For the Love of a Poem

 This cupboard houses my poetry-book collection; 

each book compiled ' for the love of the poem' (and poet and reader:)

 and all of these just a drop in the ocean of heart-pieces on paper.

We hold up heart-bits like tatters of paper

Hoping that someone might find in its fling

Half-way around the world neighbor-to-neighbor-

Hugs from the kinship a poem can bring

We bleed from want and need, ink-stuttered stanzas

Who knows who, as time goes by, will be warmed

By spunk of metrical extravaganzas

Twisted to poem from heartbeats unarmed

We set aside pride and fear’s bold usurp-al

Darling, the tempo of time’s ebb and flow

Runs through us like summer-rivers, soft-purple

Stuns us with fall’s abysmal letting go

We hang up leaflets of laughter and longing

Limping through pages of crumpled disgrace

Trying to touch with the love of a poem

Just the right person in just the right place

We war with whispers of heartache and hunger

Wading through worlds still unfurled, in a pen

We, with the will of a lover, will conquer

Then, when it’s over, we will do it again

© Janet Martin

You Are Here...

A few hours of all-together-ness on the weekend sometimes seems to magnify the sharpness of apart-ness...

Melissa popped home for a day to surprise Victoria for her birthday... then she 'flew' away

photo credit; Rob Curry

According to mile-measure, darling

They deem us quite far apart

But, you’re here beneath my ribs, love

Held forever in my heart

Miles may separate our shoulders

From the tender joy of touch

But, I have re-learned how to hold you

So miles won’t hurt quite so much

Oceans are a splash of water

Emotions a dash of tear

Sweetheart, wherever you wander

I know you know, you are here

You are here, beneath my ribs, love

Clasped twixt finger-folded prayer

Never mind mile-measure, darling

You are here while you are there

© Janet Martin

Loom-in-us

(click image to enlarge for easier reading)  From Shadow Child by Beth Powning

Time hurls, pearls, swirls mere moments

From Whence to history

The darling and the loathsome

Woven to memory

Time’s graphic illustrations

As morn to night abates

Stuns us with separations

The flux of it creates

How hardly we have held it

And then it disappears

Time’s tick-tock affidavit

Of moments meting years

Like flickers on a candle

The rigors of spent grace

Soon snuffs the jingle-jangle

That time lends to its chase

...and in its place a sudden

and unexpected Thing

The blessing of love's burden

Betrays us with a sting 

...of holy, hollow hunger

Filled with the live-and-learn

Of Time’s swift-soft-swirled wonder

Weaving its no return

© Janet Martin

March Montage

We are in calm-before-storm mode here:)

 

March is a medley of day-dreamy drafts of garden-rooms

And longer longing looks at winter’s briery shadow-blooms

Of holes worn through thin fabric on a world weary of white

Of earthy-toned mosaics disappearing overnight

March is a mantra moaned and murmured in the barren woods

Prelude to the awakening of cloven-hooded broods

Inaudible, but tangible March-song is torn between

The flailing wands of winter and spring’s hailing fronds of green

March is a moody melody; its Maestro like a child

Of easy, lilting laughter that dissolves in tantrum wild

March sits upon the hill and broods beneath the blue-gray sky

Then alights on the landscape like a yellow butterfly

March stirs hope’s happy hunger for first purple’s promenade

For innocence of bare-feet afternoons and lemonade

For daffodilly dell and fell where flower-bells unfold

For pancakes drizzled with the miracle of maple-gold

March is a canticle of silver-splashing circle-notes

Of lion’s roar and diamonds pouring from bedraggled totes

Of hearty hallelujahs as the grip of winter wanes

Of madrigals that fall on halls primed for what rain unchains

March is a minstrel strumming lintels rife with summer-sage

March is a mistral roaring like a beast freed from its cage

March is a maiden strolling where cajoling zephyrs rove

March is young man, mad with the allure of life and love

March is sun-yellow sweet then sullen as a pouting mouth

Untamed bull from the north, a ballerina from the south

March is the month of hold-let-go, like mothers torn between

The wonder of what waits beyond the throb of what has been

© Janet Martin

Keeping Things Simple

Let’s not complicate things;

No, let’s just kneel and pray

And thank the Lord for the reward

Of another Today

Let’s keep things simple then;

Yes, let’s just trust in He

Who fills each day and come-what-may

With opportunity

Let’s let love be our goal

And let’s remember this;

No matter what comes after But

God WAS, WILL BE and IS

© Janet Martin

Yes Let's let love be our whole sole/soul goal!

What will our love-language look like today?!

On Remembering Who We Are

Pride goes before a face-plant; ah, its muddy grant we earn

When we choose lust instead of love it yields a sure return

Though, for a while we smile and swing our small world like a toy

Pride goes before a fall as sure as sorrow follows joy

Pride's willful want wails louder than the quietness of trust

And we are oh, so skillful at the cunning art of lust

Where sight distracts us from the right and wrong of what we choose

Before the bitter taste of prideful haste renders its dues

We are not gods; though often we forget until we sit

In the mud-puddle of regret and repent for a bit

Then we remember who we are, not by merit or laud

But simply by the mercies of a kind and loving God

© Janet Martin