Of a Door Half-ajar...

Kiss of a new day rests soft on the brow

Mist of its morning wafts on waking dell

Heart-hope of heaven, whisper to us now

As we embark to what? No one can tell

Test of time’s tick-tock commandeers our touch

Love extends grace; we, creatures of dust

Suffer its seasons of sorrow and such

Hilltop and valley to Him we entrust

Merciful Master of moment-embrace

Humbly we step to time’s threshold once more

May it be more than the wind that we chase

As we slip through morning’s half-ajar door

© Janet Martin

 The LORD'S loving-kindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him."…Lam.3:22-24

What We Have...

What we have is all we have

What was and what will be

Are merely hopes, before what is

Becomes a memory

What we have, my love, is more

Than we can fully taste

For moments offer no encore

As through our grasp they haste

Both good and ill pass through our clutch

How quietly Time slips

To grace a shore beyond our touch

Save for thought’s finger-tips

…and what we have is all we have

Pray that we do not miss

Its fullness rushing to a grave

Of what no longer is

© Janet Martin

I love to look back to photos (and memories) of what once was...

but not too long, lest I miss what now is!

Happy February, all!

(ps-s-s-t! this is the month before the month that leads to this...!

Sometimes Paper...

Sometimes paper

Is the kindest of strangers

Easy to talk to

No judgment, no guile

Patient companion

It never stops listening

Here we can pour our

Our tear and our smile

Sometimes paper

Is thought’s finest option

Sirens of schedule and

Living are loud

Whisper of wishes

And heart-held ambitions

Seems to be drowned in

Life’s everyday crowd

I’ve heard the heartbeat

Of midnight and strangers

Ink-spilled confession

And penned poetry

Sometimes the silence

Of thought-rendered ocean

Helps us relinquish

What never can be

Sometimes paper

Is thought's sacred soulmate

Patient confidant,

Listening long

I've felt the rush

Of  farewell fill its pages

Only to feel you

Back where you belong...

© Janet~

Life...

You ask questions for which I have no answers

You whisper wishes too wondrous to bear

Darling, the window of past does not open

It is enough to feel you out there, somewhere

We cannot rearrange moment or memories

Somehow the summertime slipped into snow

Darling, desire and duty-persuasion

Battle on half-breaths of love’s letting go

© Janet Martin

Today's Song

 (Matt laughs at me as I pause in the middle of things to quickly type before I forget) Today it was this song that did it:)

Love bleeds and pleads and longs and needs

There’s not one living soul

Who can become permanently

Another being’s Whole

Want taunts and flaunts in endless vaunts

Weaving a grieving mesh

Evoking, stoking discontent

In ineptness of flesh

Words cleave and weave a hollow hurt

When uttered by mere lips

The heart hungers for more than noise

In fumbling fingertips

Oh, I have bled the broken brogue

Of lonely bittersweet

Like flower-petals ‘neath the snow

Or font of flip-flop feet

Penned poetry is naught but thought

Vexatious twist of mist

We brave life’s wave for what we crave

To be loved once and kissed

...ah, to be loved just once and kissed
It is enough, my sweet
To be caught in the twist of mist
Where love and longing meet

© Janet Martin

Somewhat Like Morning...

 The landscape sprawls like a blank page, waiting for thought to spill its ink...

I sit and stare

This page is bare

Waiting for ink-curls

Shaped in word

Then word relays

Its gold and grays

As touch unfurls

Where heart is stirred

And hidden thought

Curves to the jot

Of trembling

Vulnerability

Whilst others read

What fingers bleed

Of want and need

In poetry

I’ve touched within

Time’s half-breath grin

The ‘almost’’ of

Discounted dreams

The have and hold

Of moment-gold

Is but a penny

In life-streams

This restless quill

Can never fill

Thought’s hungering

Mortality

Yet, ‘was’ and ‘is’

And hope’s kind kiss

Bleeds broken bliss

To poetry

I cannot stare

Too long; the air

Devours hours

Shamelessly

This barren page

Extends its stage

Soon touch will spill
In memory

Time's self-same star

Gleams where you are

And shines its little

Light on me 

I sense your lips

And fingertips

As ink-thought drips

In poetry

© Janet Martin

Of Moment-gold

 Just think! beneath the snow a whole garden is growing restless!

We dare not mourn though time has torn

Another page from future-sheaf

Where swift we spent the hour it lent

Before it lay to rest its leaf

Yester’s quixotic fantasy

Has etched its little legacy

We dare not weep; from morrow’s deep

We reach to thread our half-spun dream

Not with the past but what yet wafts

To tease the tempest with its ream

A sweet and silent canticle

Unfurls its moment-miracle

We dare not pine for soon the vine

That spilled its swarthy summer bloom

Will warmly wake; its bud will break

Then spill its seed back to earth's tomb

As all the while soft through our hold

We touch the wealth of moment-gold

© Janet Martin

But We Can't Get There...

On Winter Street, seems time has frozen

Ribbon o’ rain-song lost in snow

Tomorrow’s out o’ reach, my darlin’

Yesterday, too long ago

Paradigms of love and longin’

Chase their moments out to sea

Noon-dusk-midnight follows mornin’

The ocean has no memory

Ah, pinin’ is a futile passion

Present-tense our single ploy

We can’t get there from here, darlin’

…can’t return to borrow joy

Oh, I know Time’s no traitor

Nor its purposes made plain

But darlin’,  too long this winter

Steals the song of summer-rain

…’an all I’m askin’ for is something

Softer than the steel-blue clutch

And the raging of a tempest

Caging Time within its touch

…on Winter Street, seems Time has frozen

An’ though I know there’s no such thing

Darlin’, I’m pining for a season

Where the rain-song’s whisperin’

© Janet Martin