Everyone Needs to do their Part

 

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For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Everyone (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles could include: “Everyone Thinks I’m Crazy,” “Everyone Knows the World Is Round,” “Everyone Needs to Leave Me Alone,” or whatever it is that everyone is doing (or not doing).

We should not leave for others to do
What can be done by me and you
What a lovely world this world would be
If we all did our part willingly

If we all gave a little more
Instead of stiffly keeping score
If love was our motive freely unfurled
Oh, this would be a wonderful world

Everyone needs to do their part
We are the painters; love is the art
If each of us would do our best
This world would laugh with loveliness

Janet Martin

The Cast of Consonants and Vowels...

 

April PAD Challenge: For today’s prompt, write a casting poem. Casting can take on several meanings, including casting a spell, casting a line (such as in fishing), casting the actors in a play, and I suppose even the act of creating a cast.

How mute they seem
Unadorned, still
Caricatures
Of ink until
They are cajoled
Teased, twirled and then
What pictures fill
A poet's pen

Janet Martin

Giddy with Joy

How grand t’would be to taste again

That simple giddiness of joy

Beaming in anticipation

Like that of carefree girl or boy

How fair and perfect is the glee

Of childish laughter’s innocence

How I covet the purity

Of youth’s unclouded ambiance

The thrill of being young again

Fearless; dancing on dream’s ahoy

Brimming with buoyant rainbow bliss

Of childhood’s sweet, unblemished joy

© Janet Martin

Victoria was absolutely BRIMMING with anticipation this morning. Her class is surprising a student teacher with a farewell party on her last day.

Our Haste or Hour-haste

Come, said the green meadow, all giddy with gold, 

Wage feeds the body but I feed the soul.

Ah, emerald rush beneath the sky

Coaxing, inviting us to lie

Beneath the sweep of aural blue

But we have too much work to do

The pattern of an hour’s haste

Forbids us to be still and taste

Ambrosia of rain-washed breeze

Or spring’s sun-swaddled fantasies

The blue hills taunt from skyline shores

The green field beckons and implores

That we should come, wander awhile

Where gentler things of living smile

Ah, emerald rush of spring’s glad green

Here Mother Nature is a queen

Inviting pilgrim’s, one and all

To feast in her grand banquet hall

We ought to heed her pleasant plea

Climb to her lap of luxury

We ought to take the time to kneel

Beneath the grace of Bezaleel

The head, though it may be so smart

Should heed the whisper of the heart

How pitiful to sadly waste

A lifetime, bound by hour-haste

© Janet Martin

The Way of a Poem

 

…that’s just the way it is

The bending of a wayward breeze

Tugging at spring’s first emptiness

Or where the rains beat down all day

Tonight, a sudden quietness

…and somewhere there within the air

An earnest, umbral undertone

Murmurs against the solitude

Unwilling to be left alone

It dangles, spirals, somersaults

And even when I close my eyes

It reaches deep within the heart

Pulling its strings with tender sighs

Until I follow hungrily

To place my thought within its will

Where it hovers perplexingly

One breath beyond my readied quill

Then, as I turn to walk away

Words spill, like school-children at three

Pushing, rushing, a fevered fray

Of passion and timidity

All in a hurry to get home

You silly, thrilling little Poem

© Janet Martin

...or that's the way it was just now...I turned to go to bed and this silly little thing insisted, 'write me!'

Hallelujah, Amen

Our Journey of Unknowns...a sonnet

The unknown murmurs on the burnished brink

Slipping its gossamer from east to west

We cannot know what shapes its ether-pink

Though to-do lists and duty may suggest

The Weaver of each moment intercedes

Cupping His gracious will beneath our own

We spout our wants while He supplies our needs

Melding in moment-thread, unknown to known

And while the shaft of new day rends the deeps

And skylines re-appear, a circle-scope

Of east, south, west and north; His visage keeps

Vast eons anchored in His steadfast hope

We place our fears within His faithful hand

Trusting the God of sky and sea and land

Gladness, sadness, flow'r and shower merge

The darlings of His never-changing grace

Embark on tides of morning’s mercy-surge

Ignorant of the breadth of His embrace

For we will not escape His tender gaze

The sky, the land and sea are but the shell

Where shadows of His potent wonder splays

In whispered fringes of Heaven and hell

And though the unknown spreads its light-less veil

Across our tarnished visage; Faithful God

Releases this day’s moments from Love’s grail

His fount of Goodness nurtures soul and sod

We stuff out mouths; Hunger is not destroyed

The infant and the aged bear its void

The earth is lathered green in Spring’s caress

Before the sheen of winter binds its girth

Last year's unknowns are known; grief, happiness

Unfold and fold again, four-season's worth

Before another year falls to the crypt

Where Time; the fulcrum twixt unknown and known

Establishes in present; yet has slipped

The filament of centuries to stone

We bow beneath the Hand of Eden’s seal

The constellations also bow to Him

For none transcends the One who moves Time's wheel

The God of ages cups our wish and whim

Where known and unknown subsist, juxtaposed

The rose exists within the bud, still closed

© Janet Martin

Like Phantom Poetry

Tonight the darkness rolls across the day

A wave of cobalt over dismal gray

The twilight keens with tardy April snow

A memory of someone long ago

And from the deep like phantom poetry

Almost I touch its soulful melody

Up, up, into the frosty moonless dark

The echo drifts, love-song upon a spark

And soon its ballad fades into the air

Where April runs its fingers through my hair

And midnight folds the hour to its embrace

Expanding history’s ethereal space

How large the night of moonless minuet

Strange and remote, the ghostly silhouette

Of ravaged pine, where winter’s tireless gale

Returns in confused, mumbled madrigal

And naked willows weep, hungering for

Night-song to sweep the silver garden-floor

Tonight the quietude of April snow

Muffles the tread of stragglers as they go

Searching, as I for that elusive star

Where past resides and summer wishes are

And from the deep like phantom poetry

Almost, almost I feel you close to me

J~