Humbly Glad For The Love I've Had...

 Sometimes I play this song to others,

Sometimes I play it to myself😏

I have been loved

What can I say?

In spite of my failures and fumbles

And stumbles and grumbles

And glaring flaws

I’m loved anyway

So, I’ll be humbly glad

For the love I’ve had…

While my track-record

Of foibles grows fat

And I’m middle-age

And likely won’t change

I’ve been hated

For far less than that

© Janet Martin

Poem-pangs...

PAD Challenge 14; For today’s prompt, write a hungry poem. 

Impossible to satisfy the wish and whim of you

A catch-your-breath soliloquy of season’s flight, the flue

Fused to a furnace deep within where poet’s hunger burns

The fire of desire fueled by Time’s No Returns

Impossible to satisfy the want and need of you

Where what is penned is not the end but the threshold of New

Where every hour kindles from the embers of its flare

Fresh flame that leaps toward a storehouse heaped upon the air

Impossible to satisfy the ways and means of you

To write is but to soothe the wounds where brooding whispers woo

And wonder runs its thunder through the belly of a sigh

To trigger the awareness of a poem slipping by

Impossible to satisfy the urge and angst of you

No Magnum Opus stills the tempest sparked by twilight blue

Where earth's extravagant buffet is spread 'neath star-glossed height

To tease and please the poet’s insatiable appetite

© Janet Martin

The Picture of November's Twilight

 Because nothing slips out of the reach of a poem...

This one is for my sister. 

She called before supper and wondered if the evening captured my attention too

and did I write a poem?

 Dear, sweet sister, often calls if only to ask 'What did you write today?'

I answered her kindred-spirit question tonight with "yes, I stood there soaking it in for a minute and even dared to wish for a moment of Quiet To Write, but then was immediately convicted with 'careful what you wish for' and that no, there is no poem, 

but there is extra guests for supper and Grandson etc. 

and we chatted a bit about why the colorless colours were so captivating tonight

then each returned to our own supper-chores etc.

The sky has been shedding its softness ever since she called...

(this photo was taken the other 'less-lively' evening😉)

The moment passed.

The air, like smoky flannel fell, 

then blue

Then black

And snuffed the images 

of dying day from view

But could not steal 

from wonder’s reel

God’s tender work of art

The picture of 

November’s twilight

Wrapped around the heart

…and so is life.

Its moments rife with heaven’s 

emptied jars

And such

Where touch is quick to cool

 but not its aftermath of stars

That brush the air 

and places where

Only Thought’s Owner sees

The frame filled with 

soft shimmers

Of love’s precious memories

© Janet Martin

Majesty's Showcase

 Any of you long time porch-visitors HAD to know this song was coming😀

 It's one of my favourite almost Christmas snow-songs!

The sullen bars of earth are swaddled in a starry spree

It decks the scars of plant and harvest with soft purity

As boulevard and yard and hill

Where songs of summer-long lie still

Are like a Christmas postcard hung for everyone to see

The pot that Old Man Winter’s been a-stirring day and night

Has overflowed at last in feathered froth of downy white

As street and fallow field repose

Beneath the diamond-dazzled throws

Where Mother Nature warms her toes and shivers with delight

Each fence-post is a snow-cone and each frond a piece of lace

Each barren tree a metaphoric Masterpiece of grace

Where Mercy clothes the naked world

In bolts of sequined silk unfurled

And turns all of creation into Majesty’s Showcase

© Janet Martin

As First Snow Falls...

For today’s Two-for-Tuesday prompt:

• Write a quiet poem. Or…
• Write a loud poem.

in the plush hush

of star-brushed morn

a blue jay calls

prelude to joyous noise

of girls and boys 

as first snow falls

Janet Martin

Ah Say, What Is This?

Ah say, what is this pantomime that thrums these walls of air

Is it the song and dance of time or

Simply someone’s answered prayer?

Ah say, what is this rise and fall that rushes and recedes

Is it the Tide of dawn to dusk or

Simply wind among the reeds

Ah say, what is this lilt and lull of plant and harvest-hymn

Is it the push and pull of toil or

Simply Season growing dim

Ah say, what is this gold and gray that floods sky, sea and sod?

Is it glints from The Painter’s tray

Or simply glimpses of God

© Janet Martin