The Ways of a Poem...(to poets the wide world over)

Your British eyes smile, blue

Across the sea

Poems scale mile-barriers

Effortlessly

I hear your whisper

From the turquoise south

Your poem melts like summer

In December's mouth

Even in the dark

Thought cannot lose its way

Poems drifts like a spark

To ports far, far away

Ah, Spanish matador

Red capes cannot shield

The thrust of a poem

In its passion revealed

Muse, like tumbleweed

North, south, east or west

Roams ‘cross the prairie-land

Climbs Mount Everest

She traverses oceans

Dallies from the moon

While dangling a poem

From the tip of her swoon

There is no rampart

A poem cannot climb

Such is the wonder

Of rhythm and rhyme

British eyes smile, blue

Like coming home

Thought shapes her beauty

Into a poem

© Janet Martin

Snow-fall Sonnets

The winter-dawn scene is white-sheen serene

No hint of tempests that tortured night’s girth

Lambasting hollow and tall evergreen

Sweeping stray petals of fall from the earth

Now children wake with a shriek of delight

At last old man winter has ceased to snore

Flinging his blankets of snow-powder white

Into the sky with a sulk-bulky roar

As gray-umber scruff of pasture and bluff

Boast gleaming robes of gilded royalty

Glistening diamonds bedazzle the cuff

Where pauper’s ragged tatters used to be

Elements shudder then softly release

To hill and gutter sweet heavenly peace

***

What is so rare is a fine winter day?

Though June doth possess verdant emerald gown

December polishes November gray

Decking youth’s folly with wisdom’s white crown

Over the stubble and trouble-wrought past

Grace is bestowed, not in pewter-pitch ash

But tumbling and twirling, old man winter’s blast

Blankets dull yards in silver-studded sash

Rousing within us the slumbering child

Urging us to suavely brave the sharp chill

Dashing through unblemished field, free and wild

Pausing to touch the air, stringent and still

For sure as sure as the summer doth pass

Soon this day too is a drop in time’s glass

***

Firesides beckon; orange-leaping romance

Snickers and smolders; its mystic tenure

Bestowing to poets and dreamers a dance

Of flickering flame in amber allure

Outside the artist, most often despised

Paints masterpieces into the dark hush

Though oft he is cursed, berated, chastised

Still he extols Heaven’s Hand ‘neath His brush

This is the season of sleds, skates and books

Tender hiatus from dirt-dreary toil

This is the reason for cozy house-nooks

Mini vacations from work-weary spoil

Gather your loved ones and let the winds blow

This is the season; let it snow, let it snow

© Janet Martin

p-s-s-t. I'll be honest,

this is for those who did get dumped on yesterday. Once again, we are on the fringe...

Like Smoke Rings...

 

Where once the hour chimed her in

From portals mystic-gray

Now soon it tolls her out again

To sleep earth’s time away

How fleet the feet of moments dance

We fall beneath their spell

Mesmerized by the romance

Of impending farewell

How swift the splurge of seasons merge

With predecessors spent

How soon the swoon of verdant June

Is stricken, stripped and bent

How quick the truth shunned in our youth

Leaves its halo of gray

The clock chimes clear, another year

Like smoke-rings, drifts away

© Janet Martin

Wild Wind Song

 

When the night falls down

In a dark velvet gown

Crowning earth’s borders

East, west, north and south

I hear the croon

Of a lost afternoon

I taste the salt

Of its tear in my mouth

When the wind moans blue

On midnight’s avenue

Phantom scavenger

Fearless and bold

I hear the lay

Of a sweet summer day

Warm in my memory

Yet to my touch, cold

When the wee house shutters

‘neath dark threats it utters

And love-stitched blankets

Cannot snuff its bluff

I hear the wail

Of a life growing pale

Heavy with things

Which are never enough

When dark night is deep

And the earth is asleep

Save for stark tree-tops

Tormented and tossed

I hear a moan

Echo sad and alone

A wayfarer searching

For years she has lost

© Janet~

Tonight the house shivers and shakes

as the harsh winter wind

howls and rakes 

its talons of steel across the dark

chill and wroth

shrouding the earth in a silver-white cloth...

Overtures of Spring

Moments burst, then twirl and swirl

Unfurling hours through the air

Rapid exhale, wild enigma

Painting portraits, raw and rare

Though grim gale hurls snow-storm spasms

Its insistence cannot quench

Dormant daydreams in the garden

And the bud that tree limbs clench

Soon will stir a ruby rustle

And what seemed a hopeless thing

Spills into nature’s spacious parlor

In grand overtures of Spring

© Janet Martin

Sunday Whirl ;

Tendersweet Tangle

 

What is it about you, my beautiful sweet?

Dashing through childhood on fantasy’s feet

Scattering pieces of my heart in the path

Of good-night, good-morning kiss aftermath

 Why are you in such an eager-free rush

Racing to the border of pink-gold dawn blush?

Alas, but the beckoning of life’s darling dreams

Is stronger than my murmured pathos, it seems

Where is it that you must so hurriedly race?

Pushing ever forward to that mystical place

Of sweeter tomorrows drenched with honeyed charm

While I stoop to trace your footprint still warm

What is it about you, my beautiful sweet?

I cannot dissuade the dreamer in your feet

Nor would I, for love holds even as it lets go

For my heart-strings are tangled in its afterglow

© Janet Martin

My oldest daughter had to work yesterday. 

She was gone before anyone was up 

and I missed her as we opened our gifts 

because I realized what once was is past, and what is, is slipping through my fingers 

even as I reach to touch the treasure 

of a moment...  

Beautiful Rush

 

You think nothing of it

…slipping between the cold air

And my lips

Your half-grin ignoring

My finger-tips

Reaching to touch

Your touch, softly

Such is the rush

Of a

Memory

J~

Beautiful Legacy...

 

If ever the day should come, my love

When I can no longer spell

In tender, whispered endearments

Words you love to hear me tell

If ever the pen should fall, my love

Forever to the crypt

Of memories and what once was

Before the hour slipped

Its chill fingers beneath the clasp

Of warm and vibrant touch

To snuff the laughter and the dance

From days we love so much

…and if ever the time should come, my love

That we reach the stepping-stone

From this trial-and-error-slip-and-stumble

To the great Beyond

I should covet but this;

That life and love’s sweet memory

Will comfort you and that its kiss

Will be a beautiful legacy

...and if the silence should echo with years

I pray its music will be grand

…not filled with sad, regretful tears

And cruel, harsh reprimand

Oh, when the things that are, my love

Will then no longer be

I pray that we have left behind

A beautiful legacy

© Janet Martin

My daughter works at a Long-term Care Facility. She cares for an 89 yr. old lady who has a form of dementia and almost every day she hears the same words…

I love you honey…

Do you know what love is?

Do you have a boyfriend or a husband?

Will you tell him what I used to tell mine?

'I love you for one-hundred thousand reasons

but most of all I love you because you’re mine

and because you are you…'

When Emily told me this I had to think…

If ever we grow to the point where we say the same things over and over, is this not a Beautiful Legacy?