Tom Martin - Poetry

10/30/2024

Fascism is at the door, and it's not knocking. It's pounding, and the door ain't locked.

10/23/2024

The GOP/NRA/KKK Hi**er. Not maybe. Not "some day". dump loves Adolph, as he does Putin. VOTE BLUE.

YOU WANT LIES WITH THAT??!

09/28/2024

Likud uses 2K pound bombs to kill an adversary- and hundreds of others unlucky enough to be proximate. We took out Bin Laden, himself, with a Seal team. I'm not really all that military, but which approach seems fairest? bibi the butcher doesn't give a damn- nearing 50K dead in Gaza, and, in the latest information, around 5K in Lebanon. No brigadier and I, but the rain of 2K pound bombs seems less than surgical. Oh well....

A Times analysis of video from the Israeli military shows that at least eight planes it said were used in the attack on Hassan Nasrallah were armed with bunker-buster bombs.

01/29/2024

Inspiration Point

Take a short hike up, not all that steep,
until you pass the point
Hidden Falls no longer keep hidden.
The views that emerge unbidden, released
from behind the forested trees,
are so vast you feel as if
you’re seeing out an airplane window.
But, that is not so.
You stand fast on solid earth,
the views are gifted to you
not from a travelling cylinder,
but from the verge of forever, headed east,
restricted only by your willingness
to actually see, and, from that vision,
come to know peace.
Standing here, best not to talk-
not when the opportunity to watch
from above the circling of a red-tail hawk,
gazing at the tops of wings
so rarely seen by any human being
is freely given you.
Only the west, in the woods behind you,
is a hidden view:
all the rest, gliding effortlessly,
the tall hawk’s lifting wings
is a gift, a free offering.

Tom Martin

01/29/2024

Creek Line of Evergreen Oaks

Most of the trees by the angular creek
carving its slow bidden line
a half mile south of this house
are evergreen oaks.
The view of the water is hidden behind those,
and one cannot hope to glimpse
the stream-shine, not one hint.
Thus, the faint fog out the windows
is the sole indication of the season-
just past mid-winter- but even
that transitory reality
is far less than clear.
Yet, by late morning, dim mists fade
and the oaks appear nearer the window,
to this long chestnut table
where the lines above this one
were so slowly
written, earlier in the day.
But that cannot be so:
the creek is a set line,
south by southeast, where the evergreen oaks
are affixed to the marriage
between water and time.
Such a comfort in stability,
a steadiness amidst the ceaseless
changes that can come to be
ominous, with scant serenity,
in this world of perilous design.
Focus on the silver line
that you know for certain shines,
keeps its long-held promise
behind those strong oak trees
you know well will thrive for centuries.

Tom Martin

01/12/2024

Work On The Jackson Hole Ranch

Through the cottonwood groves toward
the cold river’s flow, the curvilinear trail
winds its way between wild roses
and willows so I can find out
where the thistles grow,
that I can take them out, day after day.
Those wicked weeds invaded
from out-of-state hay,
back when the cattle grazed their way
through all the native grasses.
Then, winter came, so the Herefords
and Angus survived on the bales
hauled out to them, and strewn on the frozen fields.
Now, the only yield here
comes from the natural world
that surrounds as I work the day
gradually coaxing the weeds away.
A sentry coyote, twenty yards east,
keeps me on notice that this land
is not mine in the least,
and the natives are watching to keep me in line.
As the only human near, I am out here
but never alone: this is wilderness
in which I am nothing but a guest.
Overhead in the cottonwoods,
great blue herons flap and settle to rest
to let me know that my intrusion
is no less noted overhead.
An eagle, or a red-tail hawk
will soar by to verify that vigilant watch.
As the day gains heat,
I steer to the shadier woods to the east,
where narrow creeks ease through
and artesian springs too pure to be true
offer crystalline cold to rejuvenate you.
So I kneel, to take in and give thanks
for this perfect water,
these hundreds of acres of virginal woods,
and for this solitary working day.
True, there’s not all that much pay,
but I take from this cathedral-place
peace and wisdom I could not embrace
in any other way.

Tom Martin

12/14/2023

Jackson Hole Winter Solstice

December is here at the window,
and the deepeningsnow settles in to make space for
the numerous storms in the year soon to follow.
Some sage does still show a limb or so
on the flats that run long
as far as the mountains allow them to go.
If not for the Pitchstone Plateau
to the north, you could easily see
southern Montana from here-
especially this time of the year
when the clean and cold wind has blown
from the thin mountain air
any semblance of a flaw that might blur
your thoughts and dreams that fly up there,
not the least obscured in pure western mountain skies.
Straight up the towers go, unimaginably high,
carving and powering, so abruptly
your visions never make it over to Idaho.
But the state that you’re cannot be defined by any
arbitrary lines, and will more than suffice
to both calm and inspire as the drifts
begin to deepen while the peaks,
against all reason, seem to increasingly steepen,
sharpened somehow by the shortening days.
There is mystery in these
winter mountain arrays, how you can
awake one morning to find the world transformed
into a white cathedral that stands, pure in every way,
beyond any sanctuary built by the hand of man.

Tom Martin

12/14/2023

An Angel In The Autumn Afternoon

The moment a poet caves in,
against all caution and reason, to try, again,
the word “angel” on the vacant page,
the inevitable struggle begins:
will this be tepid trite greeting-card verse,
or words for the ages?
Or, might there be unlikely middle ground
between the burdened worldly phrases
and the well-woven sounds
that will bring, unrehearsed, graces of
rare, singing clarity to this hazy,
sublime earth on which we spin through time?
The mysterious marriage of meaning
and meter will determine the worth
of the words that come forth, streaming
and spinning phrases to transform
into astounding Parisian ballet,
or falling flat, straight down on the stage
to dance, perhaps, some other day.
The conundrum is this: the reality
of she who summons celestial words
by merely being in this world
is of such a compelling nature
that drafting “angel” in a line
is not the least out of proportion or place.
To summon late afternoon autumn light
through her blonde hair onto her face,
she sits, merely reading in her upright chair,
deflecting the sun to be exactly where she is,
clearly angling the rays precisely there,
in her casually heavenly way of holding
rare illumination where it should not be,
one might say, angelically.

Tom Martin

12/14/2023

Good morning (or whatever time it is, or will be, in your locale). I certainly hope the season will go well for you. The world could use some uplift. As regards seasonal presents: As always, I can guarantee that no one on your wish list has a book of poetry included. Surprise is an inherent guarantee! So, you might consider a $14 investment, via Amazon, of our poetry book, Doorways. And, probably later today, my wife/life will be posting some new poems for your enjoyment. No fee required for that feature, now or ever. Here's to peace on earth, my sisters and brothers. Best, always, Tom Martin

10/17/2023

Recess

The recess bell rang and we classmates ran
through the single open doorway,
or out through the halls where happy chaos began
in the free and unplanned space of air,
where there were no clocks
on the walls that weren’t there, and no ceiling to span
anything at all.
There was no need beneath that sky:
we knew the teachers would call us back in
when the orderly mayhem
and the freedom of recess had passed by again.
It flew by so fast. Liberty works that way.
So many simultaneous games to be played
under the limitless open sky: the hop scotch,
dodge-ball by the concrete gym wall,
the ropes to skip and jump and swirl,
the double-Dutch for the expert older girls,
while lines of boys stood in line for their time
in the challenge of tetherball, to get that rope
rotating on angles against which there was so little hope.
To mention rotations, their possible tensions,
leads to those flat metal circular merry-go-rounds,
and to those aggressive older boys
who would spin the perimeter ever faster
to teach us a class on the perils of physics:
if you wanted to stay on, huddle in the center,
if you revel in speed, hang on for your life
to the outside rail the way you’re supposed to do.
It was no church school, but you’d learn how to pray
that the grip of your hands would not fail,
but stay on the slippery steel.
Yes, you’d get a bump or a scrape now and then,
here or there, but, in return you’d learn
the taste of freedom in the open air,
a trade far more than fair.
Even back at your desk, when recess ran out,
dealing with what chalkboards can do,
you could still blink for an instant
and catch a hint of that open-sky blue.
To this day, in a commonplace meeting
or some workaday talk of the day to day,
you can close your eyes for an instant
and allow those recess memories sweep you
just for a moment away into that youthful blue.

Tom Martin

10/07/2023

Angels Speaking

Music is the speech of angels,
so I’ve long heard it told.
Thus, the songs that soothe or inspire,
send us along our road, or hold us in the moment,
unfold our emotions
with the flute’s flight or the drums’ roll,
are of both the ancient of days
and this lone vanishing instant,
the tones of time and the human soul.
The language is every bit as deep,
Melody, harmony, solo or symphony,
deeper than human speech can be,
to the wide audience, or each to each.
Major or minor, rapid tempo or ever so slow,
even the silence that is woven
throughout this unknowable script,i
s musical speech our souls exist to know
and depend upon to persist.
The most passionate melodies depend upon rests,
just so, just this and nothing more
until the climactic crescendo, the passionate crests
that sing us to brief silence.
We live for momentary rests,
upon which the contours of music so greatly rely,
all the more vital when we reach for the best notes
in this all-too-rapid life with which we are blessed.
Existence cannot be composed of one unending crescendo,
the emotions we live not on one continuing crest,
but an ocean of feelings, relying on rests
every bit as much as on those rare symphonic peaks.
It is the truth and depth of real living that we seek,
not some staged, predictable finale,
some crested velvet curtain call,
but the music, melody, and harmony
that are the sum of the best of it all.

Tom Martin

08/29/2023

Because She is Here

In this light morning air, in this tall open room,
there is a mystery to trace: the source, the origin
of indefinable spice, a sense of my wife
that eases by, can’t be defined, a presence designed
to distract and entice, leading my mind along
a mysterious course, as if this thread
is being woven on this morning’s loom
into the fabric of the past, my whole life.
It goes so fast,
this intermingling of our senses, what lasts
or does not last, or lingers over all
as the past and present tenses blend
like shadows shifting on the wall.
She, who is the center of this mystery,
the future and the history, was here with me
but is, for the moment, down a brief hall
in a small study around the corner
where she remains the center of it all.
She proves once more that vision is more than sight.
And so I write,
at this long table’s end, pen lightly in hand,
hoping to coax words into lines
able to evoke understanding;
to call back the sun to cast shape and shadow
on the curvilinear ceiling;
to conjure undefined feelings thought vanished forever.
Still adhering to the task,
immersed in this page,
the order of the words remaining unclear,
I sense a transformation in the room.
Thoughts weave again into the loom:
she has returned and the words weave together clearly.
A poem is no inference, and life is in the present tense
only because she is here.

Tom Martin

08/29/2023

Anniversary Reverie

Light breeze north shore Oahu then.
southwest wind Sonoma vineyards now,
with more than half a century between:
perhaps some mystic atmosphere
connects these scenes with mystery.
I don’t know how.
Time is no more tangible than silent air,
perhaps less so. There is no where.
Only love can be the center of the flow.
Days, weeks, months, years, decades go:
their destinations, much less destinies
we cannot know, any more than we can describe
the shades of green by that Hawaiian shore,
or the colors of the pinot vines
that climb the nearby slopes.
No sequences of adjectives, no weave of words
can ever hope to conjure the intertwined life
that she and I have known, more than five decades along
in this blessed and perplexing journey, husband and wife.
Our simple promise is the center,
what we said and what we meant, concise and clear:
through every element of life, be near
to lean, or be leaned upon,
have sorrow and yet carry on, knowing
that joy will come again through our union,
because of the other one,
joy over strife as long as lives continue on,
and very likely far beyond.
There’s always just one more horizon,
but no prize yet to be won:
we had that when we’d only just begun.

Tom Martin

08/18/2023

A glance at our "poetry page". Those intrigued can visit Tom Martin Poetry in the facebook realm, or go to our broader website www.martin-productions.com novels, music, more poetry/art. TGIF?

08/13/2023

A recent work, available- with far far more- on our poetry page. It's not a mall. So very not. best. tom

08/04/2023

What Color The Sky?

For our purposes here, let us presume
we have a clear, or a sparsely clouded day,
no imminent storm brewing,
neither dawn nor sunset shortly on the way.
Can we at least agree on an altitude here?
It cannot be near a city, the sky too cluttered and unclear.
Are we at the beach on a tropical island
where the shallow reef waters redefine pristine,
seem to influence colors to say what they mean;
an azure hue- or is it ultra or aquamarine blue
you witness in the shallows, or outside the reef
is that a hint of green you see out of reach,
there in the ocean of deeper belief?
Or are we in the pristine mountains, utterly city-free,
built by millions of years of geology
and far over a mile above the ocean scenes?
Here, amidst the towering walls you love,
the hovering intensity of sapphire or cornflower blue,
a sense of royal hue hovering above you,
that the mountains skies decree true.
At this altitude no color is diluted.
The highest peaks, without apology, thrust their blades
toward the stratosphere, but no wound is made,
at the leading extreme above the geology
that pushes the limit of what blue and bluer mean.
In sum, when the words of the clear sky come
they exhaust all synonyms for blue, yet still fall shy.
Think here of your lover’s eyes:
does green or brown or blue in any way suffice
to summon those treasured subtleties of hue?
As those eyes close and open to you, they come true
in ways you cannot explain, so, too, each day abbreviates
as you juggle synonyms and the day goes dim,
still below that holy mountain rim, the sky darkening.
No sun, true, but there are lights that seem to close in,
shining to be seen, seeming to approach as night grows.
Venus and Mars with a quarter moon conspire,
stars sill higher compete with their loom and gleam,
and Cassiopeia’s Chair draws its dependable lines
on the northern horizon. Constellations ignite,
as night sky assumes its deepest hue-
whatever shade intrudes between black and midnight blue
that implicitly implies a comet’s stream, or at the least,
a scattered glory of meteor showers.
This is as close as you’ll come in this life to eternity in an hour.

Tom Martin

07/03/2023

Summer Solstice

Tomorrow, the sun will rise
to climb the furthest north
that it will for another year.
It’s a matter of angles, please realize,
the way the earth happens to tilt in the sky,
a seeming cosmic mobile dangling
stars and planets for our nighttime eyes.
Then, the earliest sunrise
breeches to shine a brief while
until the radiance reaches its apex,
and will begin its gradual slide
down the solar hill to the opposite end
of the cycle, its winter home toward the southern pole.
The sun is a minor star, of course,
in a random corner of the universe,
but its purposes and principles are clear enough:
the light our way back home,
to be the silent metronome in this solar dome
that conducts the theme music
of our abbreviated lives that carry on
only a few dozen summer solstices or so.
What else might derive from this infinite cosmos
that somehow still expands, so far beyond
the reach of comprehending by humanity
as it is, or can ever be?
The scope of the universe will remain
too great to understand:
be grateful for this day when
the sun is closest at hand.

Tom Martin

06/03/2023

Sequoias

The aisles within this holy place
take no straight way, since the paths are traced
between the massive redwood trunks
that are the source of sanctity and high shade.
Make your way through the fern glens
in the dappled light that filters through
the ancient limbs.
You will instinctively feel the so-called civilized world
unclench as you wend your walk
around huge red-barked trees
that have been growing here for many centuries.
But let go of the clock.
Leave your computerized life-companion in the car
back in the parking lot, and walk
at no particular pace through the smooth
and perfectly asymmetrical aisles
of this breathing cathedral.
No choir is here, no candles lit, no priest to turn the pages,
but this is among the holiest of places,
a sanctuary made of life, with light that smoothes its way through
more sacred than any stained-glass window
could ever convey to you.
You have found this place of peace to be,
a chapel of simplicity:
take in every blessed breath before the closing of the day.
Forever may well find you in that clear and quiet way.

Tom Martin