Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Together 'We'




During our Sunday Seed this past weekend, Bill Preston reminded us in his tribute to our friend Earl Parsons, by writing a poem in the poetic form that Earl had proposed a while back. Earl call it an "Appreciate" explaining it's origin from the children chant "Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate..." So as such, the stanza of the poem has two words in the first line, four in the second, six in the third line and finishes with eight words in the last line. I believe you can string stanzas together with that configuration.
So write your poem in Earl's form, Appreciate. Let him know you have him in your thoughts, and I'm sure he would certainly do just that, appreciate your efforts.



First you,
Then me, together ‘we’
And ‘we’ is better than ‘I’
Whether we laugh or whether we cry

I hate
To think of you
Alone, when we should be together
…everyone needs someone with which to weather weather

Don’t you
Agree, my dear, we,
No matter what we must weather
It is much more bearable when we’re together

© Janet Martin


Tuesday, November 1, 2016

November-ness





Your air of surrender
Your autumn-snuffed splendor
Your love, love-me-tender-remember-me-ness
Your lonesome, your winsome
Your bone-chilling wind-song
Your hold, hold me closer November caress

Your tree, naked, wanting
Your bleakness, enchanting
Your haunting of summer-no-more sympathy
Your face at my window
Yet cannot come in, oh,
Unstoppers an ocean of poem in me

© Janet Martin

November-love





Maybe it is your hue of mulled-blue, empathetic-gray
Maybe it is the way you hold summer’s spun gold at bay
Or maybe it’s your brooding wake of being caught between
The hunger of Becoming and the ache of what has been

When we were younger, love, the dreams we dreamed seemed out of reach
But now a season disappears like waves washed to the beach
And what seemed intangible and impossible, oh my
Slips through our outstretched fingers like a raindrop or a sigh

I love you; your sere stance seems to suggest you love me too
Though some insist that you are nothing but sorrow come true
Still, something in the way your wind-song strums the leafless tress
Makes me feel like a quite belong in your strange loneliness

Maybe it is the color of your once much younger eyes
Maybe it is the valor that remains though summer dies
Or maybe it’s the way your slip your whispers through my moan
But something about you, November, feels like coming home

© Janet Martin

You Always Leave...me to November




 PAD challenge day 1: write a stay/leave poem/poems


To know joy
Is to know grief
You always leave
An echo-land
Of fallen leaf
And lemonade reprieve

While, on the fringe
Of what once was
Waits what will be
The loss of you
Sweeter because
Of words like ‘we’

You always leave
Futile to grieve
Your stricken form
The corpse of summer
Lies in leaves
Of echo-storm

The aster
Cannot master
More than you or I
The wraith-like Chief
That scatters leaf
Beneath the sky

© Janet Martin

Way To Go





 Happy Nov. 1st!
 

For today’s prompt, we’ve actually got a 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 stay poem. A poem about staying put, not leaving, and/or dealing with someone (or something) that refuses to leave. Or…
  • Write a go poem. Fans of The Clash probably know which song prompted today’s prompt. But yeah, this is basically the opposite of staying–you know, going.


Stay, go
Ebb, flow
Yes, oh,
Perhaps…no

Dark, light
Wrong, right
May, might
Beg, fight

Tip, spill
Empty, fill
Hollow, hill
Heat, chill

Shoes, socks
News, clocks
Keys, locks
Trees, rocks

Stand, sit
Rest a bit
But don’t quit
Just do it

Bloom, fade
Broom, spade
 Bought, made
Hoard, trade 

Sing, dance
Bring aunts
Romance...
Take a chance 

Dirty, clean
Flirty, mean
Pretty, preen
Seventeen

Do, don't
Will, won't
Should, shan't
Could, can't

Love, hate
Settle, debate
Hurry, wait
Early, late 

Drive, walk
Be quiet, talk
Compliant, balk
Book, dock
 
Dream-dust
Wanderlust
May, must
Pray-trust

Splish-splash
Coast, crash 
Pause, dash
Keep, trash

Nope, tried
Cope, glide
Hope, hide
Steamed, fried

Take, leave
Braid, weave
Break, grieve
Wake, heave

Fast, slow
High, low
Stay, no
I must go

Crawl, fly,
Laugh, cry
Shout, sigh
Live, die
 

© Janet Martin

The American Dream...(a week before the election)








 the above is a sermon preached by Peter Marshall   
Click on the images to enlarge.
I realize this is a bit of a read but even a page or two leaves much for the reader to ponder.
 It seems this message is even more relevant now than then!
and not only for Americans.
This applies to all of us who enjoy freedom!
In a week is the American Election...
then a few days later Remembrance Day.

War,
like blood-stained thunder roared
and strew death in its hellish wake
where buttercups and daisies nod
in innocence on
unmarked graves
as generations foreign to
the horrors
forefathers endured
loaf on street-corners
mindless of
the freedom
sacrifice secured
while clink of coffee cups, laughter,
spills to the bustling boulevard
that once ran red
where lost life bled
to build a dream
and it was hard
We ought to hold its
banner high
Freedom,
bought not with hate,
but love
and with the cost
of much life lost
...we NEVER want
to lose sight of

...or have we?!

Janet Martin