Looking for Love (Sunday Wordle Challenge)

http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/

She hides in a closet and covers her ears
The darkness a circle to hide all her tears,
While Mommy and Daddy are fighting and yelling
When can she be happy? There’s really no telling
as she whispers to a myriad of ghosts on the wall
“I just need someone to love me, that’s all”
In that dank, fearful corner, the darkness her cover
She can’t help but wonder; will anyone love her?
And she cries…..looking for love

With sad eyes she searches through the smoke and the gloom
A drunken hero lurches across the bar-room
Is he coming to see her, touch her face, say she’s sweet?
Or promise an adventure in a room down the street
In the arms of a stranger, cobbled concrete above her
She risks all the danger; she needs someone to love her
She moans as she’s thinking and remembers her deed
She weeps as she’s drinking and drowning her need
And she cries…..looking for love

She panics in fear for the signs soon will show
And people will sneer for her deed they will know
She weeps for the sorrow that grows in her womb
No hope for tomorrow, how loveless her doom
Lost, alone, with no answer she heeds cold advice
That snuffs out the heart-beat with fingers of ice
She lies in a puddle of hatred and grief
Recalls how she’d huddle in the dark for relief
And she cries…..looking for love

Someone is standing in the door of a chapel
She sees they are handing out shiny red apples
Her deep inner hunger is a cold raging fire
She can wait no longer for her life-time desire
She’s drawn to the church by a kind-hearted smile
But she’s reaching for more than the fruit on a pile
As she gazes in longing at the warm, tender face
Her search for belonging accepts love’s embrace
And she cries….looking for love


And now there is peace, there’s a light in her gloom
A sweet, sweet release from her valley of doom
Some one has told her of a great God above
How He longs to hold her in His arms of love
Now she has a Father, a Savior and friend
Her searching is over as joyful tears blend
With tears of great sorrow for days of deep loss
But there’s hope for tomorrow at Calvary’s cross
And she smiles……for she has found love

Janet Martin

Thoughts of a Dying Soldier

The sky is such a lovely shade of blue in early May
The clouds look soft and fluffy; I’ll be touching them today
I'm glad the grass I’m lying on is soft and emerald green
The color of the lawn in spring back home in Aberdeen

God, there was so much that I had hoped that I could do
But it looks as if today I will be meeting you
And all the things I’ve thought worth-while seem suddenly so small
I can’t help but smile to think we fuss ‘bout life at all

The only thing that matters is this moment now impending
The seeds that I have scattered will grow though life is ending
God, it is so little that man-kind will ever know
I'm glad that I am not afraid because You love me so

There’s a letter in my pocket, I suppose someone will find
And give to my beloved, ‘something that he left behind’
Sure would have loved to see her, touch her soft cheek just once more
God, what a useless, bloody hell on earth, this war

Above me now an eagle flies on her majestic flight
I will pass her in the skies as I fly Home tonight
She will fly to some tall tree and to her faithful nest
I’ll fly to eternity and my eternal rest

The sky is such a lovely shade of blue in early May
I wonder what they’re doing in my home-town today
I wish that I could see them all and hold their hands again
Oh God, in death there’s no enemy, we are all just men

Janet Martin

Inspired by the book: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

A Season of Entitlement?

What spurs the seasons of this life

Which bleed upon the sod?

We squander love and hate alike

To serve lust’s lesser god

Freedom is not entitlement

To please our pompous pride

Seasons splayed their glory when

Brave men of honor died

Beneath the red October sky

Beneath the warm spring sun

Beneath the passions of July

Our freedom has begun

Dare we to spill one hallowed breath

In thoughtless chivalry,

Or live as though we own the earth

Bought once through history?

Seasons and mankind mark the soil

Where soldier’s blood-drops fell

If freedom’s cost evades our toil

Then we are bound for hell

What spurs the seasons treading time?

Tis not entitlement

That brings the rain or sun to shine

On meadows that we plant

We gather harvest of the field

Yet, who evokes the sod?

Can we preserve our freedom’s shield

Yet spurn the hand of God?

Winter, spring, summer and fall

Will we be diligent?

Or blindly stumble through them all

Pleading entitlement?

Janet Martin

In Lieu of Flattery

Eventually your intentions

Will become clear

Then I shall know

If your words are sincere

Clarity is certain

There is no flawless mask

Your eyes answers questions

That I dare not ask

The wine of flattery

Is mellow and warm

But dissipates quickly

Like hollow charm

I withhold a portion

Of whom I am

Until I am certain

Your love is no sham

Words without honor

Are a loathsome tool

First jilt, a scholar

Second jilt, a fool

J~

Beauty Versus Brawn

She flings ‘cross the morning her bronze-dappled gaze

High-lighting dew fringes in a rich coral glaze

He surveys her ardor with a gleam in his eye

Shoving an army of clouds to the sky

Cobalt and silver and ten shades of gray

‘Take that, my fair lady, now what do you say?’

And she smiles nonchalantly, as with riveting hue

She out-lines in gold, those tumbled clouds of gray-blue

Autumn digs deeper, the duel is on

He, of all seasons, will not be out-done

As he brushes earth’s heaven and tousles the trees

Filling argent air with gold-leaf melodies

But summer spreads herself broadly across the blue vault

Drawing the ocean of billowed clouds to a halt

Then she turns the observant spectators gaze

To sunflower, zinnia and delphinium maze

Her sapphire canvas, a stunning backdrop

Enhances flower rainbows, as hurried feet stop

To marvel at the glory of summer-late bloom

Inhaling the sultry musk-laden perfume

As gardens relinquish in grand chivalry

Its remnants of summer in brilliant harmony

A collaboration of pink and orange, sorrow and hope

Of red, yellow, purple and green kaleidoscope

Her unabashed splendor is hard to ignore

He tugs at the sky’s edge; it begins to pour

Long fingers snuff her beguiling charm

He leans on her shoulder with bold, brawny arm

His moody demeanor and purposed intent

Dominates keenly a pivotal moment

Fair beauty, dark brawn, he touches her lips

She moves to respond… but the moment slips

Janet

'It's a funny day' comments the little guy I baby-sit,

as the sun slips behind gray curtains and it begins to rain.

'I think summer and autumn are having a tug-of-war again today', I replied...

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

A comment on the previous poem caused me to dig into the archives.

Suddenly I'm thinking of the cost of freedom...

Somebody's Love (another 'red' poem)

He loved his mom’s apple strudel
His eyes were kind and blue
He loved a girl named Caroline
And oh, she loved him too
They were going to be married
As soon as the war was done
And maybe if they were lucky
Someday they would have a son

He always loved to play football
Was the high school quarter-back
He didn’t play for a medal
Just played for the love of it
He had a collie named Rover
Best pals, the two of them
Now Rover whimpers every night
Wondering what's taking so long

He was a generous fellow
Walking the second mile
When other were inclined to say no
He offered, with a smile
But nobody knows his attributes
As he lies in the crimson snow
They’ve come to gather the fallen dead
Here lies another John Doe

Beneath each cross in Flanders’ Field
Beneath the sound of a gun
Beneath the weapon or the shield
Is somebody's precious son
Beneath the watchful eye above
The bloodied fallen lie
Oh, pray for they are somebody’s love
For you and yours they die

Janet~
'son' is a generic term here
We pray for all the sons and daughters!

Red is for poppies and rivers of blood.
Red is for freedom.

Red

http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2011/09/thursday-think-tank-68-red.html


When maple tree, sedum, and apples turn red
We know darling summer is bowing her head
Farewell to the warm, green dust-fringed afternoon
As red steals the verdure of opulent June

Into mystic tresses languid summer slips
Beneath the caresses of autumn’s red lips
As passion and longing and imminence bleed
Across blazing tarmac of hopes falling seed

When ravishing sumac and mountain ash sashes
Line hilltop and highway in riveting splashes
When the whole world’s a-flame with scarlet and red
Then we know sweet summer is bowing her head

Janet Martin