Friday, December 23, 2016

Like Sonnets Dripping From the Sky





Sometimes upon the bluesy blur
Of day bending with twilight’s sigh
It seems I hear a sort of whisper
Dripping from the deep'ning sky

Window-scapes fade to nothingness
And so time’s new day disappears
Into Bygone's big emptiness
Of Now spun into after-years

And I am torn; love-worn, the art
Of hunger and fulfillment vie
To touch the part that stirs the heart
With sonnets slipping from the sky

© Janet Martin



Fair Lady Dawn



 Since I have youngsters arriving early on most mornings I don't always get all the poems out of my system so here's a morning poem to sparkle your afternoon:)
She really was something of a wonder this morning...that fair lady, Dawn

 

She trips along a boulevard
Untouched by human race
Then lays her halo on each yard
God’s signature of grace

From far-off clime time’s blush bells peal
Curtailing seas of night
Refurbishing earth's color-wheel
Sir Dusk snuffed from our sight

…then, where the air was deep and black
She brushes it away
And smooths its darksome curtain back
To woo us with Today

Time's newest love beams, bright and pure
Unsullied, as of yet
By we of resolution's lure
...and masters of regret

Soft, silently she disappears
As deftly as she came
The Matriarch of yester-years
Fair Lady Dawn, her name

© Janet Martin



Of-From God...



 A stunning start to time's newest love...
Let's celebrate...not just because it's Christmas but because its Love of-from God to us!

It lights the wick that lights the quick
Of living’s highs and lows
Sometimes it is a thorny prick
Sometimes it is a rose

It turns the other cheek; a meek
-and-mildness; always right
Quick to forgive and slow to speak
Those words that wound or slight

It drives us to our knees with pleas
Yet reaches for the sky
And through patient humility
It teaches us to fly

It bore the birth of lowly earth
And death upon a cross
It pours in us life’s holy worth
…a sacred albatross

It helps, it hopes, it spills hard ‘asks’
A flask of smiles and tears
That makes glorious, homely tasks
And second-mile veneers

It is not always realized
Or recognized as such
This hard-soft-wounding-healing-prized
Oft misunderstood touch

It wears the name of Jesus, oh,
Demons quake, saints applaud
It bears the sweetest claim we know
It is love; of-from God

© Janet Martin


I Thought I Knew Love...

In the middle of life's messy muddle, there it was! a bit of heaven as three beaming boy-faces watched Janet pull the paper from their gift to her.
'It's pretty special' one of them hinted as she first went to place the wrapped gift under the tree and then she knew she couldn't wait 'til Christmas!



It's been a long time since I've added a rolling-pin to my collection.
Yesterday I received a very special addition.
Thank-you from the bottom of my heart:)

I thought I knew love
And reached to pluck its rose
But found, to my dismay, a thorn
Beneath its pretty pose

I thought I knew love
And donned my dancing shoes
But found the ball-room was a road
Of second-third mile dues

I thought I knew love
Then, much to my surprise
It kissed me in the middle of
Life's muddled paradise

© Janet Martin


Thursday, December 22, 2016

Of Silk and Steel



That's the way life is...a holy blend of silk and steel


The artist and the poet understand
The kinship twixt the lover and the land
The fire of the pen or brush to page
Where wars of Want and Must their battles wage

Ah, tug-of-heart, the art of season-sweep
Startles the pioneer of toil and sleep
Today is never second-hand; its skies
Brimming with the imminence of good-byes

The oracle of eventide is swift
To smooth to naught the remnant of dawn’s gift
Midnight is large; the whole world disappears
A barge that sails through stars or is it tears?

Darling, we are all strangers to today
And no one knows what waits to fill dusk's tray
The color-wheel of silk and steel soft-spills
In droplets snared by canvases and quills

© Janet Martin