A Lesson in Love

If love has taught me
Anything at all
It is patience.

I do not know
If all things come
To those who wait…

Perhaps, we merely
Exchange what we are
Waiting for

In hope’s that it will
Arrive before
It is too late.

Janet~

Poets Are We

A shy sort of lot
Bashful, but not weak
As we unfold thought
Too honest to speak
For it seems unbidden
Our hearts are stirred
By what is hidden
Within a word
As images leap
From innocent script
And life’s passion bleeds
From our fingertips

Are you lonely tonight
And dreaming of home?
Let love hold you tight
In the arms of a poem
Poets never sleep
We are hopelessly smitten
With an insatiable need
To write the unwritten
My dear, do not fret
Over what yesterday stole
To live in regret
Is blight to the soul

The poet is a weaver
Of cast-away string
A quiet believer
Of paper and ink
A poet is a lover
And you are my love
Around me you hover
Beneath and above
Within me you bask
Torment and beguile
I tip my flask
To your lips, and I smile

Janet~

While You Were Gone...

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides/poetry-prompts/wednesday-poetry-prompts-156


While you were gone the ivy grew
To deck the garden wall
Where once I used to sit with you
And watch the shadows fall
And we would dream and we would sigh
And wish for things to come
But then you left without good-by
And now that girl is gone

While you were gone the laughing brook
Bled dry and flows with reeds
The old dirt path that once we took
Is overgrown with weeds
But I still see that secret place
Behind the old oak tree
Where first your soft lips brushed my face
And stirred the want in me

While you were gone my hope grew dim
And drifted to the sky
I learned that love is not a whim
And some tears never dry
While you were gone the years somehow
Wore out the garden gate
I see a woman standing now
Where once a girl would wait

Janet~

What Have We Done?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51bO1CVPWRA&feature=relatedhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif


Another year is slowly closing its fist
On shadows of sorrow and joy reminisced
Deep in our soul stirs a bitter-sweet glow
As we view the goals of twelve short months ago

Have we accomplished those things we resolved?
Or have days somehow just compiled and evolved
Absorbing our moments of reason and rhyme
Caught in the current of a vapor called Time

Open your hand; tell me, what do you see?
A soft, gleaming seed; opportunity
And with this small gift we quench the ache
Of wondering what kind of difference we make

It takes but one moment to smile or to pray
Planting hope for tomorrow in someone’s life today
We cannot control circumstance; bad or good
All we can control is our attitude

Another year is slowly closing its fist
I will not gaze in dismay at my list
Of forgotten promises, failure, regret
I’ll look at the gift of this moment instead

Janet~

Sometimes as another year draws to a close
it is easy to become over-whelmed by the swift passage of time
and the accumulation of failure and unfulfilled hopes.

Wait in the Lord,
Be of good courage
And He will strengthen Your heart.
Wait, I say, on the Lord. Ps. 27:14

The Futility of Ink

How does one write a perfect poem of love?
Is just to state the obvious enough?
Or must I in all fairness ask some questions first?
Darling, what makes you hunger most, or thirst?
What do you notice at quick glance, is it my lips, my eyes?
Is your concern what lies between my ribs…or just my thighs?
Is it words or touching, love; that moves you to the core?
If I should die tonight, tell me, which one would you miss more?
For I think above anything I should like to write
The very perfect love poem, but I never get it quite…

Yet I would like to try to know the man behind your eyes
What you think when you’re alone; what spawns those sighs?
And what is it you ache for that you think you cannot tell?
What makes you feel like I just do not know you very well?
To write a perfect love poem, must I really know?
Or shall I simply close my eyes and let the ocean flow?
Ah, words are futile syllables with which to pen
This Thing which thrills, fulfills and torments men
To write a perfect love poem, darling, I cannot do
But oh, it is a perfect storm, and I love you

J~

Sitting Here Alone at Night and Thinking...

The moon lies hid in the breadth of the sky
The dark is a black, unrelenting veil
No shadows of tree or willow-limb sigh
The wind is a low and monotonous wail
The silence is thick and heavy and deep
Memories are quick and unwilling to sleep

The flames in the fireplace flit and dance
The clock marks the hour in strict, perfect stride
Somewhere a first love is taking its chance
And somewhere someone's final chance has died
I am neither; but caught up in the midst
Of apart, yet together; of what was and what is

Life is a battle of paltry decay
Gain is the backdrop of misery and death
Even the darkness is merely the prey
Of dawn; it melts in the light’s faintest breath
Hope is the whisper that pierces the night
Love is the Master that spurs us to fight

Here in the dark and the quiet, alone
Minutes and memories and musings compete
A flicker, a shadow, a breath, present gone
Until history and eternity meet
When that day will be not one soul can tell
But Time is the key to Heaven or Hell

Janet~

Let Them Come...

Let them come
A motionless motion
pushing to eternity’s palm
my present-tense
while I try to decipher
their infinite scope
whether past or beyond


let them come
in merciful half-breaths
moving failure and success
to archives inaccessible
lest I become discouraged
or proud
of feeble attempts at perfection

let them come
the medium drawing me ever
farther or closer to you
as I try to measure
them they disappear and I cannot know
how long
a moment is…

As You Whisper

Your lips brushing close to my ear
With secrets only you and I can hear
A surge of rare intimacy
Laced with passion
Rushes through me
As you whisper

It may be a sudden, casual thought
But then again, it may be not
As others glance at us curiously
My heart pauses
Momentarily
As you whisper

No hint escapes but the slightest smile
Darling, your whispers drive me wild
It doesn’t need to be much
I just like it when
Your lips almost touch
Me, as you whisper

J~