No Game of Happenstance

 Poetics Aside Prompt; Wheel Poem

If life was just a game of chance

A spinning of the wheel

And fortune was a lucky glance

That misfortune could steal

If living was a gamble

Or a hapless fling of luck

And all that we could hope for

Was the glory of a buck

If hope was a drop of the ball

In terminal roulette

And destiny a lucky roll

Of numbers and a bet

If life, though a harsh duel

Were simply fate’s cold twist

Then living would be cruel

And hope could not exist

But our life is not some fluke event

Of pawns on a game-board of sod

Our being is no accident

It is a gift from God

© Janet Martin

 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Ps. 139:15

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, Jer. 1:5

Air-brushed Perfection

Poetics Aside Prompt: Write a 'wheel poem'

We cannot turn backward the wheel of time

To return to some coveted past

We cannot reverse its rhythm and rhyme

Of moments being cast

But if, peradventure by phantom power

Someone discovered that we could

Go back to starting life all over

…I don’t think that we would

Because even if we turned back time

And the present would disappear

A hill would still be a hill to climb

And a tear would remain a tear

The ‘known’ would become unknown's story

Progress and tradition would spar

Yes, the ‘good old days’ we have air-brushed to glory

Are perfect just where they are

© Janet Martin

Big Wheels Turning

They turn...
Those big wheels
Fueled by love and passion
By desire and demand
By duty and dreams

They turn
Taking Daddies from their babies
Men from their lovers
But love's sacrifice has no end
it seems

They turn
Kept by prayers
of little girls in flannel nighties
and boys of
 rambunctious lust

Big wheels turning
in the moonlight
as miles cool farewell kisses
and bills keep a-coming...
in God we trust

Janet;  (for hubby) who lives above eighteen wheels turning...

Poetics Aside Prompt: Wheels Poem

Above this Maddened Wheeling and Dealing...

 Poetics Aside Prompt:  Wheels (of any kind) Poem

Above this maddened

Wheeling and dealing

Sighing and crying

Taking and breaking

Of vows

Above time’s perpetual

Turning and yearning

Reeling with feeling

Groping and hoping

Flow

Above this torrent  

Rushing and crushing

Dreaming and scheming

Surreal quadrille

And swoon

God pins His mercy

In a silver sliver

Grace above craze

A gentle mantle

Of crescent moon

© Janet Martin

Cart-wheels in the Sky (edited re-post)

Poetics Aside Prompt:  Write a “Wheel” poem: of fortune, ferris, bike, auto – any kind of wheel. Even a big wheel and wheeling and dealing will do.

Dear little child, you don’t know it yet

A moment to you is simply a breath

A necessary means

To reach The Beckoning ahead

Moments spiral and gleam

A subtly disguised requiem

Wheeling through your thought

To the melody of a dream

You do not hear the rush

Of time moan in the autumn hush

Pushing to an ever-expanding hollow

Disguised by living’s underbrush

   Reels of pleasure and pain

Glimmer through Time’s ephemeral vein

Children become women and men

In its rising-falling refrain

Run, dear little child, run

Your intangible deliverance has begun

Into the vexing arms of life

And the jaws of the waning sun

Nay fly, dear little child, I say fly

Cart-wheel on clouds in a neon sky

Lest your Moment deflates

And your dream-well runs dry

© Janet Martin

Awesome Artist

He sweeps a dripping brush across the sky

Soundless, beyond the silhouette of trees

The artist spills celestial ecstasies

 Of pink and coral blush, translucent dye

Perplexities and pining ease their grip
 With gentle strokes in heaven-hallowed calm

He feather’s harsher edges with his palm

Beneath twilight’s tender companion-ship

In benediction of purple and blue
 The artist dips his brush into a wash

And flings into the hush a starry sash

Daubing the vivid sky-line from our view

Painter of heaven’s ceaseless canopy

Cool darkness snuffs the burnished tree-lined slope

The Artist fills the endless sky with hope

 In master-pieces of His majesty

...and in the tender twilight growing dim
The Artist reveals but whispers of Him

© Janet Martin

 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Psalms 19:1

(approx. an hour before the sun set I looked up to notice a strange rain-bow tinted blitz in the sky.)

 

The Most Important Day of my Life

Poetic Bloomings Prompt: The Most Important Day of My Life...

...when I said ‘I do’

Blissfully unaware

Of life’s conniving stare

Its concrete walls and hurdles

Because my eyes were fixed on you

When I said ‘I do’

Certain that love

Would be enough

Come hell or higher water

To carry us through

When I said ‘I do’

Hell and high water

Seethed; primed for slaughter

But I guess they forgot

You said, ‘I do’ too

Lord, when I said ‘I do’ to You

My lesser yet equally cherished vows

Are possible to keep, though life blows

It vilest gale from unknowns deep

Love will be enough to see us through

© Janet Martin

 

How To Love Your Teen-age Child

Poetics Aside Prompt: Take the phrase “How to (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

How to love your teen-age child;

with much kindness and patience

How to acquire much kindness and patience;

with much pleading in prayer

How to inspire much pleading in prayer;

love your  * teen-ager

© Janet Martin

* a little history on the 'teen-ager'.