Do not make me beg
As I chew on my pen
For that elusive word
While you dangle
Before my weary eyes
That ‘shining spangle’
As you tantalize
Me with perfect prose
Just beyond my grasp
I’m on the tips of my toes
But alas, alas…
You find it a highly
Entertaining affair
To watch me claw wildly
At nothing…but air
As you slip in through the locks
I bolt the door and pull the shades
For all the good it does
Upon my shoulder you alight
And vow to keep me up tonight
I play my part to perfect fault
A wrinkled brow, a tight-lipped frown
You laugh and turn a somersault
Inside my mind scattered and blown
Taking full charge for you know well
Each curve inside this ivory cell
I fain would beg you to depart
Then miss you madly when you’re gone
You volley twixt my mind and heart
And seem to know when I’m alone
Are you a blessing or a curse
Tormenting me with rhyme and verse?
I cradle you between my lips
Then spit you out in wry disdain
You tease my restless fingertips
And taunt me from the wayward pen
Muse persists and Muse endures…
…take me, take me, I am yours
Janet Martin
You drop your broad hem in a subtle mist
Wrapping the earth in your ample blue robe
As wand’ring hours melt into your kiss
Tranquility circles the half-moon globe
Too late to toil and too early to dream
You sweep the soil in a translucent stream
You snuff out the wink of noon’s golden pear
Tuck your dark edges o’er twilight’s pale fray
I hear a memory finger the air
Of sea-song and sunshine on shore’s far away
Why do you hasten with deep velvet plume
To brush out the roses and wild purple bloom?
Heart held in limbo beneath your cool gown
Bittersweet anguish exudes in a sigh
As futile as knowing that daylight has flown
Into the hollow of night’s lambent eye
Your crescent brooch gleams like an uncut stone
Inspiring dreams; I am not alone
Janet Martin
Through this framed square the seasons pass
Time's languid whispers on the grass
As parents with a tender eye
Watch its swift slideshow flicking by
They reach but they cannot restrain
The pictures passing through this frame
It frames the wak'ning of the earth
Of bud and spring, of hope and mirth
Of tiny, bumbling baby feet
Discovering nature, curious, sweet
Where Time for one brief moment halts
Before it cart-wheels, somersaults
On sapphire backdrop scenes unfold
In summer’s laughing hour of gold
A frame where dogs and children run
Toward the bar of setting sun
Their voices falling on the eve
Like drops of rain or drifting leaves
…and autumn paints its pictures too
Murals of amber, red and blue
Yet, as we struggle to recall
The fleeting essence of them all
We grasp, at best, upon our hearts
Impressionistic works of art
Through this stark frame a life unfolds
'Neath summer's sun and winter's cold
As restless moments leap and fly
In ethereal prisms to the sky
We let our tears fall without shame
For it is such a precious frame
Janet Martin
It’s a little like reading poetry,
this presumptuous feeling
as I drift surreally
on the arms of the autumn wind
with nothing to restrain my mind
relying fully
on a few gaudy synthetic bubbles
and poetry
to carry me over
a world of dwarfed troubles,
a canopy of roof-tops
of pasture and sea
sprawled in a patch-work quilt
far, far beneath me
It’s so quiet here….
Mo-o-o-o-m!
Where’ my hat?
Jolt!
Bump!
Reality!
Janet Martin
We’re not just making supper or sweeping floors
Though it may seem like we’re just doing life’s chores
We read the newspaper, the Bible, a book
It appears like reading but take one more look
‘cause we’re making something…
We take out the garbage, and in endless miles
We hang out more laundry beneath autumn smiles
There’s scolding and holding, hello and good-by
We’re not really thinking as the swift minutes fly
That we’re making something
The van’s out of gas, fuel prices sky-rocket
The pantry needs filling, re-vamp the budget
For supper’s dessert there is apple strudel
Who left smelly socks on the coffee table?
Yes, we’re making something
Now finish your homework please, don’t look so sad
Kids, stop your arguing, listen to your dad
Tidy your bedrooms; that means make your beds too
If you help me I have a surprise for you
Oh, we’re making something
A house is a shell with a roof and a floor
Curtains at the window, a pretty front door
Through which messes and music and memories unfurl
‘cause we’re making the most beautiful thing in the world
We’re making a home
Janet Martin
I cleaned out the pantry and the little guys I baby-sit had fun building a Folger's Coffee Tin tower. (note: kids love playing with non-toys. Their imagination flies...) It turned out a little slanted and Michael said, 'Yeah' it's the Eiffel tower!' ( I think he was thinking of the leaning tower of Pisa, but it was so cute:)
You held it to me in the gentlest of ways
I blushed in embarrassment beneath your kind gaze
As You pulled back the wraps of pink and pale blue
And whispered, ‘My dear, I have something for you’
It was so beautiful, perfect, unmarred
I looked at my old one, so battered and scarred
But You did not remind me of my tangled mess
As you gazed at me in profound tenderness
‘Don’t look at the old one’, I felt His embrace
As He brushed the tears of regret from my face
‘I love You, I am with you, I’ll show you the way’
And He placed into my arms a brand new day
Janet~
