When The Gift Is Wrapped In Silence...called Writer's Block

The will of want can be a taunting whisper that distracts

And tugs us from the purpose of The Call

The will of God invites us to trust Him when fear attacks

Then make His purpose our all in all

Sometimes thought is reluctant to deploy, its joy exiled

The head hollow where heart is heavy-weighed

And we wish words would spill like laughter of a little child

Instead, silence erects a barricade

But, if we have believed that He is able, by His might

We pray, then, humbly wait upon the Lord

Until He grants permission; it is by His grace we write

From Him, for Him, to Him, the gift of word

© Janet Martin  

When You're a SOYP Writer

Sometimes it’s the trees or the slant of the breeze

Or the shape of a shadow’s fall

It might be the moon or the baritone tune

Of rain on a late-autumn wall

Or, sometimes the fire is lit by a spire

Etched hard on the soft-dying day

Perhaps it’s the mist on a morn purple-kissed

Whispering nighttime away

It might your grin or that dint in your chin

The mutual touching of eyes

I’ve felt its spark when the room was full dark

Save for the brush of your sighs

It broods in the blue of dusk’s musk-avenue  

It leaps from the quick-fall of youth

Or sometimes the smile of an innocent child

Slams us with unblemished truth

Sometimes we are stirred by the slur of a word

Teasing and twisting the air

In shovels of dirt you revel; in hurt

You slide down night’s arabesque stair

Sometimes you wait on the old garden gate

Sometimes you roar like a fighter

That’s just how it is; poised on imminent bliss

When you’re an SOYP writer

© Janet Martin

They say there are two kinds of writers; the organize/plan mind or the seat of your pants kind.

I tend to be the latter,

but it doesn’t matter

‘cause it’s nice to exist

poised on imminent bliss!

We Writers

We writers write and bear alike the suffering of it
To breathe in ink those things we think while others simply sit
Without the quest of un-penned best, besot by phrase or form
Or restless heart where hope imparts a sweet and soundless storm

We writers scan the lowing span of new or ancient crypt  
Craving the rush of thoughts that brush, not in pigment but script
The carefree soul saunters and strolls, his thought easy to bear 
While writer's thirst, both blessed and cursed by noon's word-laden air

We writers know the high and low unleashed across a page
How want and will perplex the quill and midnight is a stage
To anywhere a pen may dare to revel in the vaunt
Of oceans stirred within a word; of musing's endless taunt

We writer's dream and nothing seems to be what it appears
Who knew the color blue could move a writer's smile to tears?
And who are we that poetry breathed by a blithesome breeze
Can smite our hand by its command and draw us to our knees?

We writers share the glorious care of searching heaven's face
Where we beseech and humbly reach to touch its hem of grace
Then, here and there the writer's prayer though unarticulate
Enjoys the thrill of words that spill in torrents through thought's gate

Janet Martin

John Greenwood shared an article his sister Joanne wrote and which I think many of us relate to. Read it here at Raining Iguanas

We Write Because...

We write,

Not because we’re professionals

Or perfect

At what we do

But,

When we feel that beautiful feeling

We write because

We want you

To feel it too

We write

If only to share a little

Of our life-window hue

But when God breathes

His Beauty

Over the world

We write because

We want you to

See Him too

So we write of

Hunger and heartache

Of things past,

Yet to come,

We write about leaving

and loving and home

…Of passion’s hurricane

Bold bittersweet

Pleasure and pain

On farewell-cobbled street

We write to the gong

Of one a.m.

Roundels of rain-song

Longing’s diadem

Dusk’s darling doggerel

Dawn’s dew-drenched dream

Midnight’s mute madrigal

Retrospect’s requiem

We write of holding

And then letting go

Of moment’s bestowing

Life’s yeses and No

We write ink-pictures

And portraits of thought

Ravaging hours

For just the right jot

The poet confesses

Fathoms of the heart

Novelist, playwright,

We tear words apart

To measure their music

To treasure the taste

Of moments once more

Plucked from summer’s haste

Where the bloom is still heavy

With diamond of dew

And the heart is a levee

Of ‘missing you’

Or where noon on the boardwalk

Is misty beach-blue

Ah, words are thought’s medium

To experience The View

So, we write

Nothing strange 

Or foreign

Or new

But simply

Because

We want you

To be there too

© Janet Martin

If We Must...

Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write. If it all feels helpless, if that famous ‘inspiration’ will not come, write. If you are a genius, you’ll make your own rules, but if not—and the odds are against it—go to your desk, no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper—write.

~ J.B. Priestly

If we must…and yes, it seems we must

Persuade into a pen thought’s scraped from dust

Or siphoned from the air, life’s filigree

Of moment quick-fall sealed in poetry

The care of circumstance cleaves to our skin

Seeking to weigh our hands with living’s din

And yet, it seems we’re driven to a stage

Reserved for suffering with pen and page

We paper rooms with echoes; silence swells

With notes the aching throat and heart regales

But restless is that ever-thirsting yen

Until we fill and spill the poet’s pen

If we must…and yes, it seems we must

Spell out thought’s burning, yearning wanderlust

Oh wretched, blessed bliss to beggars born

To live somewhere twixt pulse and parchment torn

© Janet Martin

Write while the heat is in you. … The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Ink-Allies

We share a bond

You and I

We know what it is

To wander the sky

In search of a perfect word

To jot

The taste, sound, touch

Of a thought

We share a kin-ship

Unlike any other

Knit together

Like sister or brother

Because we suffer

Unlike other men

Beneath the calling

Of the pen

With ink we bleed

While others sleep

We bear the need

To dredge the deep

Not for the loot

The miser hoards

But for the fruit

Of perfect words

© Janet Martin

Travail of a Poem...a sonnet

 

When your hour comes there’s an ache surreal

Where thought cannot quell the urge you beseech

Grasping at whispers just beyond my reach

I close my eyes, leaning to your appeal

As unformed longing groans, moans for release

Borne on a surge of pleading mystery

Pain, pleasure and purpose blend intimately

Stoking a measure of formless increase

For your invocation of throbbing travail

Rushes in torrents through bulwarks of flesh

Testing heart-levees, boldly you enmesh

Your ethereal murmurs beneath skin’s frail veil

I tremble for, pray, who am I to spell

The poem to shape your relentless swell?

Somewhere within wanton fathoms converge

The startling summons of consonants lash

Nature of mortal and immortal clash

Yet who would rally to stifle the surge

Of word that is willing to be much more

And hope that is yearning to spill in rhyme?

I cannot argue with trifles like Time

Where oceans of unwoven lines implore

Man is not born to appease his own want

Or drift like a bateau without port or goal

Though lackadaisical havens may taunt

We are the vessels that harbor a soul

Earnestly then, we bend into the gale

Trusting the Hand on our helm to prevail

The fruit of our toil is more dear and sweet

When we have endured its labor and fear

What is life’s spoil but a day or a year?

A pulse of moments that never repeat

Humbly we bow, not because we are weak

But because in weakness Love intercedes

Succoring mortal and immortal needs

The pen would fall like a tear on the cheek

Save for the comfort that somewhere, somehow

Far down the age its extolment remains

To smile to the one who thirsts for the rains

Found in the ink-drops that earnestly flow

Shaping the whispers of comfort and Home

Wrapped in the tender-sweet arms of a poem

© Janet Martin

It's no use...one cannot fight the urge of a poem:)

Poet's Soliloquy (my Writer's Group Homework Assignment)

Use these words in a story, poem or song.

Soliloquy, Hypoteneuse, Frostbite, Zugzwang,
Solecism, Jeopardy, Astronomer, Jigamirandee,
Ottoman, Gordon Lightfoot, Spot remover, Tattle tale,
Acalculia, Pseudonym, Squeegee, Chimera

I'm in a Writer's Group that meets on the first Friday of every month. (if you live near Drayton and you are a writer or wanna-be, hop on by. We have so much fun:) I missed the last meeting so you can imagine my surprise at the words in our homework assignment…(they were chosen out of a game they played)

I did mine last night, lying on the floor in front of a crackling fire just before I fell asleep. It is written accordingly…

Poet’s Soliloquy:

A pseudonym would simply cause my other self to blush,

I’ll bear this poet’s shame using my own name

Because…

Since my severe frostbite last December

Acalculia has made it hard for me to remember

So many basic facts; recovery’s hypotenuse, I guess

But it has put in jeopardy my career as poetess

So please, forgive my frequent solecism

I’m not in the mood for professional criticism

Besides, each time I pick up a pen; impossible zugzwang

I can’t seem to come up with a ‘thang’

That aint been writ; I want to quit. And what’s more

I just spilled coffee on my white skirt and the floor

I’m using spot-remover but a tattletale stain

Compels me to squeegee it again and again

While Gordon Lightfoot sings, In the Early morning Rain…

Let’s face it, I’m scrubbing in vain.

Muse is a chimera, my writing is crap

I pull up the ottoman; it’s time for a nap

My son’s invention is a real dandy

It’s a help-u-to-sleep jigamirandee

So I pour myself one, with a double shot of brandy

O-o-o-! The astronomers will be happy tonight

Cause I see stars falling and I’m not even outside! 

Janet :)

Of Warriors and Whispers

When we wield this weapon we should seal in our mind

The scope and the length of its blade

The tip of this sword rends far deeper than skin

It shapes legacies being made

It draws, it repels, the keen flash of this blade

Sutures the wounds of a heart

Yet pierces through flesh and blood mien to create

Mind-numbing frameworks of art

The warrior that bears the might of this sword

Will report to Commander-in-chief

Of heaven and earth; the Master and Lord

Over Orion’s unfathomable sheaf

When we wield this weapon in combat or truce

To touch to the quick of man’s senses

We should be armed with Courage and Truth

And Awareness of its recompenses

Oh, powerful might of the common pen

A saber from which ink-drops spill

Man dies, but duration of thought will remain

In whispers that fall from his quill

© Janet Martin

I read an article this morning on the longevity of written word...

Something to think about.