The One Thing No One Can Do...

For today’s prompt, we’re once again doing 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 love poem.
• Write an anti-love poem. 

 

The one thing that no one can do

In spite of best intentions

Where modern-day tries to outdo

The old with new inventions

...where all our new-improved doodads

And all our forward thinking

And all our self-bettering fads

That change while we are blinking

Cannot, for all the google-sites

And endless information

And formulas and gigabytes

And scientific-ation

…for all that we have come to prove

One thing evades our merit

No one can force a heart to love

Ah, who of us can bear it?

© Janet Martin

I Want To Know What You Want For Christmas!

Today's PAD challenge:  For today’s prompt, take the phrase “I Want (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then write the poem

They don’t sell the thing you tell me

“Anything is fine”

If you could make up your mind, love

I could make up mine

“Last year was the best”, you tell me

Not having a clue was neat

“Anything is fine…but make sure

You hang on to the receipt”

© Janet Martin

...well, she didn't tell me to hang on to the receipt but I have learned its a wise thing to do...just in case:)

Human Race...

The race is on; the finish line

Is a place no one can define

Yet all of us, foolish and wise

Are pressing on toward its Prize

The race is on; not all will win

Or hear that wondrous ‘enter in’

Only those who believe receive

The Prize that waits; let none deceive

Then let us try, earnest and wise

To run as one who seeks the Prize

So when the finish line is plain

We did not run life’s race in vain

© Janet Martin

Brusque November Dusk (a twist to the previous poem:)

 It is dark, rainy, cold. The perfect night for a bit of word-play:)

 This is the previous poem with a mood-swing...

Plowed fields like still-life oceans lie

Beneath blue bluffs of frozen sky

Transfixed, the ridge, with rigid trees

Shoulders the ranks of centuries

Their forms sketched, shamelessly and stark

Against the brush of early dark

The wind wanders; wonders alone

Where have the minstrels of dusk gone?

No lilt of leaf to tease the air

And please the straggler pausing where

The song of billabong and seas

Would softly sweep through sleepy trees

November’s brogue is roguish, bold

It moans at doors closed to the cold

West’s embers cannot keep their spark

Day disappears into the dark

Save for gold rectangular shapes

Dotting black worlds with window-scapes

Somewhere the laughter of a child

Is summer kissed and morning wild

But here day’s end folds like a fist

Into November’s morgue of mist

Twilight, a lonesome land bereft

Like a ghost-town with no one left

© Janet Martin

Splendor-tender November Goodnight

Victoria and I share a deep love for November. 

We are always a little sad to see it go...

Two more days to dance to its moody blues!

 Tonight is thick with the sound of silence...

Sere fields, like still-life banners lie

Hinged to low bars of steely sky

Bare trees, like transfixed sentinels

Stand motionless on hills, in dells

The beds of earth are stark and brown

Waiting for spreads of eiderdown

The wind broods, hollow and forlorn

The woods are dark and shadow-torn

Where lilt of leaf has lost its vim

And lies beneath the tuneless limb

Late day splays solemn like a dirge

As afternoon and twilight merge

The plush rush on dusk’s avenue

 Is veiled in velvet navy blue

As skyline embers guide spent souls

Toward sweet, tender homespun goals

Of bread to break and tea to pour

Of laughter-gentled dinner-hour

Somewhere the air is full of gold

As morning breaks night’s aerial hold

But here the hand of eventide

Gathers November’s countryside

In shrouds of plush deep, purple-blue

As this Today is tucked from view

© Janet Martin

Some good tuck-the-day-away music by Celtic Thunder