Of Shutters Barred and Storm Spent

...because what is Valentine's Day without a little 'phew'!💗

Pale whispers sweep the sun to hidden shores,

Staid expectation murmurs on its lips,

but we have drawn the shutters, locked the doors,

Time will not dictate our fingertips,

for I must make a study of your eyes,

tracing the future of unfettered bliss

While yearning resonates in muted sighs,

I hunger for the flavor of your kiss.

Too long the regimental tick of clocks

has orchestrated the release of locks

Longing shatters the dam of rigidness;

The beauty of familiarity

enriches passion’s unrestrained caress,

Outside the day assumes normality

…here oceans swell in unrequited fire

of flesh and blood; white horses of the sea

spawn unbridled indulgence and desire

We crown the pinnacle of ecstasy

while merchants, bound by meagerness of dust

redeem their petty dollars for its lust

Pale whispers escalate, intensify,

A quickened urgency ignites the calm

in raging rivers crashing from the sky

as heaven spills its timbre on earth’s palm.

Outside the servant treads toil’s beaten path

and dreams of recompense with glist’ning brow,

while here, we revel in the aftermath

of foaming tides receding from earth’s prow

The sky resumes a sleek, unwav’ring blue

We kiss away its salty residue

© Janet Martin

 

Who can croon a love song quite like Kenny Rogers?!

Happy Valentine's Day 😍

A Valentine Verse

For all the years of you and I

Through joy or trouble's weather

I'm glad for words like side-by-side

Like 'us'; words like, 'together'

I'm glad that you and I makes 'we'

a sense of true belonging

how lonely and sad life would be

Without words like 'we', darling

Then should the Unknown spill its sky

In sun or stormy weather

As long as there is you-and-I

We'll weather it together

Janet~

I Love You Too

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here is a funny favorite love song of mine by Tom T. Hall 

‘I love you too’, what better words exist?

The glad reply to love’s said sentiment

It tempers want and wishing’s discontent

And leaves us feeling fully hugged and kissed

‘I love you’ by itself is bittersweet

Though its three words are beautiful, tis true

Until we hear four words, ‘I love you too’

Then, only then is love’s gladness complete

Like skies that never wear their bluest blue

Like hands that never give back what they take

Or hearts that never heal of longing’s ache

Is ‘I love you’ without ‘I love you too’

Then pray, as long as there is me-and-you

Before love is a sad so-long unfurled

We often speak three best words in the world

To stir its four best words; I love you too

© Janet Martin

Canadian Hope-Spring

 

The bank cold-heaped where storm-wind blows

Will soon be steeped in golden snows

Of wild primrose and butter-weed

And winter-hours gone to seed

© Janet Martin

February's Summer Dusk

While looking for another photo I found these, 

transporting me from the growling g-r-r-r of B-r-r-r!! 

to h-m-m-m of Summer M-m-m-m!

When winds shake the world in jowls, churlish and brusque

I sing me a ditty of gold summer dusk

Of kitty-soft vesper ‘neath velveteen skies

Of starlight like diamonds in love’s laughing eyes

Of plush, purple pillows on lush, lowered eaves

Where feather-frond willows strum heaven’s plum sheaves

And hillsides grow sleepy while whispers undo

Their clamor of color with layers of blue

I sing of the things that make summer kings glad

Like rainbows of zinnia, the grin of a lad

With fists full of wiggle and squiggle and dirt

While wily wars trouble time’s bubble with hurt

And we do our best to shoulder Westward’s weight

Where summer dusk opens its ethereal gate

And slips through the trusses of dust-sweet so-long

Of musky caresses and dew-dappled gong

…of rock-a-bye rivers that rush to the sea

Of lull-a-sigh quivers in yon poplar tree

Of ballads where nothing but air plucks the strings

Where baby-dear slumbers and mother-dear sings

And flower-lid droops, its ambrosial grail

A-readied for honey-bee’s wake-up wassail

So, let the wind howl; a churl, burly and brusque

He can’t reach the girl lost in sweet summer dusk

© Janet Martin

Poem-Schooner

This February morn let’s stroll the countryside, my sweet

Where dandelions laugh like bobbing sunbeams at our feet

Dawn rolls across yon shoreline in a tide of blush and gold

Let’s sit on morning’s front-row seat to watch time’s bloom unfold

Let’s step beyond the shiver-sheen of shoveled walks and such

The velveteen of spring’s first green is easy to the touch

And we are not as far-off as we were from flowered clime

Where poem is a schooner we can board without a dime

…and if we please, we’ll sail the turquoise seas of mid-July

Or afternoon of em’rald June spread beneath sapphire sky

Let’s lure from winter’s white on white an arbor, rose-entwined

A bare-foot rendezvous through meadow lanes wild blue-strife lined

This February morn is like a schooner summer-bound

Then hop on board and praise the Lord for gardens underground

Where nothing stays the same for long above an undertow

That soon strips Old Man Winter’s song of words like ‘cold’ and ‘snow’

© Janet Martin

I'm not rushing winter, but every once in a while its nice to 

climb aboard a poem-ship and sail to warmer scenes

...every once in a while its nice to be reminded

under winter-cold white waits summer-warm greens! 

Instead of boots, flip-flops, 

instead of parkas,

parks filled with laughter of children 

going up, up, up to the blue sky in a swing!

God's Art Gallery

It was Awesome!

 Like stepping into a gallery filled with Masterpieces,

as I stepped outdoors this morning to enjoy a coffee while waiting for Little Girl to arrive...

The snow sparkled so intensely one could almost hear it!

Earth’s canvas of four-season sweep

Is day-by-day bequeathed

Where art that grips our deepest deep

Is always heaven-breathed

It paints a poem without words

Soothes scads of discontent

Where art that leaves the heart most stirred

Is always heaven-lent

God makes us gladder than we were

In nature’s gallery

Where art, no brush can quite procure

Grants heaven-glints for free

© Janet Martin

Reminds me of this song I learned as a child!