New Invention for Patience

Poetics Aside Prompt; Write about a piece of technology or engineering that does not exist but that should.  It could be a tribute to something that came to be because of a writer’s imagination, like a helicopter or a submarine or a filtration system that makes urine potable.  Or it could be the original imagination that may one day lead to a new piece of technology, like cloud movers, flood distributors, skyhooks, or levitation chairs.

( I realize my poem is not exactly technology but, it would be nice if someone invented this:) Due to mothering challenges this is the first thought that came to mind:))

Mankind discovers countless cures

To soothe or relieve our ill

But I wish that somebody could invent

A healthy patience pill

Then, for life’s sudden grievances

Or lack of kind good-will

We wouldn’t fret, but simply pop

A little patience pill

Technology is never done

Progress never stands still

And I’m inclined to think someday

They’ll make a patience pill

For traffic jams or check-out lines

While waiting for Jill or Bill

Or as we wait to see the doc

We pop a patience pill

And wouldn’t it be lovely

If we could get a free re-fill

Simply by snapping our fingers

Oops, I think we need a patience pill

© Janet Martin

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We Remember

To all the families all over the world who grieve fallen heroes...we remember, we care.

Remembrance

A gun, a bomb, hatred and loss
Will never set us free
A Son, a tomb, love and a cross
Has sealed our victory

~Janet Martin~

“It is finished” John 19:30

This is my body given for you
Do this in remembrance of me. Luke 22:19

A Veteran's Thoughts from a Park Bench

Poetics Aside Prompt; Write A Veteran's Thoughts

The streets team with young men now, and dreams

But it was not so back when

The draft came to town and stole from

Mothers and lovers

All the young men

Now the park is filled with laughter

Of care free girl and boy

While in countless 'Flanders Fields'

Lies the price tag

Of freedom’s joy

He sits alone on the park bench

Thinking of 'him'

With tears in his eyes 

He remembers

His buddy, Jim

Jim will never see

The fruit of his sacrifice

And he weeps because so many

Seem ignorant

Of freedom’s price

© Janet Martin

No 'Free' in Freedom

Somberly, up the quiet tree-lined street
The steady stream of solemn ranks are led,
As sun-beams dance to the drummer’s beat
Filtering through the branches overhead
Beyond the tears and past the trees
The music of a small child’s laughter swells
Stark contrast to the infantry
Bowing ‘neath the tolling of the bells

Then, as the bag-pipe sound exalts
The melody of sweet Amazing Grace
The banner-covered coffin halts
For it has reached its final resting place
The last note fades, the cannon flies
Echoing across a distant shore
But none as stirring as the mother’s cries
“There’s no ‘free’ in freedom anymore

Put down your banners, lay down your guns
My sweet baby boy has died
Tributes, salutes, many battles won
Won’t bring him back” she cried
“Take away all the roses for nothing will be
Like it ever was before
The price of freedom is too hard for me
There’s no ‘free’ in freedom anymore”

Freedom (part two)

Up the rocky skull-strewn trail
A teaming, screaming throng of hatred surged
Swarming ‘round a form so pale
Upon a place called Calvary they converged
Beyond the tumult, wild and raging
Not a solitary friend is found
Stark contrast to the shouts and praising
As the palm-tree branches decked the ground

Then as the sound of steel on steel
Rings beyond the horror on the hill
As they drive in each cruel nail
‘Gainst the cries of ‘Father, not My will’
And as they raise the blood-stained cross
In victory the maddened thousands roar
As Mary weeps her deepest loss
“There’s no ‘free’ in freedom anymore

Take away your hammers, lay down your swords
My dear precious son has died”
As the lightning flashed and the thunder roared
There at His feet she cried
“Take away all your hatred, your jeers and chanting
For you have slain my Lord
Take away all your weapons, your raging and ranting
There’s no ‘free’ in freedom anymore”

There’s no ‘free’ in freedom, oh what a price
So that we may be set free
There’s no ‘free’ in freedom, love's sacrifice
Is beyond understanding for me
There’s no ‘free’ in freedom, let us value each day
And cherish each living breath
Oh, what a price someone needs to pay
For the cost of freedom is death

Janet Martin

Mien Liebling Daag (My Darling Day)

Poetics Aside Prompt: Use a foreign word in the title of your poem

My darling day, do you not know?

Sometimes it’s hard to see you go

But deft the dawning disappears

Shaping life’s moments into years

For soon the twilight comes again

To dirge of dismal autumn rain

Yet, soon its somber melody

Will simply be a memory

Oh, we may strain against the tide

But time sustains its rigid stride

And soon dawn’s surge of zeal and zest  

Fades with the daylight in the west

And soon the boy becomes a man

None can escape Time’s subtle hand

For swift the evening shade is cast

And present moment becomes past

The ebb and flow of come and go

The limbo twixt wonder and woe

Has fortified a keen belief

The price for love’s sweet joy is grief

The bliss of having bears a cross

With it we learn to suffer loss

And in the contrasts of love’s grip

Life’s pure and liebling moments slip

Mein liebling daag, my darling day

My interlude to come-what-may

My love and longing rivalry

Of what has been to what will be

But oh *mein schatzi; liebster; freund

We dance, we cannot change the mind

Of living's little smile and strife

Or moment's as they shape a life

© Janet Martin

German; my treasure, darling, friend

Liebster is darling for a man

Liebling is darling for a woman

Beautiful Truth

He wishes now

He had not lied

For beautiful truth

Has nothing to hide

…so, dear young child

Do not lie to your mother

For one small lie

Will lead to another

© Janet Martin

Oh Night...

Oh night, you do not shape the silence

Like the quiet of the day

When the harvest is all gathered

And the vesper dies away

But over the mute garden

At twilight, soft you creep

And cover gilded fringes

With your garment dark and deep

 Oh night, sometimes your quiet

Is a comrade, kind and true

But sometimes it is keen and sparks

Raw thoughts of ‘missing you’

And into the still darkness

Our reminiscing bleeds

And only unmarred silences

Its want and wonder heeds

Oh night, you strip away the masks

Of bravery and pride

Beneath the cloak of quietness

We do not need to hide

Or wear for meek appearance

A calm and cool facade

Here in the folds of darkness

It is simply us and God

© Janet Martin

While He is Gone...

A slight variation to the poetics aside prompt 'when he is gone'

While He is gone, beyond our vision

He who put on humble flesh so that He

Would suffer akin, every grief and temptation

That ever afflicted humanity…

While He is gone, where clouds of heaven

Received Him out of our feeble sight

He is preparing a royal wedding

Soon he will come to gather His bride

While he is gone, though generations

Pass, and creation groans in its grief

Yet still he lavishes goodness and mercy

Upon us, in spite of our unbelief

While He is gone, He is not extending

For our torment His patient grace

But while He is gone His love unending

Pleads for the lost beyond His embrace

While He is gone, though the clouds appear listless

And heaven seems distant; though deeply we yearn

What He has said will not be disregarded

In power and glory He will return 

© Janet Martin

When He is Gone...#4

Poetics Aside Prompt; use 'when he is gone' in poem

When he is gone

Do we remember?

And do we pray

For he or (she) as they fight

For our freedom

Every day

When he is gone

Is he (she) a mythical ‘forgotten’

In a world far away?

As they lay their lives on the line

For our freedom

Every day

When he is gone

Do we beseech

To God as we pray

To keep and protect them as they fight

For our freedom

Every day

When he is gone

More than his dearly beloved

Ought to weep and pray

For sons and daughters
And mothers and fathers

Who risk their lives

For our freedom

Every day

© Janet Martin

When Old Man Winter is Gone

Poetics Aside Prompt; Use 'when he is gone' in a poem

When he is gone

The vengeance in the wind will wane

The bully-bluster

Will dissipate

And he will be gentle again

When he is gone

The quiet garden seeded now

With naught but dreams

Will suddenly be full of laughter

Where the frosted furrow gleams

When he is gone

The landscape, mute within his icy grip

Will surge with verdant velocity

As barren limbs burgeon

Beneath thawed finger-tips

When Old Man Winter is gone

We fling the shutters wide

To welcome the out-doors in

But now they are bolted against his pleasure

He tugs at the sky with a grin

© Janet Martin

Due to major posting problems I am no longer posting on their site.

When He is Gone... #2

We cannot tell him then

Those words we ought to speak

Nor shake his hand or hug him

Or kiss his love-lined cheek

The ‘would-have-should-have’ ache

Of thoughts he did not know

Will not be there, if now we take

The time to tell him so

What good are accolades?

Or words, loving and dear

If we wait to express them

When he can no longer hear

Oh, tell him that you love him

Not upon a cold gravestone

But now; for all the words you speak

He cannot hear when he is gone

© Janet Martin

Poetics Aside Prompt: use the words 'When he is gone' somewhere in a poem .

When He is Gone...

Poetics Aside Prompt: use the words when he is gone anywhere in a poem.

When he is gone...

That laughing, little lad

The tree pines for those hours

That once they had

When he is gone

The air is heavy with a pall

Akin to absence of leaf-song

In the latter part of fall

When he is gone

That 'little boy blue'

The tree pines for his return

And perhaps his mother too

Janet~

Passage...

The air does not shudder

And nor does the grass

In spite of the haste

With which you pass

Surely, there ought to be

A kind of farewell

Like a soft melody

Or a tolling bell

But fluid, you slip

Or, do you climb?

An ethereal drip

Of passing Time

You do not wave

Or whisper good-by

But you become yesterday

As you slip to the sky

© Janet Martin

The Lord is our Shepherd

He leadeth our souls; kingdoms rise but to fall

Still the Good Shepherd knows His sheep; hears our call

And we shall not want; sustained by His breath

Beside the still waters; in the valley of death

His rod and staff comfort; in the presence of foes

He prepares a banquet; as love overflows

Surely goodness and mercy will ever prevail

For the Lord is our Shepherd and He will not fail

© Janet Martin

Psalms 23

Ode to the Muse

The Poetics Aside prompt invites us to use an old poet's poem and write a rebuttal; today I am drawn to Keats. Was it a vision or a waking dream is a line in Ode to the Nightingale

Was it a vision or a waking dream?

Alas, and was it thus my heart you stole

Wrapped as you were; the essence of a stream

When spring has loosed her from winter’s cajole?

And as you played my senses with your lure

And as my pulses surged in begging swoon

Did you intend my lone heart to procure?

Or, were you simply passing like the moon

Far off yet all consuming in your glance

While I, a meek and speechless love-struck girl

Invited you to laugh in reckless dance

As you remained aloof; elusive swirl

Then, well thy word is like a forlorn bell

And if I could I’d cheat my thought of you

But I know now that you know me too well

And to deceive you is the thing I cannot do

The silence tolls your present absence where

The air is filled with expectation’s pause

But still I wait; unwilling to despair

Of your return, and still I wait because

I do not care to breathe without your thought

Or write at last a sorrowful requiem

For thee; who came one night, or did you not?

Tell me;  was it a vision or a waking dream

© Janet Martin  

Where are the Songs of Spring?

Where are the songs of Spring; aye, where are they?

The notes that tune the dawn with jubilee

As shrouds of frigid respite melt away

And hope, a shrine renewed startles the lea

While we of dreams and duty part our lips

To drink the sun-warm nectar from a glass

Spilling its passion where the apple-blossom drips

Its fervor to the fresh, innocent grass

But now its naked arm is cold and stark

As day is swallowed early by the dark

Where are the songs of spring; aye where are they?

Muffled it seems by autumn’s drifting dirge

Or buried where the silent willows sway

As winter fills the air with silver splurge

The maestro of spring’s triumphant choir

Is resting now, a bittersweet repose

As we who seek the broken woodland spire

To warm our frozen fingertips and toes

Where choristers arrayed in virgin-white

Stand petrified against the onyx night

Where are the songs of spring; aye, where are they?

Where is that honey-trickle from a spoon

Where sunshine pools on moments now dull gray;

Sweet, golden luster on the afternoon?

Where are the songs of spring; the waking bloom?

The melody of bird and buxom breeze

To fill the earth, a gaunt and ghostly tomb

Of quiet homage to its memories

Ah yes, we know they wait, a calliope

Of splendor sealed as yet on heaven’s slope

© Janet Martin

Poetics Aside asks us to take a question asked by a favorite old poet and answer it in our own words. This question is a in a favorite poem of mine by John Keats entitled Ode to Autumn.

Ode to Autumn by J. Keats

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Deep in the Heart

It is so long, long ago now

Time; the great healer

Has rendered its part

But still in the waning

Of echoes and shadows

I feel your whisper

Held deep in my heart

Vexed by the kiss of a memory

Mulled by the passing

Of autumns and spring

Sometimes at night

By the soft firelight

Deep in my heart

I feel your whispering

Back when love was a rosebud

Virgin; un-weathered

Before Time’s rendered part

We loved as the petals

Fell from the flower

Shaping the whispers

Held deep in the heart

© Janet Martin

Life's Merry-go-round

poetics aside prompt; circle poem

First a smile, then ‘hello’ and ‘how are you’

And before we know it we’ve made a friend or two

But just as we begin to know more than their names

Instead of ‘hello’ it is good-bye again

If I could then I would if a way could be found

I’d grab on and slow down this merry-go-round

But we all climb back up and ride for a while

Until it’s good-bye and a farewell smile

We share our triumphs and sometimes our sorrow

Tell them of dreams in a hopeful tomorrow

We laugh together and shed tears when they cry

Then suddenly, just like that…it’s good-bye

If I could I would stop this merry-go-round

But it seems to this merciless circle we’re bound

For almost before our tears are dried

We dare to climb on for another ride

Why do we fail to treasure today?

But wait ‘til we see someone walking away

And then, how our hearts over-flow with pain

To know we may never see them here again

If I could, then I would stop this merry-go-round

But I can’t seem to bring this moving circle aground

So I climb back up, forget that I cried

Smile, say ‘hello’ and go for a ride

Janet~

One from the un-blogged archives.

Of Life-circles and Choices

 PAD Prompt: circle poem

We serve, Creator or created

Before dust returns to dust

Whether prince, priest or pauper

We must choose whom we trust

The leaders of earth rise

Transient they fall

There is One, Supreme Being

Above us all

From our very first cry

As He grants us breath

We know, you and I

Will someday face death

And as we choose Whom to serve

In life’s brief circle we

Choose not for mere Time

But for eternity

© Janet Martin

Of Flesh and Blood Compassion (edited re-post)

...when flesh and blood lies bleeding

futile thoughts against the sky

as farewell prayers, gasping and pleading

weep out life's final good-bye

...when freedom’s price is blood-bought

with a brother, daughter, son

our grief is universal

and our teardrops flow as one

...when freedom’s charge is gathered

again…again… again

we see, not their race or color

but simply women, men

With flesh and blood compassion

we implore to God above

to comfort those who deeply sorrow

for the ones they dearly love

When freedom’s price is blood-bought

charted ramparts disappear

for in death we all are kindred

and our sorrow is a tear

© Janet Martin

Is Peace Really Out of Reach?

Is there anything new under the sun?

Will ever we learn how to truly love?

Will ever there be a putting down of gun?

Love’s surest, purest part to prove

Blindly we gaze from north to south

Where autumn glory gilds its span

And while her goodness stuffs our mouths

We turn to slay our fellow-man

Will ever True Love that was spilt

On Calvary from Son of God

Vanquish the horror of our guilt

That seeps blood-red into earth’s sod

Is ever a battle truly won

Of anger, hatred, spite or wrath? 

There are no victors where the gun

Renders its deadly aftermath

Friend, enemy; are we not one

As we lie in a common grave

When our life-battle here is done

And only Love our souls can save?

Will foolish war and bickering

Forever taint this troubled berth

Of Time, ceaseless and quickening

Where love is ever its lone worth?

Is there anything new under the sun?

And will man’s striving ever cease?

Or, is earth the valley of the gun

And Heaven our hope of peace

As tiny droplets form a sea

And golden grains of sand, the beach

Ah, surely one by one thus we

Can form what now seems out of reach…

© Janet Martin

   

Of November...

Is it really there?

This sense of space we cannot bridge

Or is it the November air

Enveloping autumn’s ridge

It’s cold out here today

And I wish we were together

Is it loneliness I feel

Or just November’s weather?

Is nostalgia a color

Or just days we remember

I think it pulses

In shades of November

November has the reputation

Of being dull, dismal and bleak

I don’t really mind it darling

With your sigh against my cheek

© Janet Martin

A Little Fun with Left and Right

Poetics Aside Prompt: Left Poem/Right Poem

In this left-foot-right-foot journey

We are left with one certainty

The consequences of our action

And whatever that might be

Of wrong or right

***

You left because it was right

***

I write with my left hand

And eat with my right

Thereby to appease

Both appetites

 *** 

Left side or right

I do not care

Oh my darling, as long

As I know you are there

***

Some things are better left alone

Right where they are

***

Right after the words left my lips 

I wished they hadn’t

***

Oh God, You remain right where you are

Yet it seems you are not there

Is it I then, who has left?

***

The left-overs

Are right under

Your nose

***

Sweetheart, we have this left

In love’s pleasure and pain

The right to keep trying

Again and again

***

Right now

I left…

© Janet Martin

This Left-foot-right-foot Journey...

 Poetics Aside Prompt: Left/right Poem

We are not so different

Whether fearful or brave

Life is a left-foot-right-foot journey

From the cradle to the grave

No matter where on earth we be

Whether master or slave

Life is a left-foot-right-foot journey

From the cradle to the grave

Humanity has much in common

Not measured by the things we have

But by this left-foot-right-foot journey

From the cradle to the grave

We are fellow-travelers

So let’s share what mercy gave

In our left-foot-right-foot journey

From the cradle to the grave

…for we are not so different

 In this path of life we brave

On a left-foot-right-foot journey

From the cradle to the grave

© Janet Martin

Of Heaven's Patient Love

Grace spills its hues across the land

Dawn scales earth’s phantom brink

Above the sky the artist’s Hand

Airbrushes hope in pink

The dusk-postlude of yesterday

Has sealed its history

We fix our gaze on this new day

And what is yet to be

Dawn freely spills her virgin grace

From portals up above

As we are drawn to the embrace

Of heaven’s patient Love

© Janet Martin