Will Of Its Own

Sometimes no matter how I plead and press and beg, unheard

The pen is like a stubborn streak that will not spill a word

But then at other times then pen is like a gaping grin

And nothing in the world can hold its flood of poems in

© Janet Martin

Moment-mission

Contemplating moments today...

a day of moments too cold for May, 

but still its flowers brave the air! 

They never ask what I prefer

They just seem to be there

And then when I’m not looking

They toss flowers to the air

They never ask permission

Their mission potent and quick

While I grapple with what

Cannot be measured with a stick

The good, the bad, the ugly

All the ‘please-do’, ‘don’t-you-dare’

But then when I’m not looking

They fling flowers to the air

They move without much motion

Like an ocean made of mist

To brush time’s scraggly branches and

Then leave them flower-kissed

© Janet Martin

The Loveliness of Ink...

above lines from the book The Wind That Shakes the Barley by James Barke

one poem... or four

Come, take thy pen and press to page the loveliness of ink

And spill upon its open stage some poetry to drink

The dust of days soon settles on Bygone’s grave-stilted loam

But ah, the law of pen to page is ageless in a poem

***

If I must choose twixt thee and the perusal of a pen

Methinks I might, against my will, be torn twixt ink and men

For flesh is but a flicker on the quicker side of This

A poem like a love that never dies while Time exists

***

Come, take between thy trembling fingers loveliness to be

And spell with ink-fraught quivers thy undying legacy

Then when thou passest from this little riddle-riddled glance

The lover of thy poetry will weep and laugh and dance

***

The grave is but the haven for people that are no more

Soon what we touch will scatter like stars on a far-off shore

Save for the loveliness of ink that seals upon a page

A poem for someone to drink in some far yonder age

© Janet Martin

Moment-merchants

Time overruns our pockets with portions equal, alike

A moment-metered measure to spend in a place called Life

Thus, how we choose to use the coin of tick by tock alloy

Will multiply our happiness or diminish our joy

We all are moment-merchants, spenders of time’s rendering

And I have seen a rich man poor and a pauper-like king

Lack of cold gold cannot withhold what we are looking for

Held in the meld of moments; who could ask Time’s flask for more?

Unstoppered are the coffers from whence treasure-rivers run

A blue-flung sky above us and beneath our feet, strewn sun

An hour, lent to wander bowers bent with bloom and breeze

Where moment-merchants revel in disheveled luxuries

The hour is upon us; soon its flower falls away

Soft-scattered to a soldered fell that we call Yesterday

Still, lo and behold, see the gold unfolding from yon store

To replenish the pockets of moment-merchants once more

© Janet Martin

...take a moment and give a listen to a good tune;-)

Moment-potency

From either side of where we are, future and past persist

Darling, for one half-breath their bars collide in our What Is

These elements have taken while they waken us anew

To where we are and how What Is will soon be What Was too

What Is never subsides yet glides through us as smooth as air

And soon the What Is we descried is way, way over there

My, my, time’s sleek transition is a strange and common thing

Where What Is hinges to What Was and What Waits in its wing

This showcase of love’s highs and lows is a constant pursuit

Twixt what nobody knows and what is trodden underfoot

Darling, What Is is soon What Was and What Will Be, What Is

How soft we are propelled toward Eternity’s Abyss

Let's love What Is, its half-breath Kiss barely grazes our Ought
Before the brush and blush of it amazes second thought
And we are at the mercy of a new What Is, oh my
Darling, how small the ladder that affixes earth to sky

© Janet Martin