Monday, April 23, 2018

Tree

PAD Challenge day 22. For today’s prompt, pick a plant, make it the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Pick a favorite vegetable or fruit, a flower, a tree, even a shrubbery.

I chose Tree in memory of our red maple and silver birch, that are no more...

In April we begin eying spring's tree,
hungry for the music of leaf-melody!

A week ago we were watching our trees anxiously
as lofty limbs sagged beneath baggage of ice and snow...
...and praying history would not repeat itself!

Dear Tree,
like stalwart sentinels you stand
unflinching through the years
to guard the yard or line the lane
with leafy belvederes

you wear each season well, my lovely
weaver of the bow'r
sometimes you sport a snowy shrug
sometimes green leaf and flow'r

In brawny arms you cradle dreamers
lured to your fixed pose 
You, bearer of the childhood swing
and spring's first dainty rose

... and something 'bout your steadfastness
seeps into memories
where the backdrop to happiness
is oft wove through with trees

...a stark, gray leaflorn labyrinth
or froth of chartreuse tress
before red, orange and cinna-bronze
dwindles to quietness

where summer slides its zephyr-bow
 above soft shadows flung
As melodies, now high, now low
from wooded breath are wrung

...where silver quivered, pooled and slipped
like elfin-feet a-dance
until the test of time undid
your patriotic stance

'ere arms that held the trilling bird
and withstood nature's ire
lie, like shards of earth's broken heart
to feed the winter fire

 ...and we mourn thee, fair minstrel
of midnight's plush lullaby
 where your felled lyre leaves nothing but
A big hole full of sky

Janet~



Teaching The Poet To Dance

PAD Challenge 23: For today’s prompt, write an action poem. So many actions are available to the poet: singing, running, clapping, working, and–umm–poeming. 
Yes, there’s a world of possibility today–all ready to act.




A Casanova, without form; he takes Her heart by storm
He woos with hues; runs seasons through his blue-eyed, sky-wide charm
Sometimes a sentimentalist, sometimes a reckless rogue
He draws Her into dances with allure of written word

…and she, smitten by what might be cannot resist his touch
A woman, willing to be kissed by similes and such
She lets him lead and moves beneath his eloquent command
He, with a poem on his lips, she with a pen in hand

The slow-dance of an Almost-poem brushes heart-to-heart
He has the way of whispers down to a near-perfect art
In murmur of a meadow brook, in bobbing bloom-bell’s chime
In vesper-sigh, the shadow-ladder that no one can climb

In lilt and rhyme, he, Father Time with most familiar ease
Will steal her breath and crush her beneath weight of memories
Both backstabber and lover, hope and heartbreak synchronized
He teaches her to wait while leaving her poem-surprised

Beneath Her ribs the motion of an ocean crashes hard
Roused by mulled shards of autumn pressed into spring’s empty yard
He primes Time’s tug of echoes with both laughter and lament
Life's sweet, torturous tango twixt The Waiting and The Spent

© Janet Martin


(just for fun I highlighted the action/motion words,
in case it felt like a sedate poem;-)


Saturday, April 21, 2018

Danger of...

For today’s prompt, write a danger poem. There are various levels of danger out there–from physical danger to the danger of being discovered doing something you shouldn’t (or doing something that might embarrass you–or someone else). Even the act of writing and sharing a poem brings with it the potential for danger.

 Last Saturday, winter!


this Saturday, Summer(well, almost😉!)





Danger of missing the moment:
To be caught up in pining for some fond and faded year
Is to miss the fine brush-strokes in the art of now and here

Danger of falling in love:
To fall in love completely is a risk lovers will take
Its wonder worth the danger of a heart destined to break

Danger of stealing roses:
The rose is lovely to behold as bud from bloom is borne
But beware, if you pick it, it will prick you with its thorn

Danger of deception:
The danger of exchanging truth for more appealing lies
Is that unless one recognizes wrong, discernment dies

Danger of the she-carpenter:
To be afraid to take a chance is to be sure to fail
So, if I swing the hammer, honey, will you hold the nail?

Danger of vanity:
Truth, sometimes hard to swallow is still healthier to hear
Than indulging our pride on fat of flattery, my dear

Danger of the double life:
If you decide to live with much to hide each day is like
A journey through a minefield in the middle of the night

© Janet Martin

Friday, April 20, 2018

A Sunny-Spring Celebration Song To God of Our Salvation




It is easy to sing in the sunshine😊



He has established His throne in the Heavens
His Sovereignty rules over all
He is Proprietor of every season
His Ways are infallible

Never a motive but mercy and goodness
Never a breach in His care
Faithful provider of hope and forgiveness
Nothing to Him can compare

He does not waver, our Lord and our Saviour
Never a promise forgets
Oh, what a wonder-full, wondrous Creator
Joy to this old world begets

He is the Father that stands in the doorway
Watching, waiting from afar
Welcoming ‘Prodigal sons’ from their wand’ring
Into His wide, open arms

Lord, you are faithful through all generations
You have established the earth
Your loving kindness extends to the heavens
Your grace gives human race worth

Your righteous judgement in due time is given
You intercede when we call
You have established Your Throne in the heavens
Your Sovereignty rules over all

© Janet Martin

Poem-ment-um

PAD Challenge day 20: For today’s prompt, take a line from an earlier poem (preferably from this month) to begin your poem for today. For instance, I took the final few lines of my poem from day 12 to start my example poem below. So scan through your earlier stuff to figure out where to start today.

I chose the second-last line in the poem from April 2nd; Poem Sea
 ...The Momentum of Moments



In the momentum of moments
In the masterpiece and mess
In the fist-a-cuff and kisses
In the hurt and happiness

In the yard of almost summer
In the wars we lose and win
In the crinkle and the twinkle
Of a lad's mischievous grin

In the grip of Old Man winter
When he refuses to leave
In the glory of glad branches
Granted snowflake-star reprieve

In the way we never weary
Of the wonder that love stirs
As we all love feeling special
By our special ‘hims and hers’

In the garden, in the woodland
In the barn or house or field
In the mist that forges mem’ries
From the ‘This’ that moments yield

In the early, pearly morning
Middle-day and musky dusk
In the burgeoning of blossoms
Or the crepe of hollow husk

In the rise and falling gavel
As tick-tock unravels years
Lies the tremor of a poem
That, left unpenned, disappears

© Janet Martin

This poem was one of those tremors I had to reel in before it turned into a tidal wave!

Thursday, April 19, 2018

The Poet's Vice

For yesterday’s prompt, write a temptation poem.

The sun setting across ice-shards stopped this poet mid dishwashing!!

Inkwells cupped by earth and heavens
Can seduce the bard mid-step
Temptation is shaped in shimmers
Of Poem not written yet

Color mistrals flare and capsize 
What if no one snares the gold
That turns twilight into treasures
That only Poem can hold

Janet~