Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Stopwatch-Case

PAD Challenge day 3: today is a Two-for-Tuesday prompt, which means you can pick one prompt or the other, do both separately, or mix both together. 
Do whatever makes you feel good. Here are the prompts:
  1. Write a stop poem.
  2. Write a don’t stop poem.
Remember: These prompts are just springboards;
 you have the freedom to jump in any direction you want.


Instead of don't stop-stop it's a stop-start theme...


When the heart stops, then starts the part
Where Time’s line disappears
Of ‘ten thousand years are like a day
A day ten-thousand years’

Death’s stopwatch veiled in pulses
Is the matrix of a law
That starts The Very Thing that stops
Us in our tracks with awe

No fist can threaten it to naught
No lie can alter fact
The bare essential of Time caught
In One Momentous act

…when the heart stops and starts the part
Where Time’s line disappears
And ten thousand years are like a day
A day, ten thousand years

The preacher pounds the pulpit
For this cause because the soul
Is not stopped by life’s sudden pause
But proceeds to its goal

For we are more than scar-dust tossed
Upon time's winds of change
Within us ticks a stop-watch, love
That one breath will estrange


…when the heart stops and starts the part
Where Time’s line disappears
And ten thousand years are like a day
A day, ten thousand years



© Janet Martin

 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, 
what kind of people ought you to be? 
You ought to live holy and godly lives...
2 Pet.3:11

Monday, April 2, 2018

Matador


 PAD Challenge day 2: For today’s prompt, write a portrait poem.

Love’s skin-bone cup
is filled up and poured out
while living roars
Like phantom bulls
charging at capes
of heart-soul matadors


The crowd goes wild
as seasons smile
and spill red-blossom lust
…an eerie silence
falling over
fields of settled dust

© Janet Martin


Poem Sea


PAD Challenge day 2: For today’s prompt, write a portrait poem.

Tick-tock, time’s inkwell spills full-free
And sweeps from shore to shore
Where dawn to dusk authors a sea
Of that which is no more

As muse and music merges,
…surges toward you and me
The momentum of moments
Turns time into history poetry


© Janet Martin

She'll Never Tell...

Writer's Digest Poem-a-day challenge begins! Prompt 1: For today’s prompt, write a secret poem. This poem can reveal a secret, incorporate a secret activity, or involve any other secret interpretation. Poem written in code (acrostic, anyone?) or with double meanings.

 The farm in this photo is the old home place


That once-upon-a-childhood leap
Now seems so long ago
Which dreams she kept,
which she released
No one will ever know

Life held and holds both highs and lows
Its roller-coaster thrill
unravels in its
ebbs and flows
Whispers she'll never spill

The heart is like a cavern, oh,
Filled with love's give and take
Where what we hold
And then let go
Leaves dream-lands in its wake

Blessed beyond Wishing's boldest wage
She knows want's drill full-well
But sets Her sights
beyond the page
Of poems she won't spell

Janet


Portait of a Middle-aged Mother

PAD Challenge day 2: For today’s prompt, write a portrait poem.

"Don't wait for me" said their mother
to daughters oblivious of heart-shores where 
waves of spent wars crash...



Pastoral splay the days and years
Where hope and heartache war
Life's storm of seasons disappears
Like waves that dash the shore

She stands to gaze across the maze
That drew Her from her youth
Where gossamer of yesterdays
Exhales Time's timeless truth

...as hallowed halls of Nothing New
Carve from hallmarks of dirt
An echo-lavished avenue
Of happiness and hurt

Which dream was granted or withheld
Right now she can't recall
The thorn and rose of loving meld
Like shadows on a wall 

Janet~

Friday, March 30, 2018

A Redemption Reflection...

The Cross... the place where utter need is met with utter grace



Hope’s miracle Love-wrought
Salvation is God’s gracious gift;
Man’s redemption blood-bought

Thankful, thankful, God’s offering
Sin’s supreme sacrifice
The righteousness of man attained
Through righteousness of Christ

Where once for all our All in all
Annulled at Calvary
The debt we owed; His grace alone
Sets sin-cursed sinners free

Hope fixates on a blood-stained cross
Faith on an empty grave
He died then rose again; our gain
The loss He came to brave

The gift of God, the peace of God
Sealed when the King of kings
 Left His throne to secure for us
The Hope salvation brings

© Janet Martin



Isa.53
(verses 10-11 always grip me!)
It pleased the Lord to bruise Him because He knew the outcome!)

 The Suffering Servant
1Who has believed our message?
            And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

      2For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
            And like a root out of parched ground;
            He has no stately form or majesty
            That we should look upon Him,
            Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
      3He was despised and forsaken of men,
            A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
            And like one from whom men hide their face
            He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
      4Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
            And our sorrows He carried;
            Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
            Smitten of God, and afflicted.
      5But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
            He was crushed for our iniquities;
            The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
            And by His scourging we are healed.
      6All of us like sheep have gone astray,
            Each of us has turned to his own way;
            But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all
            To fall on Him.
      7He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
            Yet He did not open His mouth;
            Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
            And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
            So He did not open His mouth.
      8By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
            And as for His generation, who considered
            That He was cut off out of the land of the living
            For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?
      9His grave was assigned with wicked men,
            Yet He was with a rich man in His death,
            Because He had done no violence,
            Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.
      10But the LORD was pleased
            To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
            If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
            He will see His offspring,
            He will prolong His days,
            And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.
      11As a result of the anguish of His soul,
            He will see it and be satisfied;
            By His knowledge the Righteous One,
            My Servant, will justify the many,
            As He will bear their iniquities.
      12Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great,
            And He will divide the booty with the strong;
            Because He poured out Himself to death,
            And was numbered with the transgressors;
            Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,
            And interceded for the transgressors.