Way To Go

 Happy Nov. 1st!

This means Writer's Digest PAD (poem-a-day) challenge is here!

 

For today’s prompt, we’ve actually got a two-for-Tuesday prompt. So pick one, combine both prompts into one poem, or write two (or more) different poems. Here are the prompts:

• Write a stay poem. A poem about staying put, not leaving, and/or dealing with someone (or something) that refuses to leave. Or…
• Write a go poem. Fans of The Clash probably know which song prompted today’s prompt. But yeah, this is basically the opposite of staying–you know, going.

Stay, go

Ebb, flow

Yes, oh,

Perhaps…no

Dark, light

Wrong, right

May, might

Beg, fight

Tip, spill

Empty, fill

Hollow, hill

Heat, chill

Shoes, socks

News, clocks

Keys, locks

Trees, rocks

Stand, sit

Rest a bit

But don’t quit

Just do it

Bloom, fade

Broom, spade

 Bought, made

Hoard, trade 

Sing, dance

Bring aunts

Romance...

Take a chance 

Dirty, clean

Flirty, mean

Pretty, preen

Seventeen

Do, don't

Will, won't

Should, shan't

Could, can't

Love, hate

Settle, debate

Hurry, wait

Early, late 

Drive, walk

Be quiet, talk

Compliant, balk

Book, dock

 

Dream-dust

Wanderlust

May, must

Pray-trust

Splish-splash

Coast, crash 

Pause, dash

Keep, trash

Nope, tried

Cope, glide

Hope, hide

Steamed, fried

Take, leave

Braid, weave

Break, grieve

Wake, heave

Fast, slow

High, low

Stay, no

I must go

Crawl, fly,

Laugh, cry

Shout, sigh

Live, die

 

© Janet Martin

The American Dream...(a week before the election)

 the above is a sermon preached by Peter Marshall   
Click on the images to enlarge.
I realize this is a bit of a read but even a page or two leaves much for the reader to ponder.
 It seems this message is even more relevant now than then!
and not only for Americans.
This applies to all of us who enjoy freedom!
In a week is the American Election...
then a few days later Remembrance Day.

War,
like blood-stained thunder roared
and strew death in its hellish wake
where buttercups and daisies nod
in innocence on
unmarked graves
as generations foreign to
the horrors
forefathers endured
loaf on street-corners
mindless of
the freedom
sacrifice secured
while clink of coffee cups, laughter,
spills to the bustling boulevard
that once ran red
where lost life bled
to build a dream
and it was hard
We ought to hold its
banner high
Freedom,
bought not with hate,
but love
and with the cost
of much life lost
...we NEVER want
to lose sight of

...or have we?!

Janet Martin

Last-Day-Of-October Postcard

Morning

Afternoon

 Dusk...

Nature’s mantle is frayed; its tatters splayed beneath our feet

Autumn’s auburn-tinged guerdon drains the garden of its lark

Where stomping grounds of summer sleep, like a deserted street

And earth is like a courtyard or market-place after dark

When all the shops are closed but still the scent of Living wafts

Pungent, the dust soft-settled and the noise of barter stilled

Its fruit thereof is garnered into root-cellars and lofts

As Autumn cloaks the air with ambience of quest fulfilled

While we, the workers linger, roving skylines with our eyes

A-wonder at the deftness of time’s Ferris-wheel-like flight

It thickens limbs with bud then leaf, then leaf-by-leaf demise

Surprising us anew by its voracious appetite

And like a dirge, the winds converge and moan outside the door

The brittle aftermath of summer scuttles ‘cross the yard

Where nature’s harp is laid; futile to plead for an encore

Earth is a masterpiece; last-day-of-October postcard

© Janet Martin

While Winds Cajole and Seasons Flow...

It was a point-and-shoot-instant-masterpiece morning!

Holy, the toll

That strips the soul

While winds cajole and seasons flow

While softly sweeps

Fall's leaf-strewn deeps

Out to yon skyline rife with snow

Still, still the will

Of winter’s chill

Seeps into Time’s consonant stride

A seamless guile

Of nod and smile

And dozing by the fireside

Hush, hush the rush

Of dry leaf shush

-ing earth, encumbered with ado

While breath by breath

Each daily death

Abbreviates Time’s avenue

Tick-tock, tick-tock

The sky-wide clock

Chimes blush, then blue, now warm, then cold

And we forget

The Awesome Yet

Hinged to its pendulum of gold

With holy toll

It strips the Whole

Until, until all that remains

Of skin and bone

And grin and groan

Is the Unseen that breath constrains

© Janet Martin

'God of the seasons and sky,

You have always been holding my life' (from above song)

Our Very Death Depends On It

The Choice we make

And what’s at stake

Can steal one’s very breath away

This course we climb

On shores called Time

Leads to a deadline none can sway

Holy, the toll

Where seasons roll

Toward a Goal of soul and God

This day of grace

To human race

Is more than trifling traipse on sod

Consider this:

When what now is

Comes to the very end of it

Where will we be

Eternally?

Our very death depends on it

Thus Who we choose

Or else refuse

From He whose Son died, souls to save

Becomes the Door

To Evermore

Heaven or hell waits in each grave

© Janet Martin

 Anyone whose name was not found written 

in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

 Rev. 20:15

Please, please, (I beg you unashamedly)

if you are uncertain of where you are going after you die, 

or how to get to where you want to go when you die, listen to this message: 

your very death may depend on it!

More messages here

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: 

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Rom.5:8

Poems like this are not written
because they are 'fun'
but because everyone
will meet
with The Choice we lay
before Jesus' feet

Excerpts from the Book A Man Called Peter

If you want to read the rest of it I strongly encourage buying the book available on Amazon.

Temporary

Because this is temporary

Each season comes to pass

And we are all but sojourners

On Time’s glimmer of grass

Where want and wish and waiting

Are part of me and you

Because this is not our destiny

But just the passing to

© Janet Martin