Thursday, November 30, 2017

Farewell to November...



Wind whines through skeletal outlines of summer
Earth pines for luster of fresh-fallen coats
Nature, resplendent in garb of November
Composes eulogies lodged in our throats

Unsung harbinger of white winter-lands
Slipping frost fingers through bright-mittened hands
Whetting farewell’s threshold of *Auld Lang Syne
Tucking last leaves into eaves and fence-lines

This place of graves cradles more than braved hours
Earth is an echo-land, promise-entwined
Hope finds a foothold on hills primed with flowers
While eyes scan skylines of still-life resigned

Dash, freckled fellow and giggle, wee girlie
…where twilight tiptoes across porches early
November bids us remember somehow
How suave the bidding that doffs here and now

Soon the bare bough will bulge with budded fervor
Soon what seems beaten will restore its vim
Soon the stilled plow will return to the furrow
Soon trees will tremble with nature’s glad hymn

Round by the casements of cottage winds whimper
 While we stoke fires and prep hearts for winter
But like a vagabond, blue and unkissed
November disappears in rain and mist

© Janet Martin

*The phrase "for auld lang syne" essentially boils down to "for (the sake of) old times".

Back In The Day...

write a “back in the day” poem. 
You might also call this a “good old days” poem or a “bad old days” poem.

This song rings with scenes from my 'back in the day':)



Through haze of days and willow-treed whisper
Silence plays childhood’s sentimental tune
Eighth notes kerplop, hands grab for the glister
Of apple-shaped gold on a hot afternoon

Summer-kissed darlings all arms, legs and whim
Dash where the hour entwines starry sighs
Drawing with nothing but bud to leaf limb
Dream-blind beginners from youth’s paradise

Mother calls ‘supper’ and we have each other
And don’t even know about loneliness
Five sons, five daughters, father and mother
A ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ happiness

Want, like a match kindles eyes full of fire
Bellies burn but food cannot satisfy
Life, like a ladder lures each to climb higher
One by one, leaving extra pieces of pie

…and a wide wake of July mornings sparkling
Like glossy cherries on time’s farthest branch
Innocence strewn to the dust in a garden
Planted with echoes where once bare feet danced

© Janet Martin

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

From Far-flung Gates...


What an intro to time's never-before!!!

From amber ambience...

... to glowering blue-gray...

to bashful blush...
...to fiery fervor...

...to hello, sun!

...to gold unstoppered

...to brooding bank lowered...

...and puff! sunrise snuffed in gray


 The heavens declare the glory of God; 
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Psalm 19:1



From far-flung gates on mercy-shores
To earthy street and slope
The Father of love’s oceans pours
Man’s visage full of hope

He gilds time’s common curves where morn
Overflows gleaming trays
The pasture, sere and dead reborn
Fills man’s visage with praise

Mortal beholds and lifts his cup
From heaven-tinted dust
Toward the Fount that refills up
Man’s visage with meek trust

The sorrow-storms that seem must be
The heartaches we employ
Beneath eons of majesty
Fills man’s visage with joy

…where He who breathes on welkin dark
Moves night with blush and gold
As awestruck passengers embark
Anew on ways of old

…from far-flung gates of mercy-stores
To front row seats of sod
The Keeper of hope’s fathoms pours
Man’s visage full of God

© Janet Martin

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Plight of the Poet



 ...above page from the book below


Gaps gape; thought grasps at unshaped word like cats at butterflies
Messages at the mercy of the mind vex virile sighs
Caught like the land when night is spent before dawn’s splurge of light
The hand is poised but reticent to unclothe Soul to sight

A lone-wolf pioneer that plows plots pressed on middle-air
And who knows what thunders across the stage of soundless stare
The page, a patient friend suffers the brunt of bribes uncouth
And waits out wars that wage while whispers sculpt out ageless truth

A tempest through which thought must feel for a stable foothold
To draw from wells of ink that served earnest poets of old
Where Poet of Time’s Present Day strives to pay homage to
The hands that did not heave the pen away when they were blue

Distraction flirts and puts on skirts to lure ungoverned gaze   
Diligence takes Her by the chin to rein in hunger's blaze
The tumult that precedes tender surrender, not defeat
Makes stronger the defendant and the victory more sweet

Press on, poet, thy charge thou canst not freely disregard
Though unbeknownst to masses is the voyage of the bard
Through looming halls and forests walled with noises veiled in dark
Until the quill finds the inferno that ignites the spark

© Janet Martin

Monday, November 27, 2017

Point of View



For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) Of (blank),” replace the blanks with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.   



I thought I knew what I thought I knew
Until Someone changed my point of view
Then, from where I stood I understood
How shamefully often I misunderstood you

Our points of view mirror the hues
That help to shape our points of view
Sometimes God moves us from our perch
To view life from angles we never knew

Someday earthy points of view will dim
Farewell to this shell of wish and whim
Then, from where we stand we’ll understand
How shamefully often we misunderstood Him

© Janet Martin