’
To know when to say ‘no’
To hold to hope and happiness
Amidst love’s letting go

So much to touch and kiss
So much that used to be
So much to balance with the bliss
Of unpenned poetry

Today is always new
Immune it seems, to age
Let’s never grow too old to woo
Its poetry to page

Let’s slow dance, cheek to cheek
What is to be will be
Enough, my love to learn to speak
In tongues of poetry

Let the masses deploy
Long ladders to success
Enough, my love, to feast on joy
Of poem happiness

To press past the faรงade
Of front-line highs and lows
And to feel the *pleasure of God
In poems to compose

To board dawn’s gleaming barge
While seasons ebb and flow
To stay true to the humble charge
Of life’s ink undertow

© Janet Martin

"When I run, I feel God's pleasure" Eric Liddell


Acts 17:28
‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ 
As some of your own poets have said,
 ‘We are his offspring.’

Monday, September 26, 2022

Warriors of Poetry

 

My, my but life/love can be a hard-fought Poem!

Sometimes the empty page mocks the Poet
where frontline/first line footage thunders
like an unanswered prayer!


Each morning is like an empty page
waiting the Poem of Today.


First daylight's swift splash of sunrise has yielded\to just plain Rain Splash!


What will Ink and Quill spill today?


There is much more than meets the page
Of ink-blood left to spill
Surrender, facing center stage
Wears so much rebel still

Between the brute force of desire
And Wonder’s work-day frame
Smolder the embers of a fire
Font yet must fan to flame

Duty and beauty spar and meld
Like diamond-dazzled dust
While angst of prayer-answers withheld
Mold scaffoldings of trust

Sometimes a rhyme’s futility
Mocks the poet at war
With the very same enemy
That Eve did not ignore

My, my, the bloom of love can smart
The thorn that holds the rose
Can rip a hole right through the heart
With what God only knows

The fancy footwork of farewell
Kicks at the pricks; where verse
Is not enough to quench or quell
The blessing (or the curse)

Where age old agonies persist
And ink cannot assuage
The oceanic weight of mist
Waiting to spill to page

…as so much more than we can see
Roars through frontlines of air
While warriors of poetry
Must choose which hues to snare


© Janet Martin


Psalm 51:10

Create in me a clean heart, O God; 
and renew a right spirit within me.













Thursday, July 28, 2022

Trove of Glimmers

 For the sake of the reader and a long must-do task list I must reel in the poetic rush this poem kindled...

She writes to relive, nay, preserve, the sparkle of the splash
Where soon the arms of Must will curve around childhood’s fleet dash...



She writes to ponder in her heart the faithfulness of God
To share the beauty of His art in sky... and sea... and sod...






She writes to feel the warp and wage where past and future merge
She braves the barrenness of page for the rush of the verge
She dredges deeps of heart and soul for a poem to snare
Like a fisherman born to troll phantom oceans of air

She writes to relive, nay, preserve, the sparkle of the splash
Where soon the arms of Must will curve around childhood’s fleet dash
Where, what in the moment may seem a very staying sum
Soon wafts like fragments of a dream she suddenly woke from

She writes to linger on the brink where dusk’s plum shadows sprawl
To paint with nothing but black ink, the wonder/thunder of it all
Where the drumroll of wanderlust ignores the shores of Time
She writes, to salvage from plumbed dust a memento of rhyme

She writes to garner from a trove of glimmers Bygone-blurred
The pleasantries of life and love immortalized in word
She writes to run her fingers through ethereal echo-fray
Where far to soon the dark runs blue and blush with break of day

She writes to wring from ragged ruin the raw rub of regret
To secure a sense of Still June when long its sun has set
She writes to keep at fingertips awareness of a toll
From which the garb of seasons slips to leave only Her soul

She writes to ponder in her heart the faithfulness of God
To share the beauty of His art in sky and sea and sod
To sift life’s gift with poetry, then share its happiness
To leave behind a legacy of mindful thankfulness

© Janet Martin







Saturday, April 30, 2022

A Word to Poets (and People In General... )


Whoosh! and another week/month bites the dust!
Farewell April Showers and blizzards!
On a bright note, farm-dust is starting to fly in some areas!
Oh, isn't that wonderful?!!


Even if it smells like manure?!๐Ÿ˜…


Wishing one and all a weekend full of wonder!


Psalm 69:30
I will praise God's name in song and exalt Him with thanksgiving.

Sometimes what means the most in love and life’s strife and lament
Are simple things; a smile, a word of kind encouragement
A grumble never uttered, and an insult never said
Instead of discontent, a compliment, a prayer-bowed head

Sometimes what we need most where heartache’s bitter brunt must be
Where troubles test and dreams are vexed with stiff reality
Are not poetic platitudes or eloquent cliches
But just a hug to tug at heart-strings full of knots and frays

Sometimes what matters most to give is not nickel-and-dime
But the often apology-defended gift of time
Where what we need is not the creed of some best-seller book
But rather the less stressful counsel of a babbling brook

What waits to be will wait to be; enough with now and here
Where moments fall like stars or like the sparkle of a tear
Where you and I in love and life’s commitments of lament
Should strive to give what we all need; time and encouragement

Sometimes workaday weariness can wear our wonder thin
And holes into the soles of shoes somewhere beneath our skin
Sometimes life’s need and noise pleads us to fold want’s weathered wings
And count life’s wealth of simple joys until we feel like kings

Sometimes poetry snared in script is not equipped with ears 
Sometimes a rhyme takes too much time and ink and paper gears 
Sometimes what means the most is not something that prose defines  
But someone who is close enough to read between the lines

๐Ÿ’”๐Ÿ’ž

© Janet Martin


Psalm 34:3
Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together.

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

Bard's Ballroom

 A poem is a chalice full of vintage joy to share...


To sweep across a parchment ballroom floor with twirls of ink
To hear a ballad wafting over dusk-worlds washed in pink
To sense a composition stirring as night and morn merge
To feel the turquoise ocean of devotion reel and surge
To smile because an isle of hours flowers on the air
Waiting for whispers to unveil a picture hanging there
A teddy-bear, a tot, a garden, a twilight tableau
The green sheen of first blossom or dazzle of sun-kissed snow

To dance upon a page like raindrops on a dusty street
To let the music of a moment sweep us off our feet
To follow the lead of a lyric not prehended yet
To revel in the pleasure of a poem-silhouette
To bear the heady rush of syllables, still wild and free
Waiting to wear the breathless blush of new-born poetry
To hunger and thirst as if we could burst with want of ways
To tame the taunt to frame fraught font to perfect turn of phrase

To search with humble honor for the crown-jewel of verse
To stress the beauty of the blessing, not to curse the curse
To siphon from the silt of seasons, lilting gilt of time
To trace the face of echoes and to etch them into rhyme
To bring with utmost fervor, fervent offering of laud
To splay upon each paper-altar pure worship to God
To never let less-noble ruses steal its claim to fame
But strive without excuses to exalt the Giver’s name

A poem is a chalice full of vintage joy to share
It is a pauper’s palace, a ballad, a hymn, a prayer
A solace to come home to, or enchanting getaway
A lens that we can peer through to rediscover today
To make us more aware of what we else might overlook
To waken us to love and other mercies we mistook
To take us by the heart and lead us where we would not see
Without a parchment ballroom floor, footwork of poetry

© Janet Martin



Saturday, October 30, 2021

Ink-Smiths

 


Yesterday's chores included reorganizing and tidying book nooks!


Oh joy! Why?
I made room for more๐Ÿ˜…

The ink-memento below was forged from the poet's perspective

With ink they praise
With ink they weep
With ink they groan and grin
And purge with phrase
What cannot sleep
Beneath a shroud of skin

With ink they love
With ink they thrill
With ink they try and try
To snare glints of
An escadrille
That marches through a sigh

With ink they pray
And beg and brood
Where heartache’s millstones press
The gold and gray
Of gratitude
Into scarred happiness

With ink they cry
With ink they smile
While forging cons with prose
To pacify
And reconcile
The thorns beneath the rose

With ink they wield
Thoughts tools of trade
Where parchment anvils bear
 Whispers soft-steeled
Against the blade
That fells fields of thin air 
  
© Janet Martin



Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Beggar's Legacy


I beg for fresh reason and rhyme
As we weather seasons of time...




I beg, but not for milk or bread
Rather, for ink-drops not yet bled
For panoramic views to spill
To the mind’s eye from fluent quill
To feel you near, though miles apart
Through Poem, dear, to cheer the heart

I beg for fresh reason and rhyme
As we weather seasons of time
For font to translate into word
Wonder; when wont to be deterred
By duty; blinded by its rod
While Beauty brims with hymns to God

For eyes to see and ears to hear
The melody borne on time’s tear
Where the veneer of here and now
Is always on the move somehow
I beg to learn to want for less
And then, in turn find happiness

...to recognize the luxury
Of phrases such as 'you and me'
To view nothing as commonplace
In today's God-made gift of grace
I beg for wishes to be awed
By the kind faithfulness of God

I beg for Brushstrokes of fine art
By He who sees my heart of heart
The Tender and the Terrible
He knows both Bard and Beast full well
Then, lest I be a fickle fool
I beg for faith, not fear to rule

I beg for joy when Circumstance
Changes the tempo of the dance
And all the steps that I rehearsed
Dismissed in light of ‘others first’
I beg for love’s ink to run rife
And pen the poetry of life

© Janet Martin

Psalm 16:11
You will show me the path of life; 
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
 At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.


Psalm 21:4
He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, 
even length of days for ever and ever.

Psalm 17:15
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness:
 I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

Thursday, September 9, 2021

Art-Throb


The closing of another chapter in my child-care 'book'...
as tomorrow Little Girl becomes School-girl!
 
"You're so big and I'm so little" She said as she looked at the pictures
And I said 'yes'๐Ÿ’•
(why do I feel so small and how has she gotten so big?!)




I wish that I could paint for you
A very lovely work of art
A keep-sake I would give to you
To show the colours of my heart

To paint the perfect shade of joy
And spill with artistic finesse
The preciousness of girl and boy
That fills my heart with happiness

For little tot can teach a lot
To we, weathered by Father Time
And if I could, I’d paint, not jot
The spot that overflows with rhyme

…where poem then, mingled with prayer
My aching art-throb must appease
And ink must etch in frames of air
A Masterpiece of Memories

…for like the bubbles that we blew
An era pops and disappears
Leaving behind for me and you
A gallery of rainbowed spheres

…where laughter lilts and echoes bob
Like butterflies and petal-falls
As pictures waft from love’s art-throb
To hang forever on heart-walls

© Janet Martin

Last week these two left just a few days before becoming proud 
new big sister and brother to a new baby sister!
This 'job' tugs my heart every which way but loose๐Ÿ’—๐Ÿ’–

(I tried a few times and EVERY time
just as I clicked he looked down๐Ÿ˜€๐Ÿ˜˜)


...and last but not least Grand-sonny starts school today!
When my daughter sent me the pictures
I told her I don't know whether to laugh or cry๐Ÿ’–๐Ÿ’–๐Ÿ’–