Sometimes Paper...

Sometimes paper

Is the kindest of strangers

Easy to talk to

No judgment, no guile

Patient companion

It never stops listening

Here we can pour our

Our tear and our smile

Sometimes paper

Is thought’s finest option

Sirens of schedule and

Living are loud

Whisper of wishes

And heart-held ambitions

Seems to be drowned in

Life’s everyday crowd

I’ve heard the heartbeat

Of midnight and strangers

Ink-spilled confession

And penned poetry

Sometimes the silence

Of thought-rendered ocean

Helps us relinquish

What never can be

Sometimes paper

Is thought's sacred soulmate

Patient confidant,

Listening long

I've felt the rush

Of  farewell fill its pages

Only to feel you

Back where you belong...

© Janet~

Life...

You ask questions for which I have no answers

You whisper wishes too wondrous to bear

Darling, the window of past does not open

It is enough to feel you out there, somewhere

We cannot rearrange moment or memories

Somehow the summertime slipped into snow

Darling, desire and duty-persuasion

Battle on half-breaths of love’s letting go

© Janet Martin

Today's Song

 (Matt laughs at me as I pause in the middle of things to quickly type before I forget) Today it was this song that did it:)

Love bleeds and pleads and longs and needs

There’s not one living soul

Who can become permanently

Another being’s Whole

Want taunts and flaunts in endless vaunts

Weaving a grieving mesh

Evoking, stoking discontent

In ineptness of flesh

Words cleave and weave a hollow hurt

When uttered by mere lips

The heart hungers for more than noise

In fumbling fingertips

Oh, I have bled the broken brogue

Of lonely bittersweet

Like flower-petals ‘neath the snow

Or font of flip-flop feet

Penned poetry is naught but thought

Vexatious twist of mist

We brave life’s wave for what we crave

To be loved once and kissed

...ah, to be loved just once and kissed
It is enough, my sweet
To be caught in the twist of mist
Where love and longing meet

© Janet Martin

Somewhat Like Morning...

 The landscape sprawls like a blank page, waiting for thought to spill its ink...

I sit and stare

This page is bare

Waiting for ink-curls

Shaped in word

Then word relays

Its gold and grays

As touch unfurls

Where heart is stirred

And hidden thought

Curves to the jot

Of trembling

Vulnerability

Whilst others read

What fingers bleed

Of want and need

In poetry

I’ve touched within

Time’s half-breath grin

The ‘almost’’ of

Discounted dreams

The have and hold

Of moment-gold

Is but a penny

In life-streams

This restless quill

Can never fill

Thought’s hungering

Mortality

Yet, ‘was’ and ‘is’

And hope’s kind kiss

Bleeds broken bliss

To poetry

I cannot stare

Too long; the air

Devours hours

Shamelessly

This barren page

Extends its stage

Soon touch will spill
In memory

Time's self-same star

Gleams where you are

And shines its little

Light on me 

I sense your lips

And fingertips

As ink-thought drips

In poetry

© Janet Martin

Of Moment-gold

 Just think! beneath the snow a whole garden is growing restless!

We dare not mourn though time has torn

Another page from future-sheaf

Where swift we spent the hour it lent

Before it lay to rest its leaf

Yester’s quixotic fantasy

Has etched its little legacy

We dare not weep; from morrow’s deep

We reach to thread our half-spun dream

Not with the past but what yet wafts

To tease the tempest with its ream

A sweet and silent canticle

Unfurls its moment-miracle

We dare not pine for soon the vine

That spilled its swarthy summer bloom

Will warmly wake; its bud will break

Then spill its seed back to earth's tomb

As all the while soft through our hold

We touch the wealth of moment-gold

© Janet Martin

But We Can't Get There...

On Winter Street, seems time has frozen

Ribbon o’ rain-song lost in snow

Tomorrow’s out o’ reach, my darlin’

Yesterday, too long ago

Paradigms of love and longin’

Chase their moments out to sea

Noon-dusk-midnight follows mornin’

The ocean has no memory

Ah, pinin’ is a futile passion

Present-tense our single ploy

We can’t get there from here, darlin’

…can’t return to borrow joy

Oh, I know Time’s no traitor

Nor its purposes made plain

But darlin’,  too long this winter

Steals the song of summer-rain

…’an all I’m askin’ for is something

Softer than the steel-blue clutch

And the raging of a tempest

Caging Time within its touch

…on Winter Street, seems Time has frozen

An’ though I know there’s no such thing

Darlin’, I’m pining for a season

Where the rain-song’s whisperin’

© Janet Martin

Thursday Thoughts

Just as muscles

Scream and groan

As they are strengthened

So it is with

Faith

***

‘Let your loins be girded and your lamp burning’

For this could be the day of our Lord’s returning

***

In dungeons of failure

I dare not dwell

For here is the hideout

For demons of hell

***

Learn from mistakes

Then forgive and forget

‘Tis mental suicide

To live in regret

***

Who are ‘the faithful and the wise’?

‘Tis hard to judge with human eyes

***

‘A servant is not greater than his lord’

Verily, we all will receive our just reward

***

Lift up your drooping gaze, my love
and wipe away your tears
On yonder brink of breaking day
an unmarred page appears

***

When we sink to our knees, boast-broken and weak
At last we are ready to hear the Lord speak

***

Pragmatic, compliant, flippant, pious, proud
Someday every knee and head will be bowed
We would do well to take earnest heed
to That Destiny where life's highway will lead

***

A cup of coffee in my hand
makes every mundane moment grand

***

To a poet
or a heart in love
there are no
mundane moments

***

...and they ask me what am I doing today
I smile a little and casually say,
'I'm dusting and scrubbing and doing laundry.
...how does one reply, er, um, poetry?'

***

(Jim's mom just called and asked what I'm up to;) She called to tell me his uncle passed away.)

...now he has laid life's burden down
No tear will dim his eye, no night
His cross exchanged for heaven's crown
As faith becomes eternal sight

On that note...have a wonderful Thursday and KEEP WARM! (I'm off to dust and scrub and, er...do laundry;)

Janet~

Of Forecasts and Fair Maidens

The weather man just forecasted that...

‘Early sun will yield to cloud’

I wonder, does she willingly

Surrender to the morbid shroud

That snuffs the sparkle from the sea

And plucks the coral from the sweep

Of drifted winter icy-deep

Morning’s maiden youthful, gold

Must put her bright day-dress away

Does she rebel as she is told

To wear instead a robe of gray?

Is she demure or does she wail

Behind a melancholy veil

‘Early sun will yield to cloud’

Though now she spills in merry mirth

And holds her head up high and proud

As golden glory gilds the earth

Before her somber peers accrue

To hide away her gold and blue

© Janet Martin