A Minnesang... Emaciation

Poetic Bloomings invites us to attempt a Minnesang

The MINNESANG (Middle High German - minne = love) is a courtly love poem. But it was usually depicting unrequited love. The verse was cultivated by the nobility, and often built around the theme of a brave knight's attempt to court a lady who doesn't return his favor.

The Minnesang was meant to be sung but the melodies were not well documented and mostly only lyrics are left.

The defining features of the Minnesang are:

• stanzaic, written in uniform stanzas although the number of lines in the stanza per poem is variable, sixains were popular.
• metric, often iambic tetrameter with the last line of each stanza a longer Germanic line (Long lines written in a minimum of 7 metric feet, Accentual meter and often composed as 2 short lines in 1 usually separated by caesura) , iambic heptameter or octameter.
• rhymed, variable rhyme schemes were used, ababcc was common another was abbcaa .

You keen my senses, remove my defenses

Ravish perception like a tree in the fall

My mind is blind to half-love recompenses

I drink foolish hope from its chalice half-full

While subtly you strip the smile from my lip

I remain, a devoted beggar on your fingertip

Beneath your caress, casually you undress

The dearest and deepest measures of my heart

But I am a fool and oh, you are so cool

I gulp the pleasure purposed blindness imparts

While you seem to linger just out of my reach

From the tip of your finger I beg and beseech

You move through me, an invisible tempest

While my wanton tears wash your body; your feet

I do not feel the chill of disinterest

Until you have stripped me; your mission complete

I cannot hide; my emaciated form

Stands exposed; naked limbs reach to embrace sorrow’s storm

© Janet Martin

A Part of the Whole

It does not hurt so much now

The echo of what used to be

For in time, some way, somehow

It has become a part of me

The distance measured by Time’s scope

In spite of its expanding plea  

Cannot diminish Love or Hope

As it becomes the whole of me

J~

Poet's Lament

Oft you evoke in my in-most being

Hollowed indictments I cannot ignore

Passionate pleading; rushing receding

Oceans of wonder and pondering roar

Desire dances in sanguine circles

Duty remands with a stiff, solemn grip

Wanderlust whispers; temptation trickles

I need a pen between my fingertips

A-h-h-h-h…

Smooth satisfaction probes inspiration

Pulses quicken with anticipation

Muse, oh languid and luring impression

Teasing and taunting the fringe of my thought

Do you seek kinship or mournful confession?

I feel you but to touch you, I can not

Are you the shadow that ruffles the willow?

Are you the Shepherd of star-spangled deep?

Or do you burrow beneath my pillow

Murmuring to me as I fall asleep

A-h-h-h-h

You are a rebel tormenter of men

Provoking the poet without a pen

Oft you evoke intangible beauty

Caught in the lilt and the bend of the breeze

Oft, in the middle of modest duty

You kiss the moment with sweet memories

I cannot hate you, therefore I must love you

Feed on the hunger of what you withhold

Darling, I am so empty without you

Tease me; torment me until I am old

A-h-h-h,

Poet, poor poet; are you blessed or cursed?

Caught in the vortex of life’s best or worst?

© Janet Martin

Written for Poetry Jam; love-hate relationship

Of Sisters

 I went 'home' to recapture a few echoes this morning.

In many ways we are so very different

Yet, in so many ways we are the same

Time draws our feet in personal directions

But cannot steal the past from whence we came

And from the fabric of a common childhood

Kindred memories and laughter flow

To thread the ties binding our hearts together

Spun in those precious days of long ago

Sisters share a friendship like no other

Of home-spun values shaping our thought

Preserving in ourselves a bit of Mother

For beneath her hand we each were taught

And now in our own personal journeys

Of adulthood, of motherhood, of work

We cherish the friendship of dearest sisters

Who ask no explanation for our quirks

The hand of Time may scatter our pathways

But sealed in childhood’s sweet and simple age

Remain the echoes of a common chapter

Before life’s eager ever-turning page

And there abides a kindred understanding

In spite of change; in spite of where we roam

The dear and precious friendship of a sister

Will always feel a bit like coming home

© Janet Martin

 The sisters are getting together today:)

Autumn's Gloaming

Corn-rows, in regimental symmetry

Gleam; an auburn tide in autumn’s gloaming

On twilight’s crest the scarlet rivalry

Of maple and sumac spike daylight's folding 

The full moon embellishes night’s collar

Dull meadow’s surge; silver, a still-life ocean

Echoes, reminiscent of a summer

Converge; filling dusk shadows with emotion

Time reaches out with gossamer embrace

To pluck another season from earth’s face

***

Is there an antidote for summer-sorrow?

Is grief the flip-side of love’s lithesome joy?

Is there a balm of laughter in tomorrow

To soothe the anguish life seems to employ?

In Time’s quadrille we are reckless dancers

Oft squandering a song we should revere

Distracted as we search for temporal answers

To questions that will never disappear

How subtle the descent of heaven’s scrim

How silently the bloom falls from the limb

***

The poet weeps into the autumn dark

The tenure of thought curves against lament

Until a poem lights a valiant spark

And re-ignites the passion that was spent

Each season is part of Love’s Masterpiece

The moment-threads of life fall into place

In spite of history’s soundless increase

And Time’s insistent kisses on our face

On summer’s tomb the crimson poppy blows

Somewhere a Groom reserves love’s sweetest rose

© Janet Martin

Collaboration of Contrasts

Truth does not change

Earth surrenders each season

Night fills the hollow of deepening blue

I cannot arrange

Love’s tempestuous reason

Longing still follows the having of you

The more that I love you

The deeper I hunger

The deeper I hunger the fuller I love

Mysterious paradox

Driving me onward

Searching for something I know nothing of

Out in the shadows

The poplar trees shiver

Here in the quiet of autumn’s midnight

Symmetrical contrasts

Collaborate, quiver

In bittersweet torment and tender delight

© Janet Martin

Monday Musings~

A mirror reflects the image

A sea reflects the sky

But thought’s finished span

Reflects the man

Not visible to naked eye

*** 

Man looks on the outward

But God sees the heart

There is no masquerade

For this innermost part

***

Love; simple yet so complex

And hard to understand

How both The Giving and The Taking

Are gifts from His hand

***

 Vanity and pride are as easy to hide

As a giant zit on the end of a nose

As a man thinks, so is he

As his thought falls, so his footstep goes

***

Judgment gushes from mouths of piety

Compassion bleeds from lips of Love

Pious judgment offers no redemption

But redemption pours from Love’s Source above

***  

I held you as a baby then you grew

I watched you as a child then you flew

I cannot restrain the Hand of Time

But pray you through; for now you climb

© Janet  Martin

Season of Recollection

It is the season of recollection

Pallid husks stripped of summer’s full worth

Bow in the garden; a forlorn expression

Of seed to flower to harvest to earth

Belles of summer in burnished apparel

Softly relinquish their time-tattered gown

To brawny passions of autumn’s arrival

Prelude to winter and wisdom’s white crown

Hope lives eternal in realization

Though husks of a season may garnish the breeze

Promise persists in the seeds that have fallen

From desire to touch to memories

It is a season of recollection

The teardrops of summer seep into the earth

Where time’s tender heartbeat cradles resurrection

From tomb to womb to Spring’s glad re-birth

© Janet Martin