April's Celestial Shepherdess

 

She laughs

herding her woolly flocks

to farther pasture's

with passionate

smile

Then she weeps,

her tears softening

earth-leather cusp

Her eyes beguile

the tightly clenched bud

She scowls

An icy stare

Conceals her mirth

hope turns to mud

as restless sheep
crowd about her...

trample her skirts,  but

then she smiles

...sheep scatter

as tulip rivers

color the earth

© Janet Martin

Seems we have a moody one going today!

Five Senses Poem

As I kiss

The salt on your skin

Inhale your scent

Caress your cheek

Absorb your warmth

You begin to undo

My best defense

I heed your

Unformed suggestions

The begging in your eyes

As I realize

I

Love

Baked potatoes

© Janet Martin

NaPoWriMo asks us to write using our five senses today!

Circle of Life...

From spring bud,
to
Summer flower
to
Autumn Relinquishment
to
Winter's silver hour


Janet~

Poetics Aside Prompt: Seasons

Season of Life

Poetics aside Prompt:  Seasonal Poem

Season of Trust

Since we are not heavenly creatures
but of dust
we go through times and seasons
where all we can do
...is trust

When you asked me the if's and why's and 'but's
I fell upon my knees
and cried out, God, oh help me trust
You; please, please, please

Janet~

***
 Season of Forgiveness

I can hold onto resentment and anger
refusing to forgive

or I can accept your apology,
and know what it is to live

Janet~

***
 Season of Hope

A new day dawns
Opportunity waits
The best to come
Pours from its gates

Janet~

Season of Patience

We cannot rush
the bud from its pod
The bloom would be mangled and marred
We cannot push
Beyond the will of God
But wait: even when it is hard

Janet~

Season of Love

It fills me with pleasure
But even greater pain
It drives me to hope
When hoping seems vain

Oh beautiful, tormenting
Mystery
My hollow, my fulness
Joy, misery

I strained to see Love
As I wept of its loss
God opened my eyes
And showed me a cross

Janet~

Of Desire and Despair

I wandered, lonely as a cloud

Grappling desire and despair

Guilt raised its fist, ugly and proud

While mercy fanned the morning air

And on the palm of lithesome breeze

A song of tender memories

Continuous as the stars that shine

Transient moments tune the air

And you, oh little love of mine

Drive my desire and despair

Come now and lay awhile with me

We’ll count the stars on heaven’s sea

The waves of time sparkle and dance

As they roll onward to a sea

Oh, ride the bark of present-chance

Before it slips to history

I’ll trade desire and despair

For this; your breath against my hair

For oft, when on my couch I lie

And you are there and I am here

Despair and deep desire vie

For residence within my tear

But now, they slip unnoticed far

Time pauses 'neath the midnight star

© Janet Martin 

NaPoWriMo Prompt: Steal a line from a famous favorite...

For my second Theft I stole from another favorite... William Wordsworth and his poem

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth :

Spring's Come-back

*Now that the winter’s gone

The earth renews its zest

Flaunting her floral gown

Of fragrant blossom-dress

The rigor of its chill

Softens on zephyr-tongue

As over wood and hill

Rolls April’s luring song

Come; fling aside your woe

And winter’s binding shroud

The violet rivers flow

Beneath spring’s little cloud

Come; lay aside your grief

The heart cannot resist

The tide of budding leaf

And daffodil, sun-kissed

Now that the winter’s o’er

We dare to dream anew

To plant and hope once more

On spring’s fresh avenue

© Janet Martin

Written for-

NaPoWriMo giving us permission today to steal a line from a favorite poem...
and for Poetic Bloomings: Prompt; Making a Comeback~

The Spring

 *Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo and the humble-bee.
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world the youthful spring.
The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array
Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May.
Now all things smile; only my love doth lour;
Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power
To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold
Her heart congeal'd, and makes her pity cold.
The ox, which lately did for shelter fly
Into the stall, doth now securely lie
In open fields; and love no more is made
By the fireside, but in the cooler shade
Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep
Under a sycamore, and all things keep
Time with the season; only she doth carry
June in her eyes, in her heart January. 

Thomas Carew

   

Tough Guys

Some ‘tough guys’ bench-press 400lbs

…and polish their biceps and six-packs

With baby oil

Some ‘tough guys’ rope bulls

Ride bucking broncos

While wearing large leather Stetson hats

Some ‘tough guys’ lie in trenches

Some dig them

And some fly F-22 Raptors over them

Some ‘tough guys’

Keep us safe

With a gun on their hip

And the law on their side

Some ‘tough guys’

Open people’s chests

And fix their hearts

…but the toughest of them all

Folds her fragile hands

over leather-bound Hope

and prays…

for her own child

and other mother's children

whoever and

wherever

they are

© Janet Martin

Confessions~

I run my fingers

Over your rugged lines

I am taken by your beauty

You grow more beautiful with time

Oh, I will not blush

For I am shamelessly in love with you

And in the sacred midnight hush

I know

You love me too

J~

Mr. Willow

I never told anyone

That I gave you a name

And you always reached for me

Whenever I came

As you read my thoughts

You would nod and sigh

At night in my bed

I heard your lullaby

You would listen patiently

When no one else would

And I never doubted

That you understood

© Janet Martin

Poetics Aside Prompt: Trees/forest

The Parable of Trees

Poetics Aside Prompt: Tree or Forest

In winter you're a barren twig

In spring a new-born flower

In summer-time a cool retreat

And in the fall...a shower

Winter, a crown of pristine white

In spring, a floral cutie

Your summer-gown, chartreuse delight

But autumn; oh, ravishing beauty

I have fallen in love once

A thousand times each season

Oh mighty tree, for you ensconce

The whole of Nature's reason

There is a season for all life

The bud, the bloom; surrender

Yet, here we earn in living's strife

The crown of wisdom's splendor

Janet Martin

Subliminal...

Our understanding at best, O God

Is inadequate and trite

On our own each breath a fraud

And every moment, night

Our perception without Your Spirit

Is blinded ignorance

And Death, O death, how I would fear it

But for deliverance

Your mercy, hope and love fulfills

Your changeless eye of grace

The tempter wears ten-thousand ills

Deceiving human race

Our understanding will ever be

Only what God imbues

Therefore but by His grace go we

On earth-bound avenues

Beyond these briefest stance of Time

Our eyes will see anew

As we behold Love, pure, sublime

Oh God, as we see you

© Janet Martin

Behold the Lamb of God

which takes away the sins of the world. John 1:29

"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose" -- Jim Elliot

Shadow-art~

Tonight
your shadow
lies twixt
quill
and parchment
where thought
cannot transfer
from ink
to
poetry
so tonight
I will settle
for you and me...
...un-penned
unspoken
unshared
simply shadow art
upon my heart~

J~

The Unknown

Image Source:  abstract.desktopnexus.com

The unknown; an inevitable strait

All voyages pass through

There is no one who can escape

This ethereal avenue

We stand upon life’s open deck

And sail the roving sea

Only our Captain can predict

What the Unknown will be

Fear not the waves beneath the calm

Fear not the stormy gale

The Captain holds within His palm

The ocean and the sail

© Janet Martin

Hi Sasha:) I told you so...

Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.

3 You search out my path and my lying down

and are acquainted with all my ways.

4 Even before a word is on my tongue,

behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

5 You them me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is high; I cannot attain it.

Psalm 139: 1-6

Wild is the River Flowing...

Wild is the river flowing

Into an ageless sea

From and to where we’re going

...Eternity

Expanse beyond our vision

No mind can comprehend

This vast infinite ocean

Without end

A vapor on its surface

Are all man's days combined

We ought to live with purpose and

With this in mind

…that wild is the river flowing

Into an ageless sea

From and to where we’re going

...Eternity

 Janet Martin

I was just listening to this song and these thoughts came pouring out....

Two Points of View~ wordle #2

They saw a man

Staggering, bloody and torn

Bearing His own cross

He saw a Plan

Hope for slaves of addiction

The broken and the lost

They saw a body

And as dusk fell; death

For the man of sorrows

He saw a destiny

And in Love’s greatest story; grace

For all our tomorrows

They saw the marrow of horror

Unfolding in hate

At Calvary

He saw His perfect Bride

An eternal mate

He heard songs of victory

They saw Him dead and buried

And presumed

The end of a story

He saw death conquered

Redemption and resurrection

And eternal glory

Janet

The Sunday Whirl~

Watching the Sun Going Down

Come; appease my sweet addiction

Of dusk’s hand across the west

For my story of affliction

And of love must pause to rest…

Oh, do not judge my humble staggering

Or the dismal songs I hear

For the sorrows of dreams broken

Are not quickly buried, dear

Come and run your mystic fingers

Through the marrow of my soul

For its mate chooses to linger

Where flesh and blood cannot console

I fix my gaze on molten glory

Gateway to a destiny

Where the postlude of earth’s story

Is a glorious mystery

© Janet Martin

The Sunday Whirl

Shadow Poem-lets

I am content

In the shadow of your love

For your thought in mine

Fits like a glove

***

A shadow may lead

Or follow behind

But it never strays from

The discourse of the mind

***

A shadow sprawled towards the west

Means dawn is crawling from its nest

A shadow lengthened to the east

Means soon another day has ceased

***

A shadow is merely an echo

Of hard matter existence

When your shadow touches mine

I offer no resistance

***

Today the north wind

Jeers and laughs

Tussling tree-shadows

On the grass

***

You and I

Make beautiful shadows

Together

J~

Poetics Aside Prompt: Shadows

Searching for Happiness?

Our search for happiness

Is fruitless and vain

If it is inclined toward

Personal gain

But if we are thankful

And truly content

The search for happiness

Is non-existent 

Janet Martin

Other pastures are only greener

until we get there.

Clandestine Companion

You do not go before me

Or lag, attached behind

But you remain within me

A shadow on my mind

Someday perhaps love’s sunshine

Will melt away your shroud

You clandestine companion

You temperamental cloud

Vainly, I build defenses

Alas, your subtlety

Is woven through my senses

Deep to the heart of me

The shadow of a moment

Has power to remain

Its memory a constant

Reminder of love’s pain

J~

Poetics Aside prompt: Shadows

Of Green-leaf Joy

The still of noon will soon be brushed
With melody of sighs
Though now the park is haunted, hushed
Beneath the warming skies
It won’t be very long until
The oriole, lark and whippoorwill
Their crystal choruses will spill
From green-leaf paradise

…and then the stark and stringent air
And all the quiet cold
Will melt as limbs, budded and bare
Their petal-notes unfold
With rustling joy their hymns caress
The moan of wooded emptiness
In lacy, green-leaf happiness
And whispers fresh and bold

…then they will spread their shadow, glad
Upon the grassy slope
The naked skeleton re-clad
With songs of emerald hope
Beneath their flaunt of lacy limb
And earths refurbished diadem
We revel in the glorious hymn
Of green-leaf calliope

© Janet Martin

Poetics Aside Prompt: Shade/shady

Happy Easter

Come shout the news

His hope proclaim

He is alive

Oh, praise His name

He conquered death

Carried our shame

He is alive

Oh, praise His name

Yesterday, for aye

The same

Alive, Alive,

Oh, praise His name

Janet Martin~

Handel's Messiah: Hallelujah...

That's Not All...

 He came to earth

In lowly birth

Laid in a cattle stall

As shepherd’s came

To worship him

But that’s not all…

From door to door

He sought the poor

The weakest and the small

Healing, reaching

Touching, teaching

But that’s not all…

Throngs spoke His name

His unsought fame

Filled kings and scribes with gall

Gall turned to hate

And vile debate

But that’s not all

With plans well-laid

Judas betrayed

The One of tender call

Disciples fled

In fear and dread

But that’s not all

Beaten and torn

God’s only Son

Was led to Pilates hall

He was released

To human beasts

But that’s not all

Upon a tree

On Calvary

Midst jeers and angry call

They crucified

Love; and He died

But that’s not all

In tomb of stone

Lay Heaven’s own

But earth is far too small

To keep for long

God’s only Son

So that’s not all

And from the tomb

In glorious bloom

Arose our All in all

Jesus fulfilled

God’s perfect will

But that’s not all

His sacrifice

Has paid sin’s price

And saves man from The Fall

He is alive

His grace forgives 

But that’s not all

 

Each one must choose

Accept, refuse

When they hear His Voice call

His love is free

Eternally

That is all

© Janet Martin

John 1:12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--

Look at the Cross...(from my Front Porch Poetry Blog)

Look, look at the cross, no, no don’t look away
See love's sacred offering on gruesome display
See the thorns, wicked thorns so humbly worn
By the One who loved all; All the sick and forlorn,
The foolish, the wealthy, all those who would scorn
His dear name; so look at the cross on public display,
Not in some dark corner tucked dimly away
But up on a hill for the whole world to see
Perfect love, awesome love for you and me

Look, look at the cross, at the dear Lord’s face
Bearing the shame of public disgrace,
A face that was spat on, yet knew only love,
The face of a King from a kingdom above,
A face which has power earth and heaven to move
In a whisper; yet on it flow crimson tears
As He weeps, not in pain but in love so sincere
He calls out to His father from upon this tree
The symbol of hope for humanity

Look, look at the cross, at the hands that are bleeding,
Pierced through with nails and yet He is pleading
That man will find mercy in this holy flood,
Forgiveness and hope in a perfect Lamb's blood,
Redemption pouring from the Son of God
His hands stretch out for all to see
That this is He who sets men free
Hands that ministered to man’s most humble need
Have fulfilled their greatest work indeed

So look at the cross, behold the Lamb
The beginning, the end, the Great I AM
Look at his body, pierced and bleeding
Love flowing down for all who are needing
The hope of a Savior, as still He is pleading
Forgive them; and as darkness and thunder descend
His cry is heard through all the land
‘It is finished,” and now there is hope for the lost
If we look at the cross, if we look at the cross...

...and if we look at the cross, at the out-stretched limb,
Behold the blood and the suffering,
If we gaze on His love and the wonder of Him,
Will we think to be saved on that final Day
If we look, turn our backs and walk away?


Janet Martin

Shall I crucify your King? Pilate asked. John 19:15

Red

 

From Calvary’s cross

Redemption bled

And covered our dross

In rivers of red

“It is finished”

He bowed His head

As grace poured freely

In rivers of red

“Oh, look and live”

Hope is not dead

God forgives

In rivers of red

© Janet Martin

NaPoWriMo Prompt: Write a 'color' poem

 "For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things,
whether on earth or in heaven,
making peace by the blood of His cross. " - Colossians 1:19

Song: The Wonder of the Cross

Silver

Silver night

Casts silvery sigh

On the silver shadows

Where willow-limbs lie

Silver oceans

Cover the grass

Where silver moments

Stilly pass

Silver silence

Wrenches the sky

I didn’t know silver

Is the shade of good-bye

…as silver breezes

Offer silver cheer

In a silver world

Through my silver tears

J~

NaPoWriMo Prompt: A 'color' poem

Wordless Conversation Poem-lets

I have held an ocean stirred

in the absence of mere word

and I have melted in the wile

of your suggestive, faint half-smile

***

When Mother starts to look at you

You feel a presence in your pew

As suddenly you catch my stare

And quickly bow your head in prayer

***

He sets his mug down

And looks up

His wife pours

Another cup
Not in compulsion
Or stiff duty
But in the pleasure
Of love's simple beauty 

***

From across the room

Our eyes meet

And only heaven

Can compete

With the blissful

Thought we share

As love and longing

Keen the air

***

His smirk

Sparked her ire

And she saw red

He’s got

The couch now

And she’s got the bed

***

Janet~

Poetics Aside Prompt: Wordless Conversations

And the Winner Is...

Battling now

Two innate desires

To close my eyes now

Or to stoke the fires

While slumber is pleasing

It cannot compete

With the tender-sweet teasing

As word and thought meet

The trickling of moments

The ticking of time

Are the musical meter

Of rhythm and rhyme

So here is the quandary

To sleep or not

But I feel my Muse curving

Against my thought

And I have never

Had the will to resist

The luring endeavor

In a word’s cunning kiss

© Janet Martin

Of Unmarred Shores...

Each morning we step out
As never before
To an untouched day
On an unmarred shore.

The concave of past
Cannot leap for its prey
Or budge from its shadow
So live fully, today

God forgives
And never keeps score
So step out today
On an unmarred shore

Janet~

Authentically 'Us'

Everyone

in the whole

wide world,

can never replace

one you

or 

one I

and there 

will never be

in the whole 

wide world

another you

or

another I

therefore

we ought

never to pretend

to be anyone

in the whole 

wide world

but you

be you

and I 

will be I

Janet~

An 'Almost Nothing'

There is nothing now

But the whisper

Of moments

Slipping over

Blades of grass

And the expanding

Past

Everything

Surrenders

In moments

As Time reclaims

In like-measure

As it gave

-In moments

The power of

A moment

Is unrivaled

Yet it is almost nothing

But the perpetual increase

Of history

As futures decrease

From our first breath

We set sail

On a sea

Of moments

Pouring from

Eternity

To eternity

Janet~

Disillussioned

In the hollow yawn of darkness

Swallowing the dim-lit moon

You lean closer, through the spaces

That are gold and blue at noon

When each vain and visual fragment

Slumbers in the hidden known

Suddenly a keen enchantment

Stirs the midnight’s moody tone

As the lips of recollection

Stir the wanting and the must

But there is no resurrection

For the hour turned to dust

And within imagined having

There is no fulfillment, dear

Or a memory worth saving

In the mercy of a tear

In the hollow yawn of darkness

I can hear the past beseech

Though I lean, I cannot touch you

Over moments out of reach

J~

Interlude...

 (As the moon rose, the fiery ocean in the western sky tinted the east creating a pink-blush moon-rise simultaneously with a flaming sunset; breath-taking, with silence so intense you could hear it!)


Winter has gathered its garments and fled

Gone is its frigid sugar-coated bed

The earth waits in limbo now, caught between

The glamor of crystal and verdant green

In muted stillness the dull landscape waits

While promise trembles beneath earthen gates

Its corridor primed for spring’s grand rebirth

Its lips parted wide to drink heavens mirth

Do you hear a prelude teasing the air?

Tickling the bud and earth's leathery stare

Do you hear the laughter of wee lads and lasses?

Splashing like raindrops on emerald grasses

Solemn beauty weaves a brief interlude

Of spring-tide restrained and winter subdued

Before nature's tiptoe breaks into full run

In showers of flowers and golden sun

© Janet Martin

Hidden Facts~

Hidden by bricks

And shingles and stone

A glimpse of Heaven exists

We call it home

***

Beneath flesh and blood and bone

Is a work of priceless art

Where I keep my precious memories

In the gallery of my heart

***

Beneath the woman

And her pensive gaze

Is the girl and the passion

Of yester’s days

***

It flows forever

Mile upon mile

An ethereal river

Of love, in my smile

***

Hidden in whispers

And words unstrung

Are infinite glimmers

Of poems unsung

***

Beneath life’s heartache

Is a higher hand

Holding the reasons

We do not understand

***

Below the struggles and stumbles

Behind the tear in our eyes

Beneath life’s little troubles

Are the moments that make us wise

***

All you could see

as you walked away

Was the distance

keeping us apart

If you had looked twice

you would have noticed

In your hands you held

My heart

***

Hidden beneath our choices

And the action following thence

Is a single, sure-fire guarantee

Simply called consequence

***

Beneath downy pink and blue blankets
and tiny booties and diapers
and purest innocence 
and laughter
and sorrow
is this...
...hope for tomorrow
 

Janet~

Creator Crucified...for Us

It's been an AWESOME first week of April sky-watch! I took my camera with me every night on my run to capture only a glimpse of His wonder! This is HE who died for you and I. This is the One who loved us so He sent His Only Son, to die in our stead. This is He who sets us Free!

 "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 1 Corinthians 1:18

Life- Elvis Presley

He's Alive- Dolly Parton

The Power of the Cross 

Our Pet Monkey

She has been known to swing

From limb to limb

But generally

She is somewhere

In

Blue-eyed

Piggy-tailed

Joy,

Cheeks

Bulging blissfully

with

B

A

N

A

N

A

S

© Janet

The girl in the produce section at the super-market

raised her eye-brows at the amount of bananas in my shopping cart.

I quickly re-assured her that we have a pet monkey and her name is Victoria,

and I smiled at Victoria, who was with me…

‘Oh!’ said the girl…and I knew then that she didn’t realize the little girl with me was Victoria.

And I couldn't help but giggle a little, wondering what she was visualizing…

NaPoWriMo asks us to write about an animal today;)