This Blink of 'Ink' (because we are all poets of a sort)

Oft the heart balks, the head smooth-talks

And tries to set at ease

The little nudge when we won’t budge

Second miles to appease

The poetry that people see

Shouts loud; it crowds the street

Its magnum opus simple as

A gift of bread and meat

The rift between Is and Has Been

Is subtle, like a blink

The page that wears what thought unbares

Holds far, far more than ink

Hollow, the poems in sundry tomes

 Of volumes cover-bound

Until the Word that leaves souls stirred

Hope's rightful place has found

...for human race will soon embrace

The cold, hard facts of sod

Futile the guile of painted smile

Before the face of God

How awe-full then, when sons of men

Witness His Majesty

And see the scars that broke the bars

That sets sin’s convicts free

Oft the heart balks, the head smooth-talks

The feet from second miles

Until we think upon the ink

That outlives short-lived whiles

© Janet Martin

 This is the plan determined for the whole world;
    this is the hand stretched out over all nations. 

 For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?
    His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?

Isa.14: 26-27

 All you people of the world,
    you who live on the earth,
when a banner is raised on the mountains,
    you will see it,
and when a trumpet sounds,
    you will hear it.

Isa.18:3

By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. 

And so we will always be with the Lord.

1 Thess. 4: 15-17 

Have you claimed hope's promise of Forever with the Lord?!
If your answer is yes, praise the Lord!
If it is no, what are you waiting for?
Tomorrow might be too late to prepare for forever and ever, Amen.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, 

the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life. 

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom.6:22-23 

"Ask and it will be given to you; 
seek and you will find; 
knock and the door will be opened to you.
Matt.7:7

(ever notice how the first letters in the above sentences spell 'ask'?) 

Blip-value

This blip betrothed to He who grants the dance of sun on shadowed leaf

Who knows firsthand the sands that stir oceans of sentimental grief

Who splays dusk-grays on russet climes and times his yes and no just so

Mercy and misery entwined as by His faithful grace we go

This wait-and-see and wake-and-sleep and wonderment without reprieve

Tulle crepuscule of push and pull and highlights that we love and leave

Where undertones in overtures and epilogues sear and caress

As blues and golds fold and unfold into beholden happiness

These hours spurred, lent, bent and blurred and undeterred; starred, scarred, oh my

Have suffered hard and buffered soft, tribal assault of sob, smile, sigh

Where menial and noble in the hand become what they will be

When God tallies the sum of ‘inasmuch as ye did it to me’

© Janet Martin

..a few 'teardrops' from my sentimental ocean:)

Quick-fall

My dear, if I was young like you

I'd dare to be a dreamer too

I'd scale those heights of knight and crown

From which I had not yet slipped down

And I would think that I could be

My biggest, bravest fantasy

Unhindered by the clock that walks

Across a year in velvet socks

And steals the thread that weaves the dream

Into a world of what has been

Janet Martin

Of Veiled Vows...

PAD Challenge day 12: For today’s prompt, write a transformative poem. 

A poem in which someone or something transforms.

Fall flares then fizzles, fades and falls

To deck the halls of fallow field

The heart that throbbed where fall enthralled

Bows to brave winter’s wilding wield

The merry medicine of mirth

Would siphon song like summer sod

Save for the gong that tolls where birth

Is veiled in vows fulfilled by God

He tunes the tide that wakes the bow’r

That breaks through earth to strake the bud

That musters flower's ordained hour

Soon lying lackluster in mud

Ah, death would be a doleful dread

If not for promises of ‘Spring’

When earth gives up its buried dead

In a grand resurrection fling

Fall flares then fizzles, fades and falls

To deck the halls of temp’ral tomb

The heart that throbbed awaits The Call

Where cold grave cups eternal bloom

© Janet Martin

As Lu// God Would Have It

Catching up on prompts for the poem-a-day challenge:) Busy weekend.
 Day 11: For today’s prompt, write an unlucky poem. 

Whether you believe in luck or not, 

you can still write a poem about a situation that others might deem unlucky.

"Oh, lucky you", we sigh, 

moved by the bit 

that eyes behold

While skin can veil a world of scarred

halls marked

with stories 

never told

Unlucky you, we wail

moved by the

scale of circumstance

Still, always at the

mercy of

Love's Blessing-laden

nail-scarred Hands

Janet~

As Luck God Would Have It

Toronto

PAD Challenge day 13: For today’s prompt, pick a city and make that the title of your poem;

 then, write your poem. 

The poem doesn’t have to be about the city…but it can be.
You can pick a big city, small city, medium-sized city, city that exists today, city that existed in the past, city that only exists in fiction, city that you create.

Beneath still-life street-lights

Spread like a shawl of stars

Above the hustle-bustle

Of city buses and cars, and cars

She does not know

As she comes and goes, and goes

She holds a part

Of her mother’s heart of hearts

Beneath silver-studded dome

Where stars dangle intangible poems

Above the quiet swell

Where field, hill and dell

Cradle the timbre of home, sweet home

She knows there is a door

Ever slightly ajar, ajar

To welcome her home from afar, from afar

© Janet Martin


the line with 'like a shawl of stars' was inspired by and is credited to one of my Gr.1 Sunday School students. He described, as he looked out of the plane while flying home from Germany…the stars like a quilt!
Way to go, Joshua D. Can't wait to see where your pen will take you!

Going Somewhere after This?

PAD Challenge day 10: For today’s prompt, write a going somewhere poem.

 nothing is ours to keep soon all things melt like snow

an intangible echo-heap of living's come and go...

Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, 

the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed;  

then the dust will return to the earth as it was, 

and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

 Eccles.12:7

nothing is ours to keep 

still we, merchants of dust

 harvest, harbor, have-hold and heap

 hands and hearts with its Must

whispers of wanderlust

turn into wonder when

we pause to marvel at what God

entrusted to mere men

...then we should choke on boast

and humbly call to mind

the thing we should remember most

in mere moments designed

...that after this we go

To God; there is no doubt 

that this is simply the intro

To what life is about

© Janet Martin