Worth its While (a simple little poem about a simple little poem)

This poem, modest at its best

Will never win a prize

But it is just a small hello

In a world full of good-byes

This verse is just a little hug

Across the miles and years

To touch you where you are, my love

And kiss away your tears

This poem is a sort of thanks

A kindly wish, a prayer

In case this is my final chance

To let you know I care

And if perhaps it fills your heart

With sunshine of a smile

Then this poem has done its part

To make it worth its while

© Janet Martin

From a Middle-aged Poet to Those Testing Deep Word-Waters

I am too old to be fooled by your lies

Though you dressed them in the best disguise

Of words that slip smooth from the tongue

And would have seduced me when I was young

I am too old to be caught off-guard

By the flattery of a wanna-be Bard

Where unchaste word-play is no longer enough

To convince me of matters as serious as Love

I am too old to unlearn well-set traits

I don't have the energy for scholastic debates

Forgive me if I seem antiquated because I rhyme

It is all too true, you can blame Father Time

I am too old to be bothered by years

Or the threat of youth as it disappears

I am not in your debt for an apology

If I am not impressed by your undressed vanity

I am too old to shrug off your mistakes

And I’ll always love you, no matter what it takes

Because someday you’ll look back (if my prayers come true)

To feel like a mother to poets like you

© Janet Martin

In Defense of Poets...

The winds of change cannot persuade

The poet to give up her trade

Nor can progress replace the charge

Of unwrit poems still at large

The noisy world of buy and sell

Can never satisfy or quell

The surge that sweeps the deeps that bend

With poems waiting to be penned

How quiet the silence would be

Without whispers of poetry

To test and tease with quest and yen

The mysteries inside a pen

© Janet Martin

Ageless, Timeless...Poetry

 Happy Birthday, Lucy Maud Montgomery

(a kindred spirit)

A highlight on our east-trip this fall 

was visiting the birthplace of one of my all-time favourite authors!

Ageless, the angst of ink and pen

Where poem-painters thirst

Feeling betimes most blessed ‘mongst men

And bitter-sweetly cursed

Timeless, the taunt of airborne font

That tries the heart of thought

And wages wars where word and want

Must meld in metered jot

Ageless, an hour’s arabesque

Luring the poet where

Each flower is a writing desk

And every leaf a chair

Timeless, the love of poetry

And wonder's appetite

Where pray God, there will always be

A poem left to write

© Janet Martin

my 'keepsake' from her house...

One More Morning...

PAD Challenge day 30! Oh my, time flies when we're having poem-fun. 

Can't believe another Chapbook challenge is done!

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “One More (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 include: “One More Time,” “One More Night,” or “One More Piece of Chocolate.” 

I hope you have one more poem in you.

More than thin air unraveled to the touch of you and I

More than the strumming of the wind in leafless lullaby

More than another prelude to dusk’s shadow-showdown-sod

Unfolds the morn like one more lovely love-letter from God

More than soft mist that wafts above the onset of new day

More than untasted wonder waiting for our hip-hooray

More than a place to scavenge in the search for happiness

Unfolds the fabric of far more than one more morning less

More than the means to getting older than we were before

More than fodder to feed the hunger of the troubadour

More than the span of hope hinged to man’s utter want and need

Unfolds from mercy’s matrix more than morning’s common creed

More than man’s beg-and-borrow, work-to-earn-our-buttered-bread

More than the day before tomorrow’s sun-and-sorrow thread

More than a pan to fry the fish of fancy’s wanderlust

Unfolds the freeway of far more than one more morning’s Must

Ah, this is more than one more morning filling up the sky

We ought to take fair warning for the night is drawing nigh

Where we ought not to waste the jewel in dawn’s treasure-trove

Of one more day of grace to tell the good news of God’s love

© Janet Martin

 But I will sing of your strength, 

in the morning I will sing of your love; 

for you are my fortress, 

my refuge in times of trouble.

Psalm 59:16

Show and Tell...

Tell them with words and show

Them with touch...

That you love 

them, oh

So very

Much

Don't be afraid to say

What's in your heart

Who knows, today

we may be 

called to

 part

So tell them with words and show

them with touch

That you love

them oh

So very,

very

much

Janet Martin