Panic Attack

PAD Challenge day 8: For today’s prompt, write a panic poem.

 Yesterday we woke to the after-effects what must have been a sudden panic-attack on old Man Winter's part...for we were well on the way to putting his memory behind us!

He began on Thursday evening and raged shamelessly all night long...

He rouses, panic-stricken

Oh dear, he must have dozed

And let the sunshine quicken

Bud-melodies, still closed

He dashes to his kitchen

Tips over jugs and jars

Below, the song of robins

Is snuffed by tardy stars

He shakes his feather pillows

A frenzied maniac

Afraid of green-leafed willows

And flower bric-a-brac

From closets he yanks dusters

And mops and pails and brooms  

With might, sheer panic musters

He sweeps a thousand rooms

…and chases through blue heaven

Dust bunnies white as snow

They tumble from his cavern

Onto the earth below

 Aha, grins Old Man Winter

White mayhem reigns once more

He tips back his recliner

And soon begins to snore

© Janet Martin

Near and Dear, The Name of Jesus

Homework Assignment for our Writer's Group; 

write about something/Someone near and dear to you...  

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, 

because he will save his people from their sins."

Matt.1:21

Near and dear

The grace of Jesus

Life and light and victory

Faithful friend

His Presence eases

Fear, despair, uncertainty

Near and dear

The love of Jesus

What a promise we receive

From death’s curse

His mercy frees us

At the moment we believe

Near and dear

The hope of Jesus

Faith, for sight is far too dim

Still, His whisper

Gently pleases

All who put their trust in Him  

Near and dear

The name of Jesus

As upon His name we call

Satan, his

Darkness releases

Jesus, grace, love, hope for all

© Janet Martin

To the Bedrock of Ballads....Three Sonnets

 Last month, because it was my turn to lead our Writer's Group meeting, it was up to me to choose the homework topic. The assignment: Write about something near and dear to you.

The 'Something near and dear to me' I chose to write about; keeping Rhythm and Rhyme alive in poetry and working at perfecting its art! 

Forbid, that we without remorse stand by

To watch the Bedrock of Ballad decay

Where echoes of Past’s half-mad mortals lie

Preserved in poetry unto this day

…for roar of words that warred within their breasts

They did not choose, but were chosen for this;

To pen, with metered yen, the soul’s requests

While siblings slept in unencumbered bliss

…the poet wrestled with vessels of thought

To tame the tempest as it seared and surged

And sparred with impotence of what was not

Until the will of quill and query merged

To spill, unfettered to the quest of rhyme

And poetry that stands the test of time

***

Forbid the Master-grid of poetry

Should crumble in a noisy corridor

Where groan is not honed into symmetry

But heaped on trays nobody hungers for

As, sacrificed on altars of free verse

The sanctity of poetry is lost

For freedom without law can be a curse

And words reduced to ash, its sorry cost

Because there is no protocol or code

To set off’rings of letter-art apart

They fall, like flower-petals to a road

Where foot-traffic tramples on works of heart

But where the ancient authors gave their all

The poetry of cadency stands tall

***

Forbid we don the popular veneer

Of free speech, forgetful of consequence

Darling, the end of all of us is near

Then, all that will remain is recompense

For ink, in the heaven of passion spilled

Where filament of penmanship, my love

Endures long after heart and hand are stilled

The wherewithal of madrigal to prove

When dust-to-dust reclaims its ordained Must

When love and lust that steers us is annulled

Pray, what will flutter in the wake of trust

After the soul from Frame of Name is culled

I wonder if, in some far yet-to-be

A piece of us will live in poetry

© Janet Martin

Bygone Restored

 PAD challenge day 7; For today’s prompt, write a discovery poem.

The sound tips we ignored

From lips of sage insight

Roars like bygone restored

In ‘aha, you were right’

With tamed belligerence

We follow where They went

A voice of vigilance

For youth’s impulsive bent

Once we thought life was like

A bike ride to the moon

Rather than summer’s hike

That disappears too soon

© Janet Martin

Sound of the Future

PAD Challenge day 6: For today’s prompt, write a poem about a sound.

Busy day-care day today, so for all the glorious ways this prompt could flow they are not mine for now:) oh...wow! They're here!!! early today.

 With cheerful chatter

And pitter- patter

And freckle-splattered nose

With teddy bears

And teeny cares

And running shoes that glow

With darling grins

And dimpled chins

And wonder, full and free

Our children grow

Their future, oh,

Is up to you and me

The sound of something more

Than dash and dance and play and run

Is passing through our doors;

It is the people they’ll become

© Janet Martin

Excerpt from this month's Rural Route magazine...