Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Of Things Familiar





I run my fingers over your curves and lines
Oh, I know them well and with my eyes closed
I can tell where your imperfections are
The beautiful broken, the shards of life
Flung into this cup cradling the strife
Of temporal sorrow and joy

…of dashing barefoot boy
Or the giggling passage of ribbons and curls
And little girls
On their way to being women
And my smile traces these love-worn places
Bearing the permanent image of faces

…on a slide-show of moments where
We gathered for dinner; the table and chairs
Scarred testaments of happiness and family
Of comfort in familiarity
In this place where we come; discarding brave masks
Because we are at home

© Janet Martin

Mr. April




 (even the sunrise has been a little 'moody' the past few days, with the clouds claiming the horizon-line and stretching past eight o' clock before releasing the sun)


Ah, you moody beauty
Cantankerous delight
Teasing first with sun-spun mirth
Then cloud-feathers of white

Ah, dearest mellow fellow
Ah, testy troubadour
Of frigid sheen and virgin green
And violet-fragrant floor

Ah, harbinger of summer
Ah, dregs of winter’s blast
You vex, perplex nature’s vortex
With gray and gold contrast

Ah sweet, sinister mister
You ride the buxom breeze
Then leap upon a bully storm
Without apologies

Ah, darling moody beauty
How nonchalant you blow
As you caress spring's timid tress
With frost-florets of snow

© Janet Martin 

It is such a day today, one moment sunny then the wind howls, unleashing a volley of flakes, that melt when the sun re-appears!


Beneath the Shadow of Numbers

 Poetics Aside Prompt:

Today’s prompt is a Two-for-Tuesday prompt. For those new to the challenge, you have the option of writing to the first prompt or the second prompt–or even both if you feel so inclined. Here they are:
  • Write a bright poem.
  • Write a dark poem.
The 'dark' in this poem is a shadow...

I found an old appointment calendar while cleaning out a drawer;
now that busy splattered page is nothing anymore,
but numbers testifying in modest simplicity
the heart's wildest undoing where the present used to be...







In the after-light of day
When toil and turmoil tested fray
Have donned their shrouds of whisper-gray
A digit on Time’s chart
Its nullified numeric stance
Veils the shadow where now we dance
Hungry for laughter and romance
To ravage mortal heart

The dark and light soon coalesce
Upon the parchment-metered tress
Where only you and I caress
Its darling memory
For at the stroke of midnight chime
We render our stuttered rhyme
Into the number-crypt of Time
And past’s eternity

How mute those numbers on the page
Sealing upon its mystic stage
The echo of age upon age
Suffered with hand and heart
The ravaging of Time’s bequeath
The shuddering of heav’n and earth
In the intangible half-breath
Of numbers on a chart

© Janet Martin 




Composition of an Intangible Refrain




Let not an hour of discontent
Corrupt love’s keen, ever-present
In season-shades beneath a tent
Of tenderness and grace
Let not the rudiment of lust
Consume this transient gasp of dust
To pine instead of meekly trust
Love’s intricate embrace

Let not the bitterness of wrath
Corrode fair blooms along a path
To taint the lingering aftermath
Of all that will remain
Subtle, the hour disappears
A vapor-kiss of faith and fears
Bending brief moments into years
Intangible refrain

Let not the grief of what is gone
Tarnish the mercy-gilded dawn
For Time does not refund its spawn
Of gossamer foray
Where we are shaping the requiem
From moment-mystery regime
A melody where soon will gleam
The echo of today

© Janet Martin





Monday, April 1, 2013

Reminder to Trust





When we attempt upon our own
To shoulder living’s dirt
Then we forget the Faithful One
Who knows our every hurt
And soon we stagger, soon we fall
Beneath its weighted woe
God, help us trust; You hear each call
And never let us go

© Janet Martin

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want...Ps. 23:1

Another 'New Arrival' Poemlet



Jaded jewel
Pressed candidly
On my heart-string
Where your touch used to be

Gently gleaming
Silver sphere
Of love’s after-math
...a tear

With the dawn's
Fresh diadem
Longing spawns
Another gem
  
J~

You Always Come This Way...



 


2013 April PAD Challenge: Day 1
 For today’s prompt, write a new arrival poem.

You always come this way
Virgin
Tumbled gold
Or placid gray
Grace-breath spilling
In moment-opportunity
From heaven’s finger-tips
To mortal hands and lips
You always come this way
Oh, dawning of new day

© Janet Martin

The Wayfaring Poet's Delight





The wayfaring poet delights
In timeless joys of old
The ebony of midnight deep
Its cup of morning gold
The fragment’s of a season’s cloak
Scattered on earthen floor
The sweep of dawn flooding life’s road
Of grace to her front door

The pigment on hope’s grand palette
Draws her toward the Hand
Spilling His daily Masterpiece
Freely across the land
The wayfaring poet hungers
And feasts her yearning thought
On moment-possibility
In all that yet is not

She dwells in nature’s palace
Willing to seal in ink
The passionate, ephemeral gasp
Of life’s perplexing wink
And in each moment-jewel
That glimmers on time’s sod
She thrills to shape the gossamer
Of word to gifts from God

© Janet Martin

When I got up the dawn was an expressionless gray, spiked suddenly with gold only to slip back again behind a wall of sudden flurries...stunning!