A glimmer from the stars above
It is a tender song of love
And sometimes it makes me cry
I hear upon its plaintive moan
Words like ‘gone’ and ‘missing you’
And in its rippling undertone
The night blue……
Ballad of the wind
Seems to me there’s going to be
A continual encore
Music of a rolling sea
Or waves upon a distant shore
And I’m thinking that this song
Can not find a way to end
I will listen all night long
It’s become a sort of friend…….
Ballad of the wind
It’s a chuckle and a sigh
A ripple, and a rush, a roar
It’s ‘hello darling’ and ‘good-bye’
But oh, I think it’s so much more
Its ‘do you really need to go?’
‘When will I see you again?’
I hear the music start to blow…….
In the ballad of the wind
Oh, ballad of the wind
It’s a lonesome lullaby
Crooning from the star-strewn hill
It’s a love song from the sky
Pleading when the night is still
I would dance a little while
On some cold and darkened plain
To the music of your smile
And the ballad of the wind
Oh, the ballad of the wind
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
Time-song
The exodus of winter
Becomes spring’s arrival
But we cannot see time’s nimble-soft feet
Or the spawning of moments
As they tumble and trickle
Translucent as wind-song that sallies and sweeps
In ageless anthems
Across ambling waters
Teasing the travel of childhood’s wee brook
Folding to history
Its innocent chatter
Winding through pasture and timber-lined nook
Moments form ages
Yet age is a moment
When weighed in the balance with eternity
Time rolls toward us
From ethereal oceans
Dissolving on shores of infinity
We cannot leap forward
To the unknown before us
Nor turn again to its measure when past
But oh, what a wondrous
Perpetual chorus
Flows from the grace of the First and the Last
Departure, arrival
Mystic paradigm
As springtime evolves into summer’s blue haze
Yet still moments spiral
The essence of time
Forming life’s minutes, then hours, then days
Spinner of seasons
And lifetimes and centuries
Joy and grief rival in pleasure perplexed
Moment by moment
The edge of eternity
Closes the gap twixt this life and the next
© Janet Martin
I looked at these old trees and the ageless brook,
existing in nothing
but a sequence of moments.
How gracious God is...He doesn't shove life at us
in one huge lump, but in tender little moments.
Wonderful nuggets of potential. Even this mighty tree began as a tiny seed.
The Other Guy
Today I was the other guy
I watched myself as I walked by,
Today I got a chance to see
What others saw as I watched me,
Today truth opened up my eyes
As I stood with the other guys
I received the words today,
That thoughtlessly I toss away,
As I stood with the other guys
And truth stared back into my eyes
Beneath the candor of my touch
I wasn’t sure I liked me much
I got my own advice today,
I could not turn and walk away,
As I stood with the other guys
And watched me through a stranger's eyes
And watched me through a stranger's eyes
I blush a little now in shame
As I hear me speak my name
I used to wish that I could see
Perhaps, what others thought of me,
But now as I am standing here
I wish that I could disappear
Today I opened up my eyes
As I stood with the other guys
Janet~
Another attempt at the Anaphora Poem
Yesterday's Girl
Don’t go, not yet, I’ll miss you so much
Don’t go: Oh why are you in such a rush
Don’t go; the music insists that we dance
Don’t go; I beg of you one second chance
Please stay; I reach to restrain your feet
Please stay; for the hour is tender and sweet
Please stay; but you turn with a skip and a twirl
I wave farewell to yesterday’s girl
Janet~
The Anaphora Poem
Thursday, March 1, 2012
My Apolgy to my Writer's Group
I have discovered for the ump-teenth time
There is really no home for the poet of rhyme
And while I admit I have much to learn
There is a barred pasture for which I yearn
Where Tennyson, Long-fellow and Blake recline
Among all the great masters of rhythm and rhyme
My admiration runs deep for the artist of prose
The skill of their quill; the metaphorical rose
I strive to be brave enough to venture among
The haiku, cinquain, nonet, tanka song
But when I have wandered their courtyards sublime
I return once again to the pastures of rhyme
Beauty is in the eye of beholder, its true
I have understood as I beheld the senyru
And marveled at the tools of simplicity
Creating pure, breath-taking imagery
I bow my head, the truth now I know it
Dare I to call myself a poet?
Yet happily I gather words in my thought
Dither about for the elusive jot
I care not so much about status or title
The lure of words cannot keep my thought idle
Am I a poet or merely a shadow
Drifting in bliss through a wide open meadow?
So while some may gag at rhyme’s stringent plot
I have not learned how to un-rhyme my thought
Over and over I am lured by its dance
Yet drawn simultaneously by free-verse romance
So quietly I sit at the back of the room
Happy to observe poet’s in full bloom
Glynis, I am not afraid of rejection
but I have not the slightest sense of direction.
Most publishers prefer the free verse, not rhyme
I think I was born in the wrong frame of time
So I must study prose's secret ingredient
For I have no free verse I consider expedient
to offer up to a publisher at this time.
You see, I tend to be a poet of rhyme:)
I'm posting this selfishly to ease my injured pride
before I see you tomorrow night...
sigh, I think sometimes
I think in rhymes...
sigh, I think sometimes
I think in rhymes...
Mount Kilimanjaro
Written for Poetic Bloomings prompt: Where the rubber meets the road
You didn’t tell me,
Though I came right away
When you told me
That they would take us
To the summit of
Mount Kilimanjaro
We climb away
Past the shadows
Flickering with wildebeest
And skulking hyena
Away from their whimpering
Childish cries
Above the moody landscape
Of burnt grass and bamboo slopes
Golden-red in the pining sun
Past the stench of rotting carcasses
To the coveted top
Of Mount Kilimanjaro
How I wanted to see it
That white square
Transforming to a coral sea
As the sun sets
Above a layered landscape
Of muted blue and green
You told me once
That something foreign
Occupied the space in you
Once filled with life
…but you didn’t tell me
You came up here
To Mount Kilimanjaro
To die
Janet
I was stunned the first time I read Hemingway’s
The Snow’s of Kilimanjaro.
Breath-notes in Life's Song
Good-bye still warm upon the air
Expanding in each heart-beat
And I don’t think they are aware
Of my sentimental wishes
Borne upon a stringent breeze
As I reach but cannot touch
The moments shaping memories
J~
Perfect, Infallible Survival Kit
It has everything we will ever need
It is both Water and Living bread
It is the Way, the Truth, the Life
The tender Teacher in our strife
It is our refuge, strength and light
It is life’s compass, it is powerful and true
It is beginning, it is end
It is our comfort, hope secure
It is the faultless Word of God
© Janet Martin
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