Where Dark and Light Collide

PAD Challenge day 27: write a monster poem

You slink between whispers

And hide beneath pillows

Tireless fiend, you torment and impose

Ill-favored presence

Wherever the essence

Of faith-flicker falters; you flaunt grim unknowns

You mock and scorn

Where Hope, tear-stained and torn

Clutches a candle and kisses dark seas

Devious fraud

As your sickle, a god

Unto the wicked, draws faith to its knees

Skeletal carcass

Wherever the dark is

Here, in your glory you unleash your breath

Pitiless reaper

And merciless schemer

Gathering souls for a harvest of death

  

We could not chance

Morrow’s imminence

Save for One greater to comfort and cheer

In vain you lash

Seething where demons thrash

For Faith in God grounded is greater than fear

© Janet Martin

The Shortfall of Mortal Love

Love, I would give you everything I have to have and hold

And promise ‘we’ will be enough until I’m very old

The wanting for your touch I pray would never fill or wane

Nor would I suffer very much if love should cause my pain

Darling, the satisfaction of man-woman melded heart

Would be enough forever, but for Love’s intrinsic Part

And just to have you need me would be its immortal prize

Its thrill my hallelujah and its kiss my paradise

Sweetheart, when love lives long enough it is life’s greatest wealth

For it has stood the test of time in sickness and in health

And as I run my fingers over lines betraying youth

I covet years to learn and earn its covenanted truth

…yet oh, for all the beauty that love’s have and hold imparts

It cannot placate wholly the hunger of human hearts

Love, I would render everything I have, to thee entrust

But, there is no salvation in a love twixt dust to dust

© Janet Martin

Mercy's Monument

You can never leave

Though our eyes no longer touch

Where once we held the Prime of life

And Innocence and such

You may think time forgets

Because distance expands

From miles and hours into years

Of echo-stricken sands

Love holds while it lets go

Farewell is not despair

But mercy’s muted monument

Of love turned into prayer

© Janet Martin~

Living Water

PAD Challenge day 26; write a water poem

We weigh our will with wanting

And weep that we are cursed

With intransigent taunting

Of begging, bleeding thirst

We stuff our cheeks and plunder

 Earth's bread-crumb luxuries

While groaning as we wonder

What will this thirst appease?

Our pockets bulge with bondage

The well of transient bliss

Lures us, like eager children

To drink its emptiness

We clamor for sweet nectar

To quaff our guilt and greed

Is there nothing but water

To fill this mouth of need?

Will we, for all existence

Be damned to drink in vain?

The hollow of resistance

Our perpetual pain?

Hark; hope pours from Love’s fountain

Spoken to sinners first

Pure, precious words of Promise

To satisfy our thirst

‘I give you Living Water,

A Well-spring from within

And everyone who drinks from it

Will never thirst again’

© Janet Martin

Brewed Bliss

 PAD Challenge day 26: write a water poem

Water is wonderful

just as it is

But brew it through Brazilian beans

and you get

Bliss

© Janet Martin

Small and Mighty...

 PAD Challenge day 26: write a water poem

You didn’t say a word

As I spilled wrath’s disgrace

But the rebuke that roused my shame

Was written on your face

My foolhardy revolt

For all its brash veneer

Was silenced by the reprimand

Of one wee, bitty tear

© Janet Martin

All That We Have Is Today

Time is a treasure we cannot steal or borrow

And we do not know what will happen tomorrow

Ever the fortune that no one can tell

All that we have is Today; spend it well

Time is the patriarch of bygone years

No one can cage it; it just disappears

Ethereal Presence without form or face

Yet ever and always Today; gift of grace

Mute moment-merchant; no barterer he

Tick-tock allotment of favor; full, free

To beggar and baron alike will befall

Time’s equal portion, Today; that is all

Time is a breath-by-breath measure of grace

Who can foretell it or its steps retrace?

Century-boast yet its breadth none can say

All that we have of its thread is Today

© Janet Martin

Ah, Word...

Ah word, what worlds you wield

What wonder you impart

You spill your ink-fraught yield

From fathoms of the heart

Ah, word, we trace your trove

To hear the soundless sound

Of breakers crashing on a cove

Of shoes on holy ground

…of gondolas at dusk,

Or city-streets at noon

A word can spell the colors of

The azure eyes of June

Ah, word, you whisper where

The eye a thought descries

We read, deciphering with care

What word is Truth or lies

Ah, Word, we touch Thy page

Where God’s voice changeless, sure

Proves faultless still from age to age

Its promises secure

© Janet Martin

So much to read, so many opinions, much inspiration, beauty, ugliness…

Here, in God’s Word there is no deciphering between truth and lies.

Of Burden and Beacon

Here upon time’s season-fallow

We are called, not to employ

Moments for a moment’s measure

But for love’s eternal joy

Here upon thorn-thistle canvas

Ripe with dread and black with doom

We go forth; and pray Lord willing

Here and there a little bloom

Sorrow spills its solemn season

Laughter thrills our lips, ere strife

Bleeds its burden, still Love’s beacon

Breaks the dark of death with Life

Hope and heartache intermingle

This will ever be our fight

As the Love of God eternal

Lights our candle with His Light

Here upon Time’s season-vapor

We are called, not to despair

But to trust and praise our Maker

As we light hope’s wick with Prayer

© Janet Martin

Now Let Me Speak Frankly...

I'm shivering as I write this. A cold, raw wind screams outside my door and howls at every window...

PAD Challenge day 25: write a 'last straw' poem.

You keep wrapping your arms ‘round about me

Your sense of humor is wearing me thin

That five-o’clock shadow has lost its allure, love

Oh, how you vex me with your rebel-grin

Find for your pleasure another dance-partner

I hate glass slippers; their beauty is cold

As are your kisses; ah, how my mouth misses

Warm, willing whispers wild with green and gold

You strut your stuff in gray coat and galoshes

Bold and belligerent, cocksure and cool

I pity you, foreigner to flower-gardens

Sun-swaddled shorelines or drinks by a pool

Hey, one man army of churlish advances

Stumbling and screaming outside my front door

Take your battalion of stormy side-glances

You are not welcome here anymore

…yet, you keep wrapping your arms ‘round about me

Bent on rekindling some deadened delight

Dear, old man winter, now let me speak frankly

‘Our friendship is over, get out of my life’

© Janet Martin

There is Something 'bout a Morning...

 

There is something ‘bout a morning with fresh color on the air

Well, it fills my heart with wonder and my mouth with humble prayer

For the Keeper of Time’s hours in His pity for our state

Did not bar the earth from Heaven’s eye or fetter Mercy’s Gate

But with infinite compassion patience lavishes the sky

Dawn unfolds Love’s invitation from a Hand none dare deny

There is something ‘bout a morning that renews hope’s song within

See, His eye has not forsaken us in spite of our sin

And we are never called to suffer or to shoulder living’s load

Above that which we are able; morning-tide unveils the road

As the Keeper of Time’s hours lends a step-by-step embrace

And He never will forsake us; morning magnifies His grace

Yes, there’s something ‘bout a morning pouring through the thinning deep

That inspires us to journey on beneath its Giver’s keep

For Love did not seal against us that which we have failed to do

As His gracious arm defends us with a morning fresh and new

Thus we touch with sacred worship this pittance of Time and dust

Light replenishes the darkness, unknowns wait; in God we trust

© Janet Martin

 The LORD'S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him."…Lam.3:22-24