Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts

Monday, October 28, 2019

To Read a Poem, Dear...


 A few poems read and reread recently...




To read a poem, dear
Takes very little time
Like tids-and-bits of love and cheer
Proportioned into rhyme

It creates common ground
Where we of sundry walk
Are somewhat all together bound
By simple tick and tock

To read a little verse
Penned for thought’s benefit
Can turn intentions we rehearse
Into ‘just doing it’

…and helps us realize
In just a line or two
How literature in bite-size
Is quite easy to chew

A poem is a hug
Across the years and miles
To mediate their tender tug
With ink-anointed smiles

Where, though Time takes its toll
And proof of progress spreads
The elements of heart and soul
 Are spun with ancient threads

To read a poem, dear
(though some may think it strange)
Helps us to balance now and here
With things that never change


© Janet Martin


Monday, September 23, 2019

We Are Who/What We Read...


 What/Who are you reading these days?
I was suddenly struck anew by how deeply we are influenced/affected by what we read!
 (or who we listen to, often reading/quoting what someone else wrote)

In Jesus' final prayer before He went to the cross He prayed,
 I have given them Your word and the world has hated them; 
for they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
I am not asking that You take them out of the world, 
but that You keep them from the evil one. 
 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
"Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth."
As You sent Me into the world, I have also sent them into the world.
For them I sanctify Myself, so that they too may be sanctified by the truth.
I am not asking on behalf of them alone,
but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their message,
that all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You. 
May they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. 

No matter how many books we collect and read...

 ...if we miss God's book we've missed it all!


They say so much; these teeny twists of ink turned into jot
They arrange on a barren page the images of thought
To touch the reader of the written word with much to tell
And just as ‘we are what we eat’ thus, what we read as well

The Moral Law of right and wrong instills a hounding need
To find, for sake of peace of mind, The Truth; and so we read
But all the greatest authors with The Latest Modern Whim
Can never change The First and Final Word written by Him

Debates of truth and reason fill many a musty tome
The living soul creates a Whole/hole, nay, mammoth astrodome
For Truth is Absolute; and till doubt’s dispute is destroyed
Nothing, no matter what we read or write will fill its void

Ah, wishful thinking seeks colleagues, when nursed to dogged thirst
God’s Truth is not a pillow concerned about comfort first
His Word is undeterred; though wheedling nature of mere men
Will try to barter with His truth through think-twists from a pen

…for the imagination is a wondrous, wily Force
It fosters the creation of many a fine discourse
And if we are not well-versed in the Truth, then, me oh my
We might exchange it for a well-dressed stranger’s valid lie

Hail, to the theologians and scholars; how much you read
The college of the mind is such a large classroom to feed
Yet fathoms of ‘sound knowledge’ cannot rearrange the Truth
And facts are stubborn subjects in spite of progressive youth

If we dismiss The One who holds the keys of death and hell
We miss it all; for God’s Word is a never-ending well
Where, after we believe, then Truth will affirm theory
For nothing else we read exceeds Supreme Author-ity

‘Without faith it is impossible to please Holy God’
Without His Word ignorance feasts on many a feckless fraud
But through His Word the evidence of things we cannot see
Nurtures man’s mustard seed-sized faith to a deep-rooted tree

They say so much; these teeny twists of ink turned into jot
They quicken, with written homage, the aptitude of thought
To fill the theater of Think, with much, so much to tell
And just as ‘we are what we eat’ thus, what we read as well

© Janet Martin

 Matthew 12:3 He answered, “Haven’t you read...?


Tuesday, September 13, 2016

The Key to Good Reading and Writing...



One cannot live
on reading and writing alone
To make these relevant
a lot of real life
needs to be done...


 ...so the stack on my night-stand keeps growing:)


We need to be
Shoved,
Loved
Hurt,
Hugged
Needed,
Snubbed,
Weary-to-the bone
Sometimes together
Sometimes alone


We need to get dirty
Again and again
Put on something pretty
And be undressed with pain

We need to be praised
And stumble-humbled
We need to stand tall
Like a wall
And crumble

Pause
Because
If we don’t we’ll miss
The quiet kiss
Of Time
We need to let go
Of fear
To climb

We need to hold on,
Fall apart
Feel the reel of
A broken heart
Then when we read
And write we can feel
The heart and soul
Of ink-appeal

© Janet Martin


Tuesday, March 1, 2016

March Mistral Cheer






Blow then, March mistral, if you must
And strake the air with gruff huff-puff
You cannot hinder wanderlust
Though bully you may be, rough, tough
For while you rattle at the door
And roar through gaunt woods, starved for spring
And strew upon earth’s wooden floor
That shade of which we’re wearying
We are not overcome with grief
In our desire for green leaf

For we find in your weather good cheer
…all the better for reading, my dear

© Janet Martin

The lion is beginning to shake his mane and growl...

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

After A Few More Lifetimes





After a few more life-times
Perhaps then I will succeed
At turning all the pages of
Each book I want to read

After a few more life-times
The stack beside by bed
On end-tables and in my mind
Will be tagged, 'books I’ve read'

After a few more lifetimes
Maybe then I’ll beg and plead
That after living for so long
I’ve nothing left to read

But, after a few more lifetimes
I will see I read in vain
Because then I will want for time
To read favorites again

© Janet Martin

For those of us who love to read and write  the word 'bored' is not part of our vocabulary!