Mid-summer Madrigal

Poetic-blooming Prompt day 3: a mid-summer night's dream or anything mid-summer. Because of the prompt I attempted adding a Shakespearean twist to this poem...

Thy kinship captures hearts; since Time began

Thou lavishest thy art on earthy span

And ravishest the dreamer with desire

A rose can set the soul of Her afire

Thy rooming-house of flowers none can tame

Or build a wall about thy sky-wide frame

Nay, free to one and all thy citadel

Of star-strewn hill and rill, and wild-bloom fell

Of shoreline tinged with lime and gentian-blue

Of garden fringed with pearl of midnight dew

Of wayward wind-in-willow-harp nocturne

That rouses sparks where echo-embers burn

Of cup that runneth over with a tide

That primes the blush of clover and young bride

Of fledgling falt’ring on the highest limb

Where wanderlust will get the best of him

…where poet-dreamer-lover intertwine

‘Til none can tell the flower from the vine

© Janet Martin

A Blip on the Mother-ship of Earth

Time is a straight tunnel

A surge of dark and light

Morning finds the funnel

That drains it back to night

We, pulsing ellipses

Dot our plot of sod

Mute moment-eclipses

Move us back to God

Sunlight sets a-quiver

The harp-string of lark

Soon its golden river

Is snuffed by the dark

Performance of people

Wedge twixt earth and sky

 Climbing up a steeple

Where past-people lie

© Janet Martin

The Entertainment World of a Country Girl

The great outdoors

Was the only orchestra she ever heard

Half-shut eyes ‘neath cloud-fluffed skies

Held picture shows thought-blurred

Singers were boys and girls best-dressed

Four-part harmony cool

In Christmas carols to moms and dads

At a concert in a two-room school

And entertainment was a shallow brook

Where minnows and tad-poles played

She traveled the world in story books

On a barge of willow-shade

Sometimes she would sit past the barn on a hill

Watching a highway holding campers and cars

And she wondered where all 'those people’ go

Then she would lie back and count stars

Freedom was free as the wind that blew

Through the only world she knew

Of field and firth, heaven on earth

On a stage grass-green, sky-blue

© Janet Martin

Ghost-towns

Before the world was chained

To the noise and toys of progress

Boys and girls would run

All day beneath the sun

Through the woods

Through the stream

Through the wild-flower bower

Shod with a dream

And the gleam of an hour

Taught by the bird 

And the green breath of trees

Where now woods ring hollow

Like a ghost-town

Of whispering leaves

© Janet Martin

On Summer Nights Like These...

Poetic Bloomings Pompt day Two: Today's feature, Smiles of a Summer Night

Sultry breeze spirals then settles at dusk

Hummingbird whirs where each bloom is a cup

Afternoon washes bare feet then recedes

Blue, like a tide on summer’s sky-wide sea

Sun-drenched day softens, horizons subside

Noon was a young man with dreams in his stride

Time slows its gait now, forgets its demands

Undresses wishes with whisper-like hands

Noise on the highway is muffled with dark

Boys and girls slumber, somewhere a dog barks

Moon is a skiff set a-drift all alone

Stars splay like broken glass caught in the sun

Jasmine and clover perfume heaven’s wand

Salt-flavored wind-skin-heart-sea-song are one

Temptation is a word too young for us

Darling, the night is blurred with dew and dust

Touch is a servant to thought’s hungry eyes

We’ve known each other too long for surprise

Summer breeze murmurs in raven-leafed trees

Earth is half-heaven on midnights like these

© Janet Martin