Poem-Power

 Todays poem-a-day challenge is to write a power poem...

I would be remiss to ignore this; Poem Power💖

I bemoaned the fact the other day that I have more poem books

full of breath-taking poetry than I have life left to read them all,

(unless that was all I did) 

which would leave too many other beautiful loves unattended to💗💖💕

I'm reveling in Edith Holden's beautiful books these days...

A true treasure chest of art, prose and poetry!

Poem-power

It plants a pretty garden where a blank page used to be

A bit of unkempt ink can tango with a memory

And turn what would be nothing but a thought into an ache

That turns into a poem that turns into a keepsake

Its seeps through creases where other ink pieces do not fit

It turns a body inside out yet doesn’t show a bit

It sparkles like a diamond on the backdrop of a sigh

A patchwork quilt of afternoons that dangle from the sky

A poem moans like breakers on the shoreline of the heart

It gathers scattered shells and melds them into works of art

A wisp of you and I entwined through twist and tug of rhyme

Becomes a token that withstands unspoken tests of time

The power of a poem wields a wild and wondrous force

Of cheek to cheek slow-dancing, of love’s touchless intercourse

Where centuries and worlds apart still kindred spirits meet

To trace the fault-lines of a heart with kisses bittersweet

It sweeps soft as a feather across paper ballroom floors

A tender ink-stained tether woven by lost troubadours

Who set the stage for we who race to chase through far-flung gates

A lure tossed into pure unsullied deeps of what yet waits

A poem-memento is unlike any other prize

It scales the heights of passion for the freefall of goodbyes

It flirts with hurt if but to taste the salty sting of years

In wounds beneath the skin that Poem washes with its tears

© Janet Martin

a few more poem treasure-trunks

This Is Love's Power and Glory

Todays poem-a-day challenge is to write a power poem...

To the Christian the power of God;

 His Word that in the beginning created the heavens and the earth,

His love that brought salvation to the world,

His Son who suffered our sin's penalty,

 are first thoughts that come to mind when hearing the word 'power'!

Rom.1:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, 

because it is the power of God 

that brings salvation to everyone who believes: 

first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

There is Power in the Blood-Alan Jackson

The Power of the Cross-Keith and Kristyn Getty

Death could not subjugate Life Everlasting

Hatred could never be greater than love

The empty cross was hope’s graphic forecasting

Christ shed the grave like a linen glove

‘"Tetelestai!" "It is finished!" Love’s story

Nothing can thwart; the tomb’s stone could not stay

‘Thine is the kingdom, the power and glory

Forever.' Nothing can take it away

No one can nullify the sinner’s pardon

No one the King of kings can overthrow

After the battle of wills in The Garden

Christ, through submission vanquished hope’s dark foe

Redemption’s scarlet flood flows through the ages

Nothing can abrogate Atonement’s Gift

Though scorn is violent and hate, tenacious

Hope is an anchor that nothing can shift

Though wars unfold horrors, brutal and gory

These are the fulfilling of prophecy

Before the King of Kings appears in glory

To dispel evil in a fiery sea

Death, is the shadow that each breath is casting

Death, though it seems to have the final word

To those whose hope is in Life Everlasting

Know God’s love and justice is undeterred

Love’s hands, through which hatred’s daggers were driven

Love’s brow thorn-torn; Love’s body crucified

Love’s blood, the flood whereby sins are forgiven

This is the love that stripped death of its pride

This is love’s power and glory we honour

Name above all names, Love, mighty to save

This is the power above any other

This is the glory that shatters the grave

Death cannot subjugate Life Everlasting

Hatred will never be greater than love

The empty cross is hope’s symbol, forecasting

Graves that will be shed like a linen glove

© Janet Martin

Road to Glory...

'For me, my identity isn't a golf score'

"God made me good at golf and

I want to glorify him with this gift"

Scottie Scheffler

“God is in control and the Lord is leading me, 

and if today is my time, then it’s my time, 

and if I shot 82 today, somehow I was going to use it for His glory."

Scottie Scheffler-Masters winner 2022

a few favorite moments...(proud wife)

...and caddy

savoring the sweetness of the moment 

and the support of many fans and family

In the writer's digest poem-a-day challenge

Yesterday's Prompt was write a taste poem

Today's prompt, is write a power poem.

This poem could be entitled 

The Power of Perseverance or

The Sweet Taste of Success

This poem could be about a private, personal challenge or

The fight to faith's finish-line!

So I settled on the title 

Road to Glory

Because the glorious sweetness of success's trophy always casts a shadow;

the bitter cup of dreams dashed (for now)

Cameron Smith acknowledges appreciative applause from fans

after a disappointing finish...

This poem was written with him in mind as well

as well as all of us who

have tasted, in varying degrees, 

the bitter draught of disappointment!

The pleasing flavours/favours of success

Somehow become more sweet

When hope’s hurdles to happiness

Have been honed by defeat

Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose

Life’s course of ups and downs

Refines endurance with its dues

Of crosses before crowns

The hard knocks of ‘not yet’ beget

If we do not give up

After the challenge has been met

The sweetest victor’s cup

Defeat is not the finished fight

But just a stepping-stone

To test the mettle of the might

Of more than skin and bone

Sometimes what at first glance may seem

Like failure and regret

Is but the beauty of a dream

Not quite accomplished yet

Then keep the faith; this is the rite

Before we realize

Where what once seemed a bitter fight

Was sweetening the Prize

© Janet Martin

Shout out to Corey Connors (a former local)

 from proud Canadian fans!

Eric Liddell, when being reprimanded by his sister 

for neglecting his responsibilities before God 

as he devoted his focus toward competitive running, responded,

 “I believe that God made me for a purpose. 

But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure .”

In whatever form it takes

May we all 'run' to feel God's pleasure!

So someday we may exclaim triumphantly

2 Tim.4:7-8

I have fought a good fight,

I have finished my course, 

I have kept the faith:

 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 

which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day:

 and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

Until Nature's Silence Breaks...

April poem-a-day challenge day 9:

For today's prompt, write a breaking poem.

While we wait to go from this...

to this...

...and this!

Tulip, daisy, daffodil

Long before they bloom

Stoke anticipation’s thrill

As spring threads earth’s loom

Pansy, poppy, peony

Lupine, columbine

Lilac, orchard’s blossom tree

Wisteria vine

Woodlands wait; a silhouette

Somber purple-gray

Where the bud, not broken yet

Cradles spring’s hooray

Bronze, the bristled creekbank gleams

Like a vault that holds

Gush of blue flag-iris-streams

Plush marsh-marigolds

Expectation escalates

Hope ignites in sighs

Everybody crowds barred gates

Eager for earth’s prize

...until nature's silence breaks

And bud-belfies ring

Waiting tunes want's tender aches

With love songs for spring

While yon welkin coffers brim

With grim pelting pearls

While a wooing, wailing hymn

Dashes, drips and swirls

While a trusty glockenspiel

Winnows down the hours

Until Someone breaks the seal

And earth sings in flow’rs

© Janet Martin

Once Upon Youth I Tricked The Truth...

PAD Challenge day 8: For today's prompt, write a what they never tell you poem.

Echoes run deep

Wild oats aren't cheap

Beware of clocks that feast on rhyme

Youth's eloquence

A vain defense

Against the hands of Father Time

Reflections of

Spent live-learn-love

Can serve up quite a picture show

Sometimes the dark

Just needs a spark

To teach us things we didn't know

A book, a hill

A windowsill

Expands four-season points of view

No one can steal

The way I feel

After an afternoon with you 

Discovery 

Will always be

Life's bitterest, sweetest surprise

The greatest death

While we have breath

Is life, after love's laughter dies

...and, sure success 

To happiness

Will be impossible until

We realize

To our surprise

It is a selfless miracle

Once upon youth

I tricked the truth

Or so I airily supposed

Until I found

It safe and sound

Unfazed by ways it is exposed

I have been told

That growing old

Is not for the faint or the weak

But they left out

The part about

How soon I'd learn of what they speak

© Janet Martin

Abundance Masterpiece

Poem-a-day challenge day 7: For today's prompt, write an abundance poem

But do not weep, no one can keep

Night’s undoing at bay

Upon the east dawn spreads a feast

Abundant with Today...

A smile, a bird, a gentle word

Dear little girl or boy

A nature nook, a brimming brook

Rouses abundant joy

A cup of tea, a hug, a tree

Eager for spring’s seamstress

Wakens a woo that turns into

Abundant happiness

Dream-streets to roam, page for a poem

So many yet to write

Can tune the part that thrills the heart

With abundant delight

The Hand that brings to little things

The speechlessness of awe

Opens our eyes in meek surprise

To love’s abundant law

…where He bestows to thorns, a rose

To winter’s waning, spring

In flowers, frogs and puppy dogs

Abundant anthems ring

Like rolling seas, life spills with ease

Across dusk’s shadow-shore

Gold-gray, blush-blue all meld into

Abundant worlds of yore

But do not weep, no one can keep

Night’s undoing at bay

Upon the east dawn spreads a feast

Abundant with Today

Where faith lifts up hope’s battered cup

Where Mercies/wonders never cease

But fill time’s frame to earn the name;

Abundance Masterpiece

© Janet Martin

Psalm 86:5,15
For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; 

and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee…

Lam.3:22-24

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;[a]
    his mercies never come to an end;
 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”

Reality Checkup

Ps.103:11

For as the heavens are high above the earth, 

So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;

CN Tower, Toronto, Ontario

It’s easy to find in life’s day-to-day grind

Of lessons that teach what they must

So many a reason, no matter the season

To fret rather than pray and trust

Its easy to miss in the muddle and kiss

Of hurry and worry and more

Midst giving and taking and dream-castles breaking

The Hand that is holding the door

Where doom and mayday groom longing with dismay

It’s easy to shift our gaze

From ‘Greater is He’ to the trouble we see

On pedestals of Numbered Days

It’s easy to be overcome with the plea

And thus, numbed to mercies that pour

God’s goodness unfurled in a beautiful world

That thunders with wonders galore

© Janet Martin

(not even close to daffodils this year!)

Psalm 117:2
For great is His loving devotion toward us,

 and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

 Hallelujah!

What in the World

Poem-a-day challenge day 6:For today's prompt, write a blank in the blank poem.

wishing all a day of purposeful happiness

(or, in some cases happy-mess😅💗💕)

What in the world would be better than trying

To be the person we would like to meet

Always the hour’s fleet flower is dying

Scattering echoes beneath our feet

What if we tried to be part of the beauty

On today’s canvas, soon splattered with paint

What if we honored dictations of duty

Rather than airing our curse and complaint

What if we counted the ways to be grateful

If living kindly was our true delight

What if we saw each new day as a plateful

Of blessings whetting worship’s appetite

What if we turned fisticuffs into handshakes

What if we didn’t ‘bite-back’ quite so much

What if we softened this journey of heartaches

With often-uttered endearments and such

What if, because we so cherished each other

Words would be gentle and patient and sweet

And we would see, through the eyes of a mother

A world full of people we would like to meet

...how, in a world full of fasting-fading flowers

We can be part of love’s heart-throbbing song

What would be better than scattering hours

In echo-petals of fondest so-long

© Janet Martin

Job 14:1-2

“Mortals, born of woman,
    are of few days and full of trouble.

They spring up like flowers and wither away;
    like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.

1 Peter 1:24
For, "All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field;

 the grass withers and the flowers fall,