After Dark...

The mind is a drifter after dark

It strides the rift twixt Will and Was

And roams through eons without pause

Where star-song strews yon raven arc

The mind is a merchant after dark

It sorts and weighs the prose and pawns

Of letting goes and holding ons

It scales the heights of night, soul-stark

The mind is a hunter after dark

 Stealthy and suave, it targets hearts

Its quiver filled with acute darts

This archer does not miss its mark

…over the hill, the street and park

The noiseless ink of midnight spills

Into the willingness of quills

The mind is a poet after dark

© Janet Martin

A Doodle Poem...

PAD Challenge day 8: For today’s prompt, write a doodle poem. In my mind, I’m thinking of how I like to doodle when I’m talking on the phone or sitting in a meeting. I used to doodle in my classes when I was younger. So for a poem, I’m thinking this could start off as something small that stays small or builds to epic proportions. Doodle around a bit today. If needed, start by describing something close at hand or within your current field of vision.

 I drew my inspiration for 'doodling' from Robert's opening comments today:)

'Just show up', he said, 

So I did, 

Stood on the snow-dusted April bridge

(or was it a stepping-stone)

ah well, 

sometimes it isn't easy to tell

where hello and farewell 

eddy and swirl

in steady arrival 

stealing yesterday's girl

and startling her 

starry-eyed gaze

with ways 

of 'yes' and 'no'

that turn into days

that turn into seasons

that soon season tears

with bobble of blue-bell

and daffodil cheers

...a fleet of petals

on a sea of years

where a new day smiles

and beguiles the heart

to start again

...ere the work of art

that eddies and swirls

through the skin of dreams

drains the last drop

and stoppers the streams

where even 

the most robust 

or fair

are

winnowed 

to 

whispers

upon 

the 

air...

Janet Martin

Urban-ite

PAD Challenge day 7: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Urban (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

Then, when the earth wears black and heaven is a sequined ream

When remnant duties of today become tomorrow’s dream

Then, past the dying breath of dusk like ember’s waning gleam

When time has bent its daily death across croft, hill and stream

...and night is like crushed velvet, dark, soft, like the slipping year

Soft as a rush of echoes brushed and shaped into a tear

Soft as the world a-slumber save the poet pioneer

Then, when I should be sleeping too, I think of you, my dear~

© Janet Martin

Urban Astronaut

PAD Challenge day 7: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Urban (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

Where the night is alive with lights

Far from star-hush, sky-wide

Far from the rolling, fir-fringed heights

Of a rural countryside

Where the only things she knew

Were gardens spilling blooms

And banter as a blush-breeze blew

Through outdoor living-rooms

…and dawn was a yellow bell

Where earth and the heavens meet

And childhood was the wink that fell

Beneath sun-bronzed bare feet

…ere Wanderlust drew her

Far from her grass-roots peace

To a Metropolitan Paradise

Of college-granted lease

Where the stars she sees at night

Sing or play basketball

Far from the rolling fir-fringed height

With no people at all

Her hills are made of glass

Gray concrete blooms with cars

Far from the wind that strums the grass

All flower-struck with stars

© Janet Martin

To a World of Well-wishers...

From the book The Wind That Shakes the Barley

This post is the offspring of anguish as we watch well-wishers with closed without Bibles try to pinpoint Hope...

posting this song in memory of Merle Haggard who passed away today

Oh, how can we wish well on ways hell-bent for destruction?

Where Ignorance breeds ignorance, its knowledge vile and vain

It mutes the Mediator of heaven-lent instruction

Its sacrifice, a way of life that will not be again

To bless the bold defilement of love’s sacred, ordained role

Is to partake of Satan’s quaff; oh, pray that we abstain

Where lords of lawless liaisons care nothing for the soul

And extinguish a way of life that will not be again

Woe to a world of well-wishers that do not know the truth

As wide-eyed blindness wanders where nobody can explain

The reason to cleave to the Good; as they brainwash fair youth

Who do not know the way of life that will not be again

© Janet Martin

Universal, Subliminal Calling

God did not place us here

To be wealthy or poor

Or successful or beautiful

Or bold or unsure

Or happy or haughty

Or famous or not

Or worshiped like some

Mediocre god

Or loud or proud or

Lonely and sad

Or to be a miser

Or wiser than dad

Or to be a failure

Or full of fear

No, this is not

Why God put us here

But, whoever, wherever

Whatever our name

God placed us here

To be faithful to Him

© Janet Martin

 For from him and through him and for him are all things. 

To him be the glory forever! 

Amen.

Rom.11:36