Monday, March 5, 2012

Contemplating Fear...

I fear the future quiet:
I fear the quiet of a still and sterile kitchen
Where there is no sound but the refrigerators hum
Once a haven of lively discussion
Of jam spills and chatter and breakfast toast-crumbs

I fear loss:
Anticipation, as a new day is stirred
The memory of your laughter in my ear
The lure in the dance of written word
The pleasure of having you near
The sanity I once took for granted
And maybe the tear as well
Because Alzheimer’s has stolen the person
Long before death’s gentle knell

I fear for my child,
Who, without no or yes
Has received the inheritance
Of my stubbornness

There is the fear of the unknown
Or the loss of a child’s faith
As they begin to question
What once they believed
There is the fear of evil
Hidden in a guise
That is soothing and delightful
To undiscerning eyes

I fear, more than losing a child to death
Losing a child to this world.

I thought once that I feared growing old
And I guess, perhaps if the truth were told
I still do

I fear being poor…
Not seeing gold in the sun
Sapphire in the sky
A diamond in the dewdrop
Or perhaps, in your eye
The riches of wisdom
Traded for dross
The folly of temporal
Molding eternal loss
I fear not wanting what I have
As I stand at autumn’s door
Knowing I must be brave
For I cannot return to summer’s shore

...sometimes I fear the rustle of the newspaper
becoming the wall we don't know how to climb
having nothing left in common
but what once was
and the ache for it to return
once more

But when fear overtakes me, and darkens my day
I close my eyes, talk to God until my fears melt away
He takes my despair and anxiety
As He whispers, dear child, I will never leave thee.

© Janet Martin

I never dwell on my fears for fear that fear will overtake faith.
But I did stop to consider them as I contemplated the Poetic Bloomings prompt.






Sunday, March 4, 2012

Hidden Terrors...yes, pun intended;)

http://poeticbloomings.com/2012/03/04/nothing-to-fear-but-fear-itself-prompt-45/


They leap from murky shadows
White heat dries my eyes as I try to run
With feet caught in quicksand
It is no use; my life is done
But as I brace myself for teeth meeting flesh
The bed jolts; I wake in a panting sweat

Sometimes they come at me
A black, lightning flash across the spacious yard
And I simply cannot move fast enough
Though a mile back I begin pedaling hard
It seems that their sixth sense knows
When there’s a bike-cyclist coming close

In a perfect world I could take a bike ride
And my heart would never race
Because everyone would keep their dogs tied
Denying them the thrill of the chase
Woof, woof, woof, my mouth goes dry
Who will be quicker, the dogs or I?

I really, really, REALLY HATE being chased by dogs.
When I was a girl I had to bike past a place where three big Dobermans
inhabited the front yard. It didn’t matter how silently I approached or how fast I was moving, they would give chase! I have remain terrified to this day! Yes it’s true. I am terrified of most dogs! Now you know…

Janet

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Disguises


We pretend to wait out
the wall of tears
pouring from the awning
onto the sidewalk
Streetlights gleam
...fuzzy golden globes
against the onyx air
while we are warmed by
the touching of fingertips
prolonging the agony
of thought
drifting
like sheet music on the wind
Lost ballad of
an hour bent with
farewell
No one can tell
as the same rain
washes our cheeks
in salty grief
that you will turn left
while I turn right
No one really knows
what happens
on a rainy night

J~

Flash-back...edited

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

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
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~

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

© Janet Martin

I am blessed to be in a wonderful Writer's Group!

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...