The Complexity of Word

 

April's PAD Challenge: Write a Complex poem.  Complex is a complex word that can refer to mental state, apartments, difficulty of a situation, and so many other complex situations.

Words are fickle, winsome things

With which to build our boasts of sand

Unless their guise is augmented

With upright action of the hand

The logic of the human heart

Is quick to defend and to blame

We ought to ponder carefully

These rudiments of hope and shame

How smooth these syllables ally

What credence fills their guild with voice

Yet, we do well to recognize

The silence thunders with our choice

© Janet Martin

Beyond the Sparkle of These Eyes...

Beyond the sparkle of these eyes

Beneath the dust-breathed veil of skin

Exists a soul that never dies

That God alone has woven in

Man cannot reach to purge from him

This mystery saved by Love’s grace

The soul is not a dust-formed limb

And only God beholds its face

Janet~

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.

 Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 

Matt. 10:28

The Great Beyond

  

Image Source

April PAD Challenge:For today’s prompt, write a beyond poem. The poem could be beyond human comprehension. It could be from the great beyond. It could be from beyond–another city, country, planet, solar system, dimension, etc. Don’t be afraid to go above and beyond with it.

This world is full of vengeance and hate
and all manner of evil
We reel 'neath the impact of its reach
And love seems the weaker vessel
But this gasp of mortality
Comes with an ultimatum
Beyond this lies eternity
In breadths we cannot fathom
And though we groan beneath the pain
Of hate and its un-reason
Love will not fail, but is the Way
To heaven's glorious kingdom

This life is but the stepping-stone
leading to hell or Heaven's throne
We ought to pay more earnest heed
to the Beyond where these stones lead.

Janet~

Where Streets are Stained With Blood...

 

We live where streets are stained with blood

And even where the grass is green

A soldier’s body paid for us

To breathe the air of freedom’s sheen

Look down, look down; behold your feet

One in the cradle, one the grave

Look up; look up, for only He

Is God and mighty yet to save

The gutters swell with evil’s flood

Where hatred, hurt and hunger wail

A brother spills his brother’s blood

It seems the gates of hell prevail

We stagger low beneath the grief

Of Ramah; here our children die

Before they breathe; their right to live

Decided by a 'mercy-lie'

The roar of guns deploys its noise

The river runs dark and blood-red

Daughter or son is everyone

And love will mourn her precious dead

For love, this universal thread

Will bind and heal hate’s wretched wounds

Look down, look down, there lies our dread

Look up, look up, His love abounds

We live where streets are stained with blood

And gutters surge with filth and fear

We live where our forefathers stood

To face the Foe; love brought us here

And hate can never slay the One

For God is Love; He will prevail

Look up; someday hate will be done

But Love will never, ever fail

© Janet Martin

  

When the Earth is A-wash...

 This was my view from the kitchen window while making supper last night. We kept our eye on that cloud but it dissipated shortly after I took this photo into this...

When the earth is a-wash with blue rivers of spring

And the yard is a splash of verdant rendering

When each ditch is a brook and each stem bronze with bud

When young lads find heaven in meadows of mud

Then our dreams burgeon and hope is renewed

For surely the winter’s last blast is subdued

When robins are saucy in breast-coats of rust

When nooks wooded, mossy stir our wanderlust

When the breeze is imbibed with blush-pink apple-bloom

And trees are like brides all be-decked for the groom

Then we feel the joy of our care-freer hours

As spring comes a-dancing with arms full of flowers

When dark-days of winter expand then grow pale

Twixt autumnal splendor and spring-time’s regale

When we drink the nectar of sunshine and rain

And join in the laughter of violet-fringed lane

When daffodil-radiance beams from umber sod   

Then we sing for Spring and the mercy of God

© Janet Martin

As Long as Long You Can...to Victoria

I will not ask too much from you,

But I must ask enough

 This is the duty kind and true

Of a mother’s love,

So I have one small wish, my dear

Time waits for no man

Then will you just stay twelve, my dear

As long, as long you can?

Your other sisters seemed to rush

The hours through a year

And soon the days when they were twelve

Dissolved, a bubble-sphere

So, if you could, my dearest dear

Elongate this brief span

And just stay twelve in spite of years

As long, as long you can

© Mom aka Janet~

12 year olds are SO carefree!

Lest Evil Wins...

 
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I'm listening to the news; the man-hunt in Boston

I don't want to write but...

If artists forsake canvases

Put down their brushes

If poets dissuade muses

And the sea that rushes

To be spilled on page

While evils rage

And man destroys

While hate employs

Its lethal grief

While disbelief

Rocks to the core

And our tears pour

For those who suffer

First-hand its horror

And as we contemplate

The repercussions of hate

We weep

For its ripples run deep

And yet, if we still brush and pen

Until the evil of evil men

Is over and done

Then, I fear, evil has won.

© Janet Martin

Oh the layers of grief…

Of those who love the one who commits heinous acts of violence and those who suffer because of it…

Mighty Fire

April PAD Challenge: For today’s prompt, write a burn poem. I actually wrote a poem titled “burn” earlier in this month’s challenge, so I’m going to have to think a little on this to avoid repeating what I’ve already written. However, burn can represent many things–from getting burned by a bad deal (or a friend) to feeling the burn when working out to physically burning from fires.

They burn with mocking ruthlessness
Somewhere inside my head
Those hasty words of selfishness
I never should have said

What mighty fire the the tongue ignites
How long the sad regret
Of brief and thoughtless moment-spite
I now cannot forget
  
Janet~

The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. James 3:6