January Keck

Writer  ♥ Author  ♥ Songwriter  ♥ Illustrator

I hope you enjoy reading this month's poetry sampler.  Check back for new stories. Previous month's stories can be accessed via "Archives" (bottom of this page).

(Excerpts of poetry) From: Gossamer & Gold

 ©1998 January Keck and SparrowCrowne Press

  All rights reserved.

                               THE HEART

            The heart is an open country,   

            Apart from any land;

            It has no visible border,

            Partitions divided by no hand.

            It’s politics and treaties

            Are vague and prone to delude,

            Its ponderings and vagaries

            are know to be confused.

            The heart is an open sky,

            Now lavender—then blue;

            it longs to fulfill higher destiny

            of no particular hue.

            It has its flutterings and fears,

            its ventricles open, then shut tight,

            Such imaginings and longings

            in the lonely velvet night.

            Some hearts beat with passion

            Apart from any trend;

            they hold no steel bars, no guarded gate,   

            no games,

            greet all they meet as friend.

            Heart rules and etiquette

            Enduring though momentarily stilled,

            The organ’s expanse and empty space,

            ready, waiting to be filled.

            FRUSTRATION

            Frustration.

            Loving,

            yet never touching.

            Laughing,

            yet withholding the kiss.

            Linking,

            yet never meeting.

            Crying,

            Tears through a veil in the mist.

            Frustration.

            My kindred cousin,

            Sitting upon my shoulder now.

            I must keep in mind,

            you are just but a smile

            turned inward

            and upside down.

            Frustration.

            Hands of time,

            ever spinning, spinning around.

            Money,

            plenty there, but never in time.

            Choices,

            made with only casual thought.

            Fulfilling lives

            that rue their drawing breath.

            Frustration.

            My life-long friend.

            You are one that never leaves.

            I hold you closely, working through all,

            Yet when you go—

            Immeasureably brief,

            our time apart but deceives.

            Frustration.

            Your composition

            Brings some so low.

            Procrastination, hesitation,

            lack of action

            caused by what we fear

            and do not yet know.

            IN THE SPRING

            My darling, come see the early winter

            skies,

            That were not there at dawn.

            Come see the diamond spears of ice,

            The continuity of seasons, how they go on

            and on.

            My treasure, come dip the azure waters of

            life,

            That you have not chanced to feel,

            Lootk at the shimmering liquid mirror,

            And in my warm love, so heal.

            Do not think so much of the morrow,

            And think not in too eloquent of word,

            Just live and love each day to the fullest,

            Like the valiant, full-throated red bird.

            The red bird alights the greening branch,

            Ruby bejeweled music in song,

            By the shady oaken trees,

            She greets the blushing dawn.

            Flighty soul abounds in trilling winged

            dance,

            Through shivering winter’s chilly bliss.

            Though food is scarce out in the cold,

            She does not think of this.

            God gave her the simple wisdom to wait,

            Feathered tunes—to us they do not mean a

            thing.

            Her millisecond heartbeat that gladly

            resounds . . .

            In the spring . . . in the spring . . . in the

            spring!

            I AM — WE ARE  . . .  ANGELS

            I am the face on the street corner.

            I am the face all alone in a crowd.

            I am the face in a frigid gas station mirror.

            I am the angel, solitary but proud.

            I am a face intent at my keyboard.

            I am a face smothered in bits and bytes.

            I am a face that no one remembers.

            I am an angel in technological flight.

            I am a face on a glossy cover.

            I am a face in a crowd at the store.

            I am a face you greet once, then leave.

            I am an angel that some men adore.

            I am a face that wears a badge.

            I am a face pounding a gavel at court.

            I am a face that disperses the flames.

            I am an angel of a different sort.

            We are angels, those that give service in

            love.

            We are angels all one yet not the same.

            We are angels without delusions of

            grandeur.

            We are angels yet none know our name.