Constantine

Where have you been, my Constantine?
Its 1a.m. the night is lean
And I have worn my heart to shreds
I could not sleep in any beds
For you are only seventeen
Where have you been, my Constantine?

Oh mother dear, you need not fear
Have you forgotten thus the year?
When you were but a maiden fair
In love with life and the night air
Do you remember seventeen?
As you ask, where have you been?

The mother smiled at her dear child
Darling tis but a short wee while
Since I was a young girl like you
Inclined to do the things you do
And that is why, dear Constantine
I fret and sigh, where have you been?

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Janet Martin

Blue-bells

The memory of that fair day
Unfolds like a blue bud
As I see in fond reverie
The hill whereon we stood
And in this quiet solitude
I pause within a trance
For I can hear the gentle tune
Of blue-bells as we danced

The wild rose weeps her petals fair
For many a spring has slept
And many a soul has wandered where
This tender bud is kept
But in the quiet half-moon sky
It soundlessly unfolds
As I remember you and I
In a hundred dreams untold

The night is heavy with the scent
Of blue-bells in the spring
But I am happy and content
When I can hear them ring
For in the softness of the air
Beneath a half-moon sky
I still see us dancing where
The blue-bells never die




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Janet Martin

It is a perfect half-moon sky tonight:)

Prelude

It’s a panoramic landscape as I view its lows and highs
It’s a kaleidoscope of heart-ache and of smiles and butterflies
But now its seems the radiant hues are dull in somber grey
And all the colors I would choose have somehow slipped away
For suddenly within the hush a tear-drop dims my eye
I see upon the painters brush a prelude to good-bye

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Janet Martin

Best Day of my Life

Hold on rushing minute
You fly way to fast
What I’m putting in it
Will quickly be past
So what of pleasure
Or toil and strife
I’m holding the best day
Of my life

Yesterday is over
I cannot retrieve
One moment of it
To somehow re-live
Its triumphs and failures
Its measure of strife
But today is the best day
Of my life

Tomorrow is a vision
With no guarantee
I have no promise
That it ever will be
The one thing of value
I see in this strife
Is simply today, the best day
Of my life

In it lies each moment
Waiting to be filled
With the fruit of my choices
Before its minutes are stilled
So what of pleasure
Or toil and strife
I’m living the best day
Of my life

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Janet Martin

Content

When the shadow deepens beneath your eyes
And many a season has swept the skies
Will we still have a reason, you and me?
To desire each others company

When you sit by the fire with a book in your lap
And it slips to the floor as you nod and nap
When the sorrows of life etch their kiss on your brow
Will you still love your wife as you love me now?

Will we sit in the sunset’s tranquility?
You with your pipe and me with my tea
Viewing sweet hours from a glowing past
As the evening’s soft, coral bowers are cast

Will you still let me softly trace
The tender love-lines on your face
Here on the porch will you sit with me
Content in each others company

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Janet Martin

The Hardest Part

The hardest part of loving you
Are the moments in-between
When you fade from my view
And every place we’ve been
And the hardest part of the morning
Is knowing the night with you
Is simply a prelude to the dawning
When you fade into the blue…….
For the hardest part of our laughter
Is the silence in between
And wondering for-ever after
Oh, what might have been
And the hardest part of loving you
Is simply letting go
Knowing there’s nothing we can do
To pause time’s ebb and flow
As the minutes melt into hours…..
The hours that stretch between
You and I in the hardest part
Of wondering what could have been

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Janet Martin

My Favorite Kind of Poetry

It has suddenly come to me
Loving you is poetry
Like a sonnet, sweet and low
Your tender words softly bestow
And wrap around my longing heart
The poetry that you impart
In every whisper, every sigh
Every flicker in your eye
In each heart-wrung melody
I hear perfect poetry
Darling, sit here next to me
As the moon-beams kiss the sea
Listen as I read to thee
My favorite kind of poetry

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Janet Martin

Love Song #2

It rolls across the gleaming hills
Of midnights silent rue
I now can hear its haunting trills
Like heavy-laden dew
Across each ramparts vain defense
In effervescent sighs
And in the moonlight I can sense
It flaming in your eyes

I once had known a tortured bliss
And in this solemn lay
I recall its searing kiss
Upon my memory splay
But now I turn to hear its chords
Redeem my agony
No finer gift could kings and lords
Ever bestow to me

Than this one gift that drifts upon
The moaning midnight breeze
As it softly sifts beyond
The swaying raven trees
This song in its grandest debut
Fit for royalty
As I turned to look at you
Your eyes sang it to me

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Janet Martin