Love's 'Try Again'

(three separate sonnets or one whole; you choose:)

Love’s best intentions, darling, often fail

And where intent faltered then fell awry

Time’s intervention tips hope’s sacred grail

As melodies of pardon fill the sky

A brand new ‘try again’ ignites the deep

‘For better and for worse’ is not a ruse

Ah darling, we have promises to keep

We cannot quit; love offers no excuse

But lays upon the ways of human heart

The workmanship of time’s untarnished art

***

What lies beneath your sighs, your touch, your kiss?

Ah, help me hear beyond the sound of noise

Darling, your eyes tell words the ear can miss

Love’s language speaks in strange and unnamed joys

It stirs a fervor bound to persevere

Where ‘no’ is not an answer; ‘yes, yes, yes’

This is the language of lovers, my dear

And primes time’s way to heaven-happiness

Love is such kind companionship; it wakes

Us to a world that gives more than it takes

***

 My mouthed endearments cannot satisfy

Save if and when the heart adjusts its stance

To recognize the hunger in your eye

Reciprocation is a brave romance

Then, let me be shameless in ways of love

Let my feet thin within its second miles

And though skeptics may not fully approve

I’ll take my pay in laughter-laden smiles

For I am glad for records love won’t keep

Its virgin ‘try again’ ignites the deep

© Janet Martin

Every morning God smiles and fills the skies with 'try again' grace...

Love keeps no record of wrong...1 Cor. 13:5

For the Love of Writing...

Sometimes thought is gale-grim and harsh

Brooding like winter where the marsh

Reed-studded, stiff and brittle-cold

Waits for kisses, gilt-green and gold

Sometimes thought torments, lonely-blue

Its Want a freight-train roaring through

Flesh and blood waste-land; stone-faced snake

Heaving where onyx oceans ache

Sometimes thought has no words to speak

Its utterance a tear-traced cheek

Laughter and love and longing meld

In groans of poetry withheld

But oh, sometimes thought is a pen

Warm and word-willing minstrel, then

The heart forgives those mind-respites

And holds the hand that writes and writes

 

© Janet Martin

Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, the ‘write’ words are withheld…

Sometimes to write the right words is war waged within.

 Writing requires talent and discipline and unyielding relentlessness, but it requires courage most of all.  Bill Coffey

Blessed By the Beauty of Love

Have you met her?

She loves without trying

In second miles

In helping hands

And genuine smiles

She loves without effort

A listening ear,

Hugs from the heart,

A sympathetic tear

She loves with a wave

And a friendly hello

She loves from her knees

When life's cares bend her low

She loves without counting

Its moments or price

Blessed by the beauty

Of sacrifice

© Janet Martin

Ah, Love

 Phoenix Rising Poetry Guild invites us to continue to explore the sounds of love...I found this prompt extremely challenging...so many sounds speak love.

So, in continuing our month featuring the “Sound of Love”, I ask you to use the devices of ONOMATOPOEIA and/or ALLITERATION within your poems to verbalize the “sounds” associated with the emotion of Love.

Surge of something sacred and sweet

Stuns her; spills summer-slow, sigh-soft

Whispers wake wellsprings where want wafts

Wild within to a boom-boom beat

Soul-song sweeps soundless; blue eyes brood

Mouthing murmurs; kiss-kindled storm

Rolls ruthless, rousing raw words, warm  

Reverberation; m-m-m, m-m-m-m, good

Touch tempts a tempest-tethered trove

Wonder thunders, thought finds fingers

Sh-h, sh-h, shudders, laughter lingers

Something satisfies her; ah, love

© Janet Martin

Love Again...

Love can be hard; the air charred with words thoughtless, unkind

Still, love in tender mercy from faith-fathoms undefined

Forgives; it is the only way for hope to carry on

And turn the throes of cut-throat woes to colors of the dawn

Love can be soft with pity in life’s gritty highs and lows

A rose has thorns; love is akin to roses, I suppose

The heart is like a child and love, an ageless gift because

No one outgrows its need; we bleed with longing at its loss

Love, the give and take of it can break a thousand rules

Love is kind; its blindness not for weak, self-minded fools

Where lust is like a beggar, love is rich beyond belief

…these three abide, faith, hope and love but of these, love is chief

We cannot clarify the ins and outs of love, I guess

It is life’s deepest sorrow and its sweetest happiness

Love never fails, though we may fail and think our efforts vain

Love is the holy miracle that lets us love again

© Janet Martin

Nobody said love would be easy...