A Sea-glitter Critter (aka Poem)

 PAD Challenge day 18: Write a sea-creature poem

She trolls the hour’s gleaming sweep 

This is the poet’s charge 

To wrestle from the teeming deep 

A ‘creature’ still at large 

The sea of sound and syllable 

Runs rife with life untamed 

Often, she is incapable 

Of snaring the unnamed 

But now and then the reel of pen 

Captures a flash of thought 

And grapples from an ink-ocean 

That which before, was not 

Some verse swims near the surface, some

Dredged by a gritty lure

But all, if captured will become

A Poem, sure as sure 

© Janet Martin 

Confession is Good For the Goal

 PAD Challenge day 19; write a confession poem

Oh look! He fills dawn's gleaming stair

with Mercy's 'try again'

I am not always meek and kind 

I sure wish I would be 

I hate the shells I’ve strewed behind 

In verbal mutiny 

I am not yet a model of 

Wisdom’s perfected clay 

I am still a student of love 

Learning what not to say 

The tongue is not like ink and page 

A mouth cannot back-space 

A word, when it has fled the cage 

No technique can erase 

One would think after all these years 

Of practice I would know 

What not to say, but oh, my dears 

I fear it isn’t so 

God, rich in kindness hears my prayer 

He makes forgiveness plain 

For look, He fills dawn’s gleaming stair

With mercy’s ‘try again’ 

Thus, I press t'ward the Goal once more

And ask God to renew

His watch to guard the Sacred Door

That all my words pass through

© Janet Martin

Psalm 141:3

Set a guard over my mouth, LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips.

James 1:26
If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, 

he deceives his heart and his religion is worthless.

Proverbs 13:3
He who guards his mouth protects his life, 

but the one who opens his lips invites his own ruin.

Psalm 34:13
Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceitful speech.

Proverbs 21:23
He who guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from distress.

Psalm 19:14

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart 

be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Well! I wrote this post

then turned to read today's Daily Bread Devotion...

(a very-worth-one's-while-read)

This: Eph.4:29-32

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, 

but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, 

that it may benefit those who listen.  And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, 

with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 

 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, 

brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 

 Be kind and compassionate to one another, 

forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Thank-you Lord!

Poem-Target

PAD Challenge day 20;For today’s prompt, write a target poem.  

I hope it is an ocean's roar...

When I pull back the bowstring to 

Release love’s poem-dart 

My eye is firmly fixed on you 

My target is your heart 

Though miles may separate, dear friend 

We are not far apart 

If ink can find a way to wend 

My whisper through your heart 

A poem is always far more 

Than first glance may impart 

I hope it is an ocean’s roar 

That rushes through your heart 

I hope it is a smile, a kiss 

A little wish come true 

Because in every poem is 

Part of my heart for you 

I want, when ink has set its seal 

More than iambic art 

I want its font to touch, nay, steal 

A small piece of your heart 

© Janet Martin

We Are All a Little Candle

 

We are all a little like a candlestick 

Potential, dark and brittle until someone lights the wick 

No matter how pretty or polished, the taper or jar 

We are just a knick-knack till we shine right where we are 

God instilled in everyone a little candlestick 

Oh, won’t you hold it up to Him and let Him light the wick? 

Then whether it’s a song, a smile, a bit of poetry 

We can brighten someone’s mile by shining cheerfully 

© Janet Martin

Go Light Your World

Choosing the Whether (for whatever waits to be)

 

Stunning start to what waits to be...

How easily and often we check the weather forecast, 

No one can choose what weather will be.

Thankfully not so with Whether;

And the Whether we choose makes all the difference in the world.

Our viewpoint is shaped by the 'whether' we choose!

Due to an unexpected week off I am on a closet-drawer-room fall-cleaning rampage!

Today, hopefully the living/dining-room.

tomorrow...um, let's wait till then to decide because plans

are always subject to change and rearrangement!

Heaven spills magenta oceans o’er emerging land and sea 

Dawn is like a door flung open to whatever waits to be 

We could hound the bounds of morrow with sorrows not suffered (yet) 

Or borrow from Present Mercy, faith to proceed step by step 

Fear is like a crouched predator too afraid to show its face 

Stalking doubt’s perimeter with harsh predictions void of grace 

Ah, we could fall prey to Dread’s bandit; fretting and forgetting He 

Who will never leave us stranded no matter what waits to be 

We are all today’s First-timers grappling with Time’s Now and Here 

Are we agile, faith-child climbers, or are we crippled by fear 

We are all in this together; tethered to the hand we’ve got 

Where God lets us choose the Whether; whether we trust Him, or not 

Happiness is not a lender favouring a Lucky Few 

It waits for all who surrender, heart and soul, to you know Who 

It is up to us to do it; take faith’s flying leap to see 

Whether God will help us through It, no matter what waits to be 

© Janet Martin 

"Be strong and courageous, 

do not fear or be dismayed because of the king of Assyria 

nor because of all the horde that is with him; 

for the one with us is greater than the one with him.

2 Chron.32:7

What The Lord Has Done In Me

I Wouldn't Trust a Pen (If I Were You)

Expectation is the creation

Of imagination; often felled

Before the very eyes that prized

The picture that they held

***

Sometimes, due to lack of practice 

Our small sacrifices seem large 

-er than they really are

We don't admit how slack our track-record is 

Until circumstance raises the bar

***

Sometimes hearts are arks of safety

We store in them fragments of yore

(sometimes hearts break; they do mend 

But never quite 

back 

To the way they were 

Before) 

***

Pens keep secrets 

But oh, they spill them too 

I wouldn’t trust a pen 

If I were you 

***

Life is give-and-take 

It makes plain the hidden man 

By how we give 

And what we take 

***

If love is

Patient and kind 

Maybe that is why 

True love is 

So hard to find 

***

Night ink is bolder 

Than the ink of day 

It spells things that morning

Never quite knows 

How to say

*** 

Loss is more than havoc 

Wreaked on comfort zones 

Some takes its time 

Like the surging sea 

Washing away stone 

***

Swift words are often hurtful 

If we want to be wise 

We should take a moment 

And cut them down to size 

© Janet Martin 

Unrelenting Blending, Wending...

 

yesterday's snow-squalls have tucked today beneath a thin white sheet

Unrelenting blending, winding 

Binding what was new to old 

Finding, where dusk drew yon awning 

New day dawning, gray or gold 

Blushing, rushing phantom river 

Coursing through a flue of dreams 

Forcing future to the suture 

Of Bygone’s unyielding seams 

Over, under, woe and wonder 

Easing seasons to thin air 

Teasing reason’s raging hunger 

With un-plundered thoroughfare 

Urging to emerging, surging 

Streams rife with life’s latest Must 

Dreams still pending, wending, mending 

Maybes with rekindled trust 

…where we stand on sands of gloaming 

Washed by foaming Bittersweet 

Crashed by waves that heave then vanish 

Over graves and under feet 

Reaching, teaching, students learning 

Caught in yearning’s undertow 

Not to grip the drip too tightly 

But hold lightly then let go 

Lest midst hug-and-tug-sparked duels 

Fueling fixed aftermath 

You or I miss God’s kiss-jewels 

Strewing Today's Very Path 

© Janet Martin 

Today's To-do list for the household of faith...

2 Cor.16:13-14

 Be on your guard; 

stand firm in the faith; 

be courageous; 

be strong.

 Do everything in love.

Still Thankful Hearts

 

 

The above photo is from this morning's devotional from Ann.

and helped inspire this morning's poem

along with all the clashing notes of learning to get along!

Lord, when the chords of living clash and all the notes seem out of place

When harmonies are harsh because of human nature’s lack of grace 

Wake within us a hymn of praise for all the ways that you are good 

And teach us to number our days with holy, humble gratitude 

Lord, when the music-sheet is torn and we are weary-worn and weak 

Help us to recognize new morn as Mercy’s kiss upon our cheek 

And help us speak words true and kind, keeping in mind the Thing they make 

Where today is soon left behind save for the echoes in its wake 

Lord, we are all broken and bent in one way or another, oh 

Still let us be an instrument of love and grace whereby we go 

Where what we know (not what we feel) will help us through the harder parts 

As hope and heartache clash and peal and wound and heal still thankful hearts 

© Janet Martin 

in everything give thanks; 

for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 Thess.5:18