Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Almost Fall.....



Beautiful, dreamy dust-scented day
Sprawled ‘neath a blanket of purple and gray
Seduction of pleasure and melancholy
Intended for picnics and poetry
You tempt me to love you the best of all
No longer summer, you are ‘almost fall’

Caught in the drone of mid-afternoon haze
I revel in summer’s relinquishing ways
A dance between dawn, fanning ‘cross the sky
Ere she droops on the shoulder of the deep evening sigh
While earth dons her faded and weary shawl
Camouflaged, jaded and ‘almost fall’

Beautiful smoldering, tender torment
Lingering sadly in summer’s lament
Capsule of sweetness, you ravish and tease
While I taste a hint of farewell on the breeze
Lady in waiting, most stunning of all
Blue days of surrender in ‘almost fall’

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

Harbinger of Fall.....or September


The North Star gleams like a silver stud
On your navy, velvet vest
As with deft hands you softly draw
The green leaf from her nest
Where she securely lived her days
Beneath the summer sun
And lulled the night with whispered lays
And sighed within the dawn

Then you bestow your hoarded shades
Of red and golden-bronze
Upon each limb you deck the glades
In amber under-tones
Too long the evergreen has reigned
You tease the roving eye
With hints of orange and crimson strain
In summer’s lullaby

The azure vaults of endless bliss
You mute with hints of gray
And with your soft and smoky kiss
You steal the blue away
No more the aimless wanderer
The cloud that passes by
She wears a heavy woolen shirt
And moody is her sigh

Where blossoms loitered in the dell
And grapes upon the vine
We wander where the petals fell
Dreaming of autumns wine
The sun wears a defeated smile
I call her lovely still
But I know in a little while
She’ll yield to autumn’s chill

You are a subtle traveller
And I just cannot know
Should I address you then as Sir?
Are you a friend or foe?
A tremor in the midnight air
Reveals your true intent
Your are autumns harbinger
For summer came………and went

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

Monday, September 13, 2010

Us.....


These are the whispers that wash over me
Trickling in sonnets of sweet memory
Wait just a minute, ah, there you go
Soundless emission to time’s ceaseless flow
As laughter and teardrops and days in the sun
Pleasure and sorrow emerge as one
Handclasps and heartache and what will be….was
In each simple memory …..of us

These are the treasures I ponder and keep
Oh, how I chuckle and oh how I weep
Love, you are comrade yet sometimes a foe
While I’m holding on I am letting go
As sweetness and sorrow are vivid and keen
And the glow of tomorrow is yesterday’s sheen
Painful and precious and perfect because
It is the story……… of us

All Right Reserved
Janet Martin

Friday, September 10, 2010

Progress?


Of all the progress of the age
And wonders of technology
Yet there is naught that can assuage
A broken-hearted memory

They may send man up into space
And view the earth from outer spheres
But there is naught that can erase
The pain bled out in silent tears

For though the centuries may roll
And man invents the latest ‘new’
Still there is naught to bring to whole
A heart that lies broken in two

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Heaven's Best.....


Hath not God dealt His fairest touch
Like perfect daisies in the spring
And violets in the underbrush
Has He not formed the sweetest thing
To beautify this sad old world
When He formed a little girl

Did He not take the finest thread
To weave her crown of innocence
And were not heavens teardrops shed
To place her in this insolence?
But yet He chose to grace this world
With heavens best; a little girl

He formed from rosebud her sweet lips
And from the sunsets ruby hue
He brushed her cheeks; her fingertips
Held by God now touches you
As He places in this world
His very best; a little girl

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

Hole in my Heart.....


There’s a hole in my heart, dear
Where you used to be
I’ve tried to fill it with somebody else
But it’s just not that easy you see
It’s tearing me apart, dear
No matter how hard I try
The great big hole in my heart, dear
It’s filled with the sound of good-bye

Keep your arms full of roses
I’ve never yet seen a one
Which does not drop all its petals
And all of the beauty is gone
As soon as the door softly closes
There’s just one thing that I see
So keep your arms full of roses
They’ll never replace you and me

Sugar and spice are for tea, dear
Diamonds for grand royalty
They may be lovely for someone to wear
But it will never be me
There’s a hole in my heart dear
And there’s not a thing I can do
For there’s no one in whole wide world
That will ever be me and you

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

Watching/listening to the movie Till the Clouds Roll By
(the life story of song writer Jerome Kerns) made me want to write
An old ‘black and white movie’ sad song…..the rain provokes
a desire to write sad songs too…and boy, do we have that !!!!

Farewell Sonnet


The ivy on the garden gate
Gleams silver in the moons soft eye
While melodies I love and hate
In symphonies go drifting by
The red rose flaunts her raindrop pearls
Maduro in a lily bed
As summer taunts from other worlds
Somewhere deep inside my head

The throb of amatorial song
Like an ancient madrigal
Whispers on her lips, her tongue
Where soft and silent moonbeams fall
And where they fall the petals weep
In affirmation to my fear
They lie where summer blooms now sleep
To bud again another year

I will not begrudge the wind
In her tormenting lullaby
The ecstasy of love is kind
But there is another side
I’ll take the pleasure with the pain
In love there is no other way
To simply love without the rain
Would be to love in shades of gray

To simply love and never lose
Is then to not have loved at all
And if I had the chance to choose
I’d release summer to fall
To surrender life’s fair best
We must suffer bitter pain
But when flowerless fields have passed
We know that love will come again

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Sisters......



Was it not yesterday we laughed?
And climbed the shadowed limbs
Where silver petals shivered
In the flurry of the wind
And we would speak of our half-dreams
In wistful girls desire
But now her silver mantle gleams
On brows of tempered fire

Was it not yesterday we danced?
In meadows fancy free
Where every minute was enhanced
By dreams of what will be
Where hours drifted, now they race
As sunlight hurries by
And now we turn a softer face
Toward the whispering skies

Was it not yesterday our paths
Of life were much the same
We shared our pleasures and our strife
But then tomorrow came…
And now wherever we may roam
Regardless of the weather
It feels a bit like coming home
When we get together

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Course of Life.....


Exquisite tendrils, gold-brushed sighs
Trickle from the morning skies
Silent sob in my embrace
This is life’s ever-changing face
Kaleidoscope of memories
Drifting on a tender breeze
As the struggling vine of June
Bursts into most glorious bloom

Kiss each moment, let it go
Tis the course of life you know
Flowers bloom and then they die
Soon it will be you and I
Urge the fledgling from the nest
Let them pursue and fail a test
Wipe your tears and let them go
Tis the course of life, you know

Hold them close and love them well
When it’s over none can tell
You may weep behind your smile
For once, you were your mother’s child
As kindly through her prayers and tears
She let you go yet held you near
Cherish every ebb and flow
Tis the course of life, you know


All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

Monday, September 6, 2010

Mortality


Today is my ‘sweetest sorrow’ day
When memories like priceless tokens
Are tucked away,
As I stand on the brink
Of tomorrow today
And new beginnings
It’s a sweet crazy roller-coaster
As the wind and the rain
Cater in tender empathy
To my pleasure and pain
Oh what a ride,
This memory train is
Taking a journey again…
As I stand here and think
Of tomorrow today
And more precious moments
Are stolen away
And small grows
A little bigger every day
And the face in the window
Begins turning away
To chase the dream
Of childhood and youth
While I begin
To believe a truth
That we deny
When we are young
As days drift by
Like new love song
But now forces me to stand
Face to face with reality
One life is but a grain of sand
On the shore of time’s vast sea
A year is a trickle, one tiny seed
Mortality is fickle and brief indeed

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

My apologies...but
Labor Day seems to be a day
of tender torment:)