|
Origami Microchaps
|
Selected Poems |
| I manage... |
|
|
|
Click Title to download micro
Cover design by JanK
•
|
I manage to fit the day beside
a mango tree, two shade elms,
and a skiff lounging on the beach.
I manage to remind myself
to wind the stars and set them
so they return at night.
I manage to call out loud
to be sure I am
still awake and calm.
|
I manage to try on my life
without tearing the seams
that hold me together.
I manage to place today
atop the jars
filled with long ago and maybe.
I manage to remember
everything about you
once you smile
.
•
Jan Keough © rev. 2016
.
|
|
Among friends
|
|
|
|
Click title to download PDF microchap
A series of Unlikely Conversations
- overheard -
Cover: “Free wallpaper site”
•
|
Yes,
I.
I always meet
the nicest friends
while waiting here.
Let’s stand together
more often.
II.
Meet me here
tomorrow.
Don’t forget.
•
Jan Keough © 2014
|
Unlikely conversations
I.
I’m a sheep
and you’re a milking cow
let’s pose together
just this once.
II.
I know I’m a cow,
but I’ve never seen you
in this part of the field
before.
|
|
Oxygen Therapy
|
|
|
|
Click title to download PDF microchap
Cover: "Fractal Winds" from the web
•
|
To Breathe
Oh, my love,
I love to breathe
And when caught
by that steady stream
of unrequited thoughts
I forget to breathe.
I love to not
breathe, that is
To breathe
or not
to breathe
is the
question
we never forget
to forget
•
Jan Keough © 2013
|
My Hunger
I hunger for
a breath
that will not conquer
For time that
moves in zephyr stillness
between my thoughts
I will the moment to cease,
becoming
while I inhale
And hunger
becomes an exchange
for what will not be conquered
|
|
Tangential Toast
|
|
|
|
Click title to download PDF microchap
Cover Photo by Jan Keough
of her morning toast
♦
|
Traveling Toast
Toast never mentions
her travel plans,
never sends a card.
Her online pics
reveal a taste
for one-meal stands
on fancy plates.
She scrapes by on the whim
of a morning stranger,
an open counter,
and a half-filled coffee mug.
That golden glow of hers
reflects either
balmy zones
or tanning salons set on high.
But butter
never did melt
in her mouth.
•
Jan Keough © 2012
|
Toast Truths
Toast is always in a jam
falling face down,
arguing with the jelly.
She grows cold while you wait,
salivate and
berate
the waiter
for tepid temps
and marmalade
from an orchid
lost & away in Seville.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Click title to download PDF microchap
Cover by Jan Keough with photo of
her mother, Helen Renshaw, in Henniker, NH
•
|
As Is
I could have left it as is -
That tall wanting for something else,
Like an embrace or convergence
Or a vessel with leftover sweetness.
Instead, I chose to spill the contents
Of my well-polished cup
And let the memories seep out
Far beyond my sweeping.
Inside was an etching, pressed deep,
That cracked the little-me bowl,
Mingling my own tenderness
With the far-flung universe of being.
It was a crack that looked like
The dusting of a spring dawn,
Sharing its ken of hidden meadows
Where burrows of common things hide.
The cleft was barely legible, lightly seen -
Not wishing to intrude on my sanctity.
It shone with the eyes of many tapers,
Their foreverness of life-hope burning on & on.
And this glowing, leaning inward,
Draped like patience, was waiting,
Simply waiting there for me,
For me to arrive, as is.
•
Jan Keough © 2011
|
a little encouragement
a little encouragement
particulates
through you
like a reason to live
finding you at home
it wanders
those familiar rooms
lost from view
in this sanctuary
of clear thoughts
all others
just slip away
now you see
a book still open
to the very page
that once comforted
and all that is true
arcs overhead
wanting nothing
but your company
from a secret voice
within the world
encouragement skips like laughter
waiting to be heard
|
|
Small Fonts
|
|
|
|
Click title to download PDF microchap
Cover photo composite by Jan Keough
•
|
One Hope
One hope pulls at me:
that you are reading this
and for a moment
we are friends.
You scan words that
just milliseconds
ran from my mind,
marched thru these fingertips,
and walked right into your
open, sacred eyes.
So we are reading together
and I am satisfied.
•
Jan Keough © 2009
|
IDEAS OF OTHERS
I read the news to see what
the ideas of others
have done today.
I have a snack after reading
since I’m so hungry
from these ideas.
I take a walk
to help me digest
so many ideas.
And on my walk
I see a sky full of birds
but no ideas.
Since the birds
have no ideas
other than the sky.
|
|
A Little of This and That
|
|
|
|
Click title to download PDF microchap
•
|
We Are Known
Even as you read,
Your thoughts are pressed
For keeping.
The looks you send to others
Are caught in flight.
Mislaid gaps,
Well-placed glories
Are swept into storage.
All are yours.
Words, feelings,
The flickering touch
Cascade around you.
One seamless spinning
Spent in faithful attendance,
Full of obligation,
Ready to serve
Until your command releases.
•
Jan Keough © 2009
|
IT TAKES FORGIVENESS
I see that it takes forgiveness
To manage time,
To answer the selfish mind
pity. - Without self
- I’m letting it all go free
Slide downstream and
Retrieve every word misspent,
Wanting revenge.
remember them all, - I’ll dis
One prod, one pictureful piece
At a time until
Only the husk of past tense
Lies empty and still.
I believe that it takes forgiveness.
|
|
Pet Friendly Poetry
|
|
|
|
Click title to download PDF microchap
Cover photo by Jan of
kindly mini-schnauzer, Pixie
•
|
Donna's Cockatoo
She named him Barron
for his crystalline crown feathers
and royal demands.
He owns a perch
and every inch of living space
they have.
When Russell takes a shower
Barron sings with him
from the curtain rod.
The spray reminds him
of tropical rainfall
which is just
ancestral memory
now.
•
Jan Keough © 2009
|
I LOVE (MY) DOGS
Love is strange medicine.
It cures chronic slip-ups,
mortal insensitivity,
a disappointing exam,
or heartache
poised in a glance.
But my dogs know this,
so they atone.
For every no,
they watch for yes.
For a forgotten caress,
they remind me with kisses
For time stretched
by carelessness,
they jump and bark
until the stars shake.
A thousand minutes
or one long, slow breath
is too long to be away.
They miss me
like water for sky
and other elements
that house us in love.
|
|
Paper Dreams
|
|
|
|
Click title to download PDF microchap
•
|
Green Enough
I would like to be
green enough
to envy no one,
to shy away
from that noisy wanting
for more.
Spill me into
a seaside dimension
where only tidal pools
(modest oceanic realms)
remember my name
And each shoreline,
familiar with lunar patience,
waits with the tides
for my return.
•
Jan Keough © 2009
|
This Water Fountain
This water fountain speaks
so quick.
Moments ago
it had nothing to say.
But the pump was off,
water asleep
in damp, tiered rooms,
growing green
with leaves and dead bugs
who’d stayed too long.
I wish I could understand
this trill
this unformed chit-chat
melting between synapses
making mind
curl up in syntax
seeping past sense.
I listen
to this storyteller for hours
ear to drippings
seeing drops become sound
and sound become
nothing more
than presence.
|
| A Room by Lynnie Gobeille & Jan Keough |
|
|
|
Click title to download PDF microchap
.JPG)
“A Room of One's Own is an extended essay
by Virginia Woolf… based on a series of
lectures delivered at two women's colleges
October 1928.
The title comes from Woolf's conception that,
'a woman must have money and a room of her own
if she is to write fiction'. – Wikipedia
*
|
My Own Room
I would like to think
that a room of one’s own
is something to be found
like a jar or basket
ready to be filled,
but it is not.
It is a quality hidden inside,
stored, waiting -
combed from choices
to be untangled,
and pulled away
from distractions
that own the mind.
A room that is nothing
but expansion,
it’s beauty
a reflection of hope.
A safety, a welcoming,
a presence that turns
each key, each insight,
into wave after wave
of discovery.
It is a splendor
where time becomes lost
like an echo.
Discourtesy fades from disuse.
Misunderstanding
trolls shores not your own.
•
by Jan Keough © 2009
|
The Weight of Stones in Pocket
(Remembering Virginia Woolf)
Back lit by skies winter light
oceans ebb and flow,
gulls cry, circling us in flight.
I watch the stranger on the beach
as she bends
picking up sea-glass with her hands.
Dusting off the webs of salt and sand
bringing the treasure to her lips
as if to devour it.
Working her fingers
over the smooth surface,
mesmerized
by the glimmer of lavender dye.
“A rare find,” she tells me
when I inquire.
“more rare than eclipse
of sun and moon.”
Beloved sea-flower
in her outstretched hand,
‘Reason enough,” she states
“to empty my pockets
of their weight.”
•
by Lynnie Gobeille © 2009
|
|
The Intention
|
|
|
|
Click title to download PDF microchap
Cover: ’Young Man Adoring the Sun’
Sanssouci Park, Postdam, Germany
This poem was created from a reverie.
I present it as it arrived at my doorstep.
I hope you have such a visitor—
your own Intention—waiting to be seen.
•
|
The Intention
It was always there – my Intention,
lying beneath layers,
reluctant to be seen.
Layers I never wanted
that covered the shyest hint
of something wanting to be free.
An Intention watching me while I gazed
open-eyed at a calm afternoon’s trace
outside my window,
Looking past lawn and lavender,
past the little step
where the cat would hide,
Past the siphon of cool air rising
from tumbling shadows
curried with indistinct worries.
Worries that could never
console or comfort or pour
even the palest cup of tea.
|
I saw it tucked in my heart,
protected from a loud, hurried voice
asking for something more.
One day I saw pain
wearing my Intention into fading
turning it inward, away,
soon to be out of reach,
like a point on the horizon
a troubled painter paints.
And then a panic to find it again.
foolish me, foolish mind,
foolish wanting.
I had to tip my horizon,
spill that point into my palm,
rolling like mercury’s evanescence
Until it stayed there – shy
as a barely steaming spoonful,
shining like loosened light.
Making known (as you know yourself
awake in bed each morning)
that there is only one Intention,
One rising that lifts you,
breathes you into a vivid cosmos,
A curving joy always present
Unlayered
Unwaiting,
Understood.
•
Jan Keough © 2009
|
|
Snack on this Poetry
|
|
|
|
Click title to download PDF microchap
Poems feed the soul
- but give the palette a snack!
•
|
The Truth of Flavors
Flavors live in the mind
and tongues give their opinions.
The mouth waits for deliveries
lined with brine or quinine,
shined-up honey fine
or scuffed in lemony sour.
Each mouth guest begs for
a chance to perform
from a slow-soaking twirl
across the lips
to that spring-fed ballroom
where the sweet/salty dancing begins
sour pushes around the room
while bitterness wanders
and won’t leave until
you’re left crying on the floor.
|
SNACKS
There aren’t enough poems
about snacks
and the snacking of them.
We meet to eat
and feed friendships
with spoons and spills.
Truth can come frozen on a stick
and melts willy-nilly on the tongue
of every heartfelt conversation.
Ice cream easily soothes
the most downcast consumer
and then you become the container.
•
Jan Keough © 2009
|
|
Forms Forming
|
|
|
|
•
|
Vermillion and lapis
powdered fine.
Kale soup scooped,
alive in your bowl.
Cardiff blue seascapes
that mesmerize.
Goose down caught on your flannel robe
shakes free to flow.
Shirt buttons and zipper pulls,
the last carrot stick on the plate,
grayed shapes and hazard-yellow lines
graze along a rambled view
Oh, the folly of orange blossoms
and inkjet memory
that fill each notebook.
A beetle scarab beached on your wrist
sits beside even-numbered tattoos.
Now a macaw gets loose in the room;
its singing singes the solitude.
|
The bright toffee cat agrees
to notarize your day from
a window seat vista -
porch and gray railings
billow with chimes and feeders,
glinting and squinting.
Then the magazine,
glossy slivers, opens to
tourmaline, tourmaline
nested underground
in silicate beds,
asleep before harvest
and the jeweler’s cut.
As you sip the moment,
a pre-dawn mosaic of
coffee grounds skate the
humble saucer of your cup,
rimmed in gold.
Images and forms forming,
colors mixing,
all in your head.
•
Jan Keough © 2009
|
|
Fat Crayons & Other Childhood Follies
|
|
|
|
•
|
Flute Lessons
At grade school assembly
I raise my hand to join the band.
I bring home a shiny flute
In a leather box lined with felt.
I open the box and stare and stare.
It’s too pretty to touch.
My rented flute is returned
After a month.
Wasp Combat
See wasp flying out of hole
In backyard.
Notice flight pattern.
Timing is essential.
Use teapot sieve
To trap wasp.
Stomp.
Is it dead?
Run like heck.
•
Jan Keough © 2010
|
Fat Crayons
Before markers
Came crayons,
And in pre-school,
It was the fat crayon.
Five colors as wide as my thumb.
Five to fit in my pants’ pocket
When no one is looking.
Five flying onto the ground
While skipping home.
I apologize to the teacher.
My punishment:
Stand in the wastebasket
Facing the corner.
Pet Hide & Seek
Walking thru the woods
With my dog and cat,
I stop & hide behind a big tree
While they sniff around.
I start to count
One—two—three…
They found me already!
I tell them,
Don’t peek next time...
|
|
Learning
|
|
|
|
•
|
Brady Bunch Babies
The girls pile on the common room couch
waiting for The Brady Bunch
every day at 5 pm
before the cafeteria opens for dinner.
Many wear their fuzzy slippers
and take turns braiding hair.
No one does homework
but bring books anyway.
They’re singing with the TV
as you walk in the room.
We know the song by heart,
they scream.
Their laughter is big and shows
they know every note,
every family truth
the song says.
The show begins
and they stare hard,
loving the big, grimy tube
with it's vase of plastic flowers on top.
At commercials they talk and talk,
jumping each other’s words
about Greg, Bobby, Marcia, Cindy -
how they’re like a real family.
They’re better than mine!
one girls shouts at the ceiling tiles.
I’m gonna have a big family – only boys!
a promise bounces from the couch.
I don’t want to have kids…
says a girl on the floor.
some seem to agree.
•
Jan Keough © 2010
|
the AA speaker comes to class
she almost raises her hand.
instead
she stares
until the speaker looks away –
he doesn’t need syllables
to translate her eyes.
he thinks about
what he just said -
his story, his misery,
his sobriety,
his recovery,
his family’s orbital decay.
he asks the silent students
for comments, questions?
does she want to say something?
I want to leave.
- why?
right now.
- but why?
I live this.
I don’t need to hear about it
anymore.
he looks away.
he knows
she’s walking
out the door.
|
|
Watching
|
|
|
|
Photo of the sweetest
mini-schnauzer, Wendy
•
|
Don't you love kindness?
the caught-by-surprise
smile as the door
opens just as you
reach to push it
before your
grocery bag of anticipation
sogs apart on the floor.
such is what
spins electrons
refills memories
sets the table
for our sometime
time together.
•
Jan Keough © 2010
|
He wrote…
about so many things
but these two I will recall.
I.
That he felt himself
drowning
in the bodies
of Japanese sailors
and gasped
II.
that during a moment
of ecstasy
he saw the loosened cow
strolling down
- away lane - the far
encompassing - all
was his vision
that day.
|
Barbara Schweitzer, the author of 33 1/3: Soap Opera Sonnet (Little Pear Press), has twice been the recipient of Merit Fellowships from the RI State Council on the Arts for poetry. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily and on WRNI’s “This I Believe” program as well as in many literary journals and anthologies. Her plays have been staged in RI, MA, and ME. Her play Sub Zero is published in RI Writer’s Circle Anthology.
Born in Boston, MA, Jan (Carey) Keough now spends her time roving the Northeast corridor from Rhode Island to North Carolina and Florida with her husband, Kevin Keough. Important to them is their meditation practice. This mindset influences Jan's poetry and encourages her sense of humor
Louise Giguere - a poet who described herself with these words: "creative expression addresses the beauty in the imagination, in the mind's eye to maintain a positive connection, the tools on which the wholeness of communication, the applied and performing arts from holistic health joining body, mind and spirit." From Coventry, RI, she studied at RIC and had lived in Arctic Bay, Nunavit.-Update: We sadly learned that Louise passed away Friday, September 1, 2017 at the Woonsocket Health and Rehabilitation Center, Woonsocket. Her obituary mentions that she was an 'avid and enthusiastic writer' - we can certainly attest to that description! Louise A. Guere March 06, 1945 - September 01, 2017Please take time to read her work presented below.•Louise's microchaps and selected poems are below. Click on the title of the micro to open a downloadable, single-page PDF.
