Prelude

It’s a panoramic landscape as I view its lows and highs
It’s a kaleidoscope of heart-ache and of smiles and butterflies
But now its seems the radiant hues are dull in somber grey
And all the colors I would choose have somehow slipped away
For suddenly within the hush a tear-drop dims my eye
I see upon the painters brush a prelude to good-bye

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Janet Martin

Best Day of my Life

Hold on rushing minute
You fly way to fast
What I’m putting in it
Will quickly be past
So what of pleasure
Or toil and strife
I’m holding the best day
Of my life

Yesterday is over
I cannot retrieve
One moment of it
To somehow re-live
Its triumphs and failures
Its measure of strife
But today is the best day
Of my life

Tomorrow is a vision
With no guarantee
I have no promise
That it ever will be
The one thing of value
I see in this strife
Is simply today, the best day
Of my life

In it lies each moment
Waiting to be filled
With the fruit of my choices
Before its minutes are stilled
So what of pleasure
Or toil and strife
I’m living the best day
Of my life

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Janet Martin

Content

When the shadow deepens beneath your eyes
And many a season has swept the skies
Will we still have a reason, you and me?
To desire each others company

When you sit by the fire with a book in your lap
And it slips to the floor as you nod and nap
When the sorrows of life etch their kiss on your brow
Will you still love your wife as you love me now?

Will we sit in the sunset’s tranquility?
You with your pipe and me with my tea
Viewing sweet hours from a glowing past
As the evening’s soft, coral bowers are cast

Will you still let me softly trace
The tender love-lines on your face
Here on the porch will you sit with me
Content in each others company

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Janet Martin

The Hardest Part

The hardest part of loving you
Are the moments in-between
When you fade from my view
And every place we’ve been
And the hardest part of the morning
Is knowing the night with you
Is simply a prelude to the dawning
When you fade into the blue…….
For the hardest part of our laughter
Is the silence in between
And wondering for-ever after
Oh, what might have been
And the hardest part of loving you
Is simply letting go
Knowing there’s nothing we can do
To pause time’s ebb and flow
As the minutes melt into hours…..
The hours that stretch between
You and I in the hardest part
Of wondering what could have been

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Janet Martin

My Favorite Kind of Poetry

It has suddenly come to me
Loving you is poetry
Like a sonnet, sweet and low
Your tender words softly bestow
And wrap around my longing heart
The poetry that you impart
In every whisper, every sigh
Every flicker in your eye
In each heart-wrung melody
I hear perfect poetry
Darling, sit here next to me
As the moon-beams kiss the sea
Listen as I read to thee
My favorite kind of poetry

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Janet Martin

Love Song #2

It rolls across the gleaming hills
Of midnights silent rue
I now can hear its haunting trills
Like heavy-laden dew
Across each ramparts vain defense
In effervescent sighs
And in the moonlight I can sense
It flaming in your eyes

I once had known a tortured bliss
And in this solemn lay
I recall its searing kiss
Upon my memory splay
But now I turn to hear its chords
Redeem my agony
No finer gift could kings and lords
Ever bestow to me

Than this one gift that drifts upon
The moaning midnight breeze
As it softly sifts beyond
The swaying raven trees
This song in its grandest debut
Fit for royalty
As I turned to look at you
Your eyes sang it to me

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Janet Martin

Please.....

Keep me somewhere, please
Don’t give all of me away
Let just a little piece
Of me haunt your eyes of grey
As you begin to slowly tear
Each fragment from your heart
Oh please could you spare
One tiny little part
Where just a little piece of me
Could quietly reside
Put me where nothing else would be
Way down deep inside
For somewhere further on perhaps
So very suddenly
You might be drawn into a lapse
Of pining memory
For days where once we danced a bit
And shared the briefest mile
Please won’t you save a piece of it?
And wear it in your smile
You don’t need to keep all of me
Yes, I understand
That many others soon will be
The ones to hold your hand
But if you have a little plot
Where nothing else would be
Please,could you save a little spot
To keep a piece of me?

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Janet Martin

White Lies

I tell myself it doesn’t matter
There is nothing you could say
Even when the dust is settled
That could change things anyway
And so I simply keep repeating
In the end it’s for the best
I just wish I could believe it
As it robs me of my rest

It doesn’t matter if you’d rather
Never meet me on the street
Or if there should be another
Whispering words endearing, sweet
It doesn’t matter if you’re smiling
With her lips upon your ear
And the secret she is telling
Really doesn’t matter, dear

I tell myself it doesn’t matter
You were never quite my style
As I tear each of your letters
Up into a tear-stained pile
No, it really doesn’t matter
I am better without you
Actually I can’t remember…….
Ah, yes……they were blue

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Janet Martin