Face of Time

I am the face of time
Can you look at me
Without squirming inside?
My eyes change
As adjustments are made
The way you see me changes
You'll see.

I am the face of time
I no longer try to tell you
That which you wouldn't understand
Because you believe
As you take your stand
In the end result of your notions inclined

I don't speak because I know
I don't seek because I've grown
From the inside in patterns
I can't now express

I'm solid and patient
I'll wait 'til you've spent
Your years of currency
Towards what you expect
I'll be here for sure
When you come to me after
Wanting to know
If I've known your disasters

Wanting to borrow
The time that you've spent
Only to find you've been banking
Pure knowledge of
An infinite kind
Of folly and heartaches
No intentional design
Just a unique catharsis
From intentions sought blind.

-Kelly Voelker

The Roots of What is Sane

On a road trip or at home
A companion
Busies himself in the periphery
Talks about his day
Discusses his thoughts or
Sits silently nearby

In the corner
Orchids bloom
Plants grow
At work
a cat sleeps
on the inbox
at my desk

All the while I drift
Seeking newness
Seeking what's next
What new things
Are growing, appearing
As surprise ingredients
For this day and the next

My peripheral companions
I scarcely acknowledge
As I check digital inboxes
and appear in the feed
of my friends as they scroll
to see what new, what's old

It has to do with trust and hope
I concluded only to find
Trust means both

In whom and what I trust
Within my circle of home and
At my portal to the world
Simple domestic routine
Harmonious and pristine
Easy to maintain
The roots of what is sane.

-Kelly Voelker


Definition of Periphery:
 the perimeter of a circle or other closed curve

Definition of Trust:

1. reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.

2. confident expectation of something; hope.

Definition of sane

1: proceeding from a sound mind : RATIONAL

2: mentally soundespecially : able to anticipate and appraise the effect of one's actions

3: healthy in body

January Village

Bring me soon

A fresh white sheet

With no festoons

A clear and open road

A bright fantastic snow

For my heart rests best

When options are new

Complications few

Chimneys on rooftops

Sending signals of

Peace and warmth

That those inside

Are provided for

And stood by

Always as a village does

Together, winter’s trudge

Through cold then slush

Inviting all to take solace

In the simple pleasures

Owned and honest.

-Kelly Voelker

An Appeal to the Sun

You are missed
The grey days extend
Far as the frontier horizon
Never seems to bend

We know you are contracted
To focus elsewhere more
During this time of the year
We understand the terms

Yet our eyes half open
Much the day long
As our filtered daylight
Seems like a flat backdrop

For some it simplifies
Their day's required tasks
Fewer details, fewer ties
Our known annual last reprise

I somehow feel neglected though
Your radiance is missed
A depth it warms

Although my lament is futile
To express it helps to ease the chill
Longing for your gentle gold
Cheer and joy when shown through snow
Making beautiful the cold.

-Kelly Voelker

Just Wondering

Is this town the sum of
Declining statistics?
Is it a matter of linguistics?
Is our town protective, isolationist
Emotionless, deflationist?

Are we a frontier town
Going from brick to sheet metal?
Is our town a barracks for
Our local schools growing
Young adults for other locales?

Are we a mailing address for
corporations and legal entities?
Actual offices and building space
occupied by stored items not in use?

Are we streamlining our town
For more practical purposes?
Will the last open businesses
Be the mortuary and care center?
Will the churches remain to
Console the grieving and bitter?

Are we tired from unseen parasites
Routinely living off the cream
Our fleeting lives deal
As purveyors of labor
Just taxes no zeal?

Spend some time dreaming
How the face of our town
Will look in your best idea
Thriving through believing or
Neglected, shielded and sleeping?

We aren't leaders
We're just wondering
Where the leaders have gone
We mill around within our routines
Wondering where this will lead
What, who, where, when?

Proper Fall

We were living the shock of flash-frozen fall.

Now today is the true spirit of fall
With its sunshine, fresh air and
The healing smell of properly brown leaf litter.

I see a whirling bunch of leaves
dance by my window
I hear the undulating sound of crisp wind
As it rises and subsides
Leaving me breathless and
My eyes open wide.

-Kelly Voelker

Character Legacy

Take care to amend
Any notions taken in
As part of your status quo

If your character has had
A mechanical failure due to
Not being engineered well

Fix it in time
To carry out your will
Even after your eventual demise.

-Kelly Voelker

You Could

Could you reassure
Calm and restore

Could you expect more
A higher bar of ethics
Becoming kinetics

Steering change
Without the havoc
Allowing leeway
To drift inline
A safer, milder, gentler kind

Could you wish it
With an open mind
To enter easily just in time

Could you know a harmony as told
Influencing others to unfold
From clenched expectations old

Perhaps this is not a question
But rather, open ended suggestion.

-Kelly Voelker

Change of Plans

I find comfort
As an observer therein
Even when planned and set
The melting of circumstances sent
From the true authority of
All that we think and do
The tasks and schedules
Routes and climbs
No way to circumvent
A subspace tar pit for space and time
With forces grand and spelling out
Our limitations shown grand there too
Resetting reality's clue
Nothing to do but wait and be
Until the end of this calamity.

-Kelly Voelker

Seeds of Inspiration

My inspiration raises
More answers than it questions.

My inspiration praises
It doesn't criticize but suggests
People and their attempts are
On the right track, on their way
The road to realize more.

Inspiration does not notice
Degrees of in-congruence
Or cycles of disparity
Too much or less of anything.

If I overshoot the outcome
It still serves to raise the spirits
For someone may be wondering
If they are in agreement with
Any other nearby soul
Or anywhere between the points
Of the idea and its completion.

Never spare a spark
Within your mind as seed
For this is the trajectory
What is required to inspire
Is your optimism freed.

Sadness

If someone clever
Slipped away to play
And I was left with no direction
No idea could come to pass
With sadness, sadness holding fast
Weighing down my face and eyes
Some well meaning souls
Offer to take me along
For entertainment or storage
But I too sad to accept or
To numb and bereft
Feel my joyfulness was spent
On love and aspirations went
Leave me to the woods and leaves
To retreat and replenish with greater speed.

-Kelly Voelker

*bereft - to be deprived of something
**replenish - fill or build up again

Leavened Dread

 I fear once again the nature of my optimism

Kept in this petri dish study

Will inflate as leavening

Fed by the slightest bit of sweetness

Raising a mass of simple ingredients 

Towards the goal of something 

Which could be enjoyed by all

Yet inevitably gets punched down

To the same level from which it started

That same chronic level of Spartan compliance

Baked into commercial goods

Shunned by artisans 

Who starve in their isolation

By way of insisting on finer and finer 

Focus to delight those imagined few

Who might notice or care

An audience of one or two fair

Resulting in sarcasm

Unwilling to entertain or dare.

-Kelly Voelker

What is Humble?

Humble, as an attribute,
Stands quietly in the distance
As a familiar mountain range
Or the shape of a known landmark
Slightly ahead of
And bowing aside
As others pass it steeped in pride.

Its balanced buoyancy
Keeps it calm
Acquired over time
A ballast of prime proofs
A chalice of found truths
Authentically derived
Offered without words
For all to drink from
If they would ask.

This sequence is key
To knowing the purity
Of the bare plain safety
Of the humble soul
As a lone tree offering
Shelter from competition
Peace from the heckling public
Rest for the weary newcomer
Who walks the Earth blind.

-Kelly Voelker

Productive Poise

She behaved and was punctual
Day in and day out
She prepared, preserved, planned and did
She reserved her opinions
Refrained from the crown
Refused to dream outside
As procedure surrounds
But the Buffalo was silent
The Raven was roost
The Ibis was wading and silent to boot
So where was the magic, the thrill and the loft?
Patient and waiting 'til systems produced
The useful whole offspring of planning and couth. 

-Kelly Voelker

*couth - good manners; refinement.

Autumn Grounding

The Raven was with her mind
As it floated o'er the tides
Inspiration waves and ebbs comprise
Still not landing
Where toil and thoughts blend
Laughter and profanity cackled aside
Her ease as she lowered
Descended and died.

-Kelly Voelker

When an Enigma Dies

As I perceive through a spiritual lens
And accept the changes and amends
I'm coming short of reconciling
A departure of one beguiling

To know the hidden highlights
The lively encounters
The dynamic pursuits
Dimmed by waning hopes
Hidden in time by decades
Before my arrival on the scene

To know one so effected by beauty and life
Could no more share the same planet
Could no more be within physics
Tests the chasm between
The realms I know of and
The realms my body resides in

The bridge won't allow me to cross
To see for myself how it is
To be neither here nor anywhere
But an actual part of peacefulness
Renouncing the human qualities
Known by all but in truth false

No more having the will
To generate an acceptable image
No more willing or able to
Arrange a jolly gathering
Or beguile a single other soul
As now not of features or flaws
Not a creature with claws
A facet of wonder now pervasive beyond
What our ideas and words can respond.

-Kelly Voelker

Beguile -  1. charm or enchant (someone), sometimes in a deceptive way.
2. LITERARY - help (time) pass pleasantly.

Waning -1.  (of the moon) have a progressively smaller part of its visible surface illuminated, so that it appears to decrease in size.
2. (especially of a condition or feeling) decrease in vigor, power, or extent; become weaker.

Hence

As photos dissolve into digital images
Organized on a man-made information cloud
As books become hence, transferred from
author to reader by invisible means
As paintings become digital photographs
enhanced by the light of computer screens
As consciousness sees the world through
technological portals
The memories, the expressions, once
assisted by plants via paper and canvas
Can be owned by us and our own creations
The warehousing and curating of material
Expressions will dissolve, and resources
Freed back to their own natural realms
after ages of division in purpose
We had no other way
The lighter and freer sharing of thought
Beauty and memories automatically
Organized better than before
Disappearing forever once witnessed and born.

-Kelly Voelker

Hence -
1.  as a consequence; for this reason.

2.

in the future (used after a period of time).

Plain Truth

In my mind
Exists the intention
To take in beauty
To observe as
A simple intvention
Asking supreme design
For a crumb, a tid-bit
A pixel, a misfit
A signpost of truth
From designs to unwrap
Hidden in my mind
A treasure of moments
To pass on or amplify
Highlight or pacify
In my mind ideas
Like tumbled plain stones
Become more beautiful
When turned and polished
In my mind are treasures
I reach in to choose
What shall this day reveal
Which thought will thus pose?

-Kelly Voelker

plain - 1. not decorated or elaborate; simple or ordinary in character.

             2.

(of a person) having no pretensions; not remarkable or special.

3.  clearly; unequivocally (used for emphasis).

           4.  a large area of flat land with few trees.

Time Erases Significance

Time erases the significance of everything.  

Current significance exists 

Because of inherited attachments.  

Create something beautiful.

Beauty is the only valid legacy. 

-Kelly Voelker

Morning Grains

The horses and insects
Stand still in first light
Of a new early morning
Positioned to soak in
Golden warmth melting
The chill of the night

I too sit still daily
In the first morning's sun
As the horse I am idle
Browsing the array
Of what's before me
In a leisurely way

Soon come directives
Saddles and reins
Mornings are precious
About idle not bridle
About grains and
Not gains.

-Kelly Voelker

WORDS NUMBERS MUSIC

I can leave this plane at any time
Into a system of words
To play, be entertained
Arranging words until
Sometimes a truth
The words already knew
Is displayed to me
Yes, displayed in words
As if the plane of words
Had its own superior ancient consciousness.

I see at once with this realization
The natural tendency for others
To leave this plane also
There are two other similar planes
With their own innate
Intelligence seemingly waiting for us
To arrange things in a way
That we discover answers and patterns
Displayed before us in the language
Of each other similar plane
These other planes are numbers and music

So are words, numbers and music expressed
In characters so that we can more easily
With words numbers and notes
Play in realms of intelligence
Infinite in scope yet orderly in composition
So that we may replay favorite knowns
And discover any number of unknowns
At our leisure without a fee
As a standard benefit of being human?

-Kelly Voelker

Church as a Catch Pen

What I learned from the bi bull?
A question I asked
Alone I was puzzled
A simple enough task

Nothing . . . the answer
Oh wait there's one thing
The adults in my village
Are not intelligent or
Sensitive enough to feel
Or express that it means
Less than nothing
In their lives. . . to be real.

A peer pressured guilt
Or shame to admit
Fences them in
With an open gate.

-Notes to sELF

Catch Pen - The catch pen is an area where the cattle can easily be gathered and sorted. ... Each catch pen should be large enough to provide approximately 18 square feet per animal. The crowding pen, often referred to as the tub, directs cattle from the catch pen and funnels them into the alley.

Dutiful Work Shrine

This morning brings
The need to reinvent
My mind creates
Wonderful decorations
For all I have
For all I am is a place
To hang beautiful things
Yet as a human in form
I create myself as cool brown
Creamy beige and my eyes
Cannot decide what color to reflect
Even with all the power of
Morning's full light range
I cannot stop shifting and adjusting
To meet the need of the day
Or my shifting thoughts
Once landing for a moment
Are thankful for my shelter
Yet yearn for the next location
Away from the dutiful shrine
Of this little work town.

-Kelly Voelker

End of Summer

The end of season
Push subsides
Harvest, savor, put aside
Enjoy the yield
From heat and sun
Put up feet
Let coast don't run
Walk in alignment
Through the lull
Between the weather
Cycle's done.

-Kelly Voelker

Reluctant to Move

The breeze was moist
With a lingering cling to it
Hanging onto  skin and fabric
As if it was reluctant to move

The clouds wouldn't abandon me
Leaving me for the relentless sun
They insulated my thoughts
With a gentler degree of light

I received four gifts
In random locations as rewards
For performing chores
Coffee, a ripened tomato,
A bistro set and a folding table

The cricket's ringing
Surrounding me with
A welcome frequency
Until a loud machine
Slowly passed by
Cutting nature steadily
As a diluting obscenity

These were the day's highlights
At a place without progression
Where time is as reluctant to move
As the humid summer air
A flashy swallowtail passed
Seeming to know where to go and when
Much more than I do now and then.

-Kelly Voelker

My Name

If my name were initials
A symbol together
My essence to hold
One letter would steer me
One letter would fly
Together in tandem
To signify Phi
One letter the handles
Of a bicycle
The other the head
Of a butterfly with
Multifaceted eyes
Antennae light in the wind
Sensing the softest
Differentiating air
All around would be pollen
Stardust and embers.

-Kelly Voelker

Gravity's Fabric

The greater part
My conscious will
Rolls and tumbles
Drifts and thrills
From natural landscape
Laid throughout
The un-owned frontier
Seen still free
Patterns, lifeforms
Reacting to
Sun and water
Fabric of
Gravity and wind above.

-Kelly Voelker

One Last Time

One last time
I'll sort it out
Taking stock
What's in what's out

One last time
I'll walk upon
Land which held
My family on

One last time
I'll treasure scenes
Kept for memory
Reference, dreams

One last time
To end the tether
Moving on
What's new
Not better

Resident of cycle dear
Life spans signal
Journey here
Insignificant from ages

Land just sighs
With gentle winds
Continued allegro
Spinning spun

Who will saddle up this time?
Those who dream a different picture
Of what memories, families differ

-Kelly Voelker

allegro - (especially as a direction) at a brisk tempo.

Rainy Day Recess

Oh summer storm
Saturate my day
Adding flex to stay
Within this repose
Within this recess
I am hidden from
I belong within
This natural space
Thunder begins
Bringing to attention
All in range
To postpone actions
Plans and friends
Sheltered here
My clear pure place
The storm's umbrella
Under which we wait
As a time of respite
From ideas, fate
The timeline stops
Nature's orb of
Healing balance
In awe we witness
Sound and power
Replete in wonder
Grateful for
Inclusion in
Today's rhythm
Without within.

-Kelly Voelker

repose - a state of rest, sleep, or tranquility.
recess - a small space created by building part of a wall further back from the rest.
respite - a short period of rest or relief from something difficult or unpleasant
replete - satisfied and relaxed

With Forces Unannounced

When a character in my life
Can't negotiate a new season
I must imagine a plot change
Now unimaginable to me

Could someone more interesting
More surprising and present
Take the place of a person
Whose story has worn itself out

The unknown value of all questions
Being that of those yet unmet
Who don't need to know the lines
Of the former or future role
But create it in present time
With me and all new talent

This new story created behind the scenes
Beyond what I understand, yet know
Weaves rainbows and sunny horizons
After storms of all sizes that blow
The prepared linear landscape
For changes erasing rows

Poetic and precise in detail
As the tiniest and broadest all are
Holding it all together
With forces unannounced
Yet powerful around and through
Each pinpoint micro cue

I trust and allow the genius
Of those I do not know now
To fill my future with  joy
With laughter and without ploy.

-Kelly Voelker

ploy - a cunning plan or action designed to turn a situation to one's own advantage

cue - a thing said or done that serves as a signal to an actor or other performer to enter or to begin their speech or performance.

Slight Flow through the Unknown

When the journey becomes long
Through the endless expanse
Look for the flow
The movement, it's branch
Follow the movement even if slight

As a river 'cross continents
Leads with direction
No doubts no worries
Just varied progression

The map through the unknown
Is flow and it's banks
Will show the way always
With patience and thanks.

-Kelly Voelker

Jewelry of the Dead

Small town cemetery
At peace on the hill
A parfait of deceased citizens
Are released here as fill
The granite and stone
Dispersed in varied colors
Shapes heights and tones
At night it is lit by
Stored sunlight
The jewelry of the dead
Reflects beauty
In its permanence
The anchor of families
Outlasting impertinence

As I roll slowly through
Or walk in between
The names of the people
I know and have known
Strumming comfortable
Familiar chords indicating
Everything is as it should be
Isn't it interesting, isn't it free?

The gushing peonies
Bloom and hang with spring rain
As I drive through here
Again and again
Looking for progress
In trees we have planted
Hoping for living landmarks
Increasing advantage over
Neglected and sinking
Markers in rows

I smile seeing names
Of kind relatives gone
Who loved me in hope
I would turn out alright
Their markers are witness
To my acknowledgement of
Their love and pure kindness
Which continues to glow

This hill has a sweetness
Of beauty and still
A lasting display of our
Ancestry mill
Nothing much matters
But names as they are
All seem quite similar
As an assembled stadium
Of citizens and families
Rooted here long
Some have dispersed
Visiting once

Someday I won't
Return here
Even in death
But my name is already
On my parent's red marker
Attesting to the best of what
Lives can dutifully muster

Let this poem be my lasting
Will and testament
Of an impression once rendered
By visiting often
This small town's collection
Of love and remembrance.

-Kelly Voelker

Washed Away Clean

At any time,
The tide can come in
Washing away
Every pattern and way
Every seed and word said
Feelings, desires
Washed away clean
Leaving a beautiful beach
To walk along nights
To stand on and look out
At all of the sights
Instead of looking down at your feet
Staring at patterns we drew in the heat.

-Kelly Voelker

Home Base of Gratitude

My name is Gratitude
Don't act like you don't know
Don't pretend I don't exist here
Or there or with all unknowns
I see things with a softer
Open relaxed breathe
I'm open honest grounded
The opposite of vexed*

You struggle with such effort
You think through all amends
You wonder what you'll do next
You worry, fret, pretend
This is not a war game
Or a complicated test

If you could see through my eyes
You'd see you're in your nest.
You're cared for, valued, healthy
The opposite of hexed

Now a part of binary
Spinning with no effort
You are the perfect combination
Of Earth and fine Ideals

You've awakened from your dream, dear
I'm the pillow under your head
I offer peace and free you
I'm the grateful state of home base
I'm the grateful state, I SEE you.

-Kelly Voelker

* vexed - 1. (of a problem or issue) difficult and much debated; problematic.

2.

annoyed, frustrated, or worried

A Moment's Peace

I look for just a moment's peace
Because that is all I need
To pump out what is drowning me
From inside from down deep
What I feel is flooding
From inside from some source
Is nothing more than changes
Some which I am not versed
The irony is balanced
For what I usually seek
Is o're the next horizon
Beyond where I now sleep
To reach the next horizon
Of changes that I want
I must first survive drowning
In changes from beyond.

-Kelly Voelker

Iris = One

I contemplate the I AM
Without true meaning known
The explanations hollow
The scriptures won't bestow
A deep and integrating
Knowing from inside
But all along it's been here
Growing every spring
In my hometown gardens
In artist's favorite things
It is the Living Iris
So common that it's void
Of meaning or enlightenment
A fleeting burst of joy
I've always had a reverence
For these unique flowers
As exotic as the orchid
The Midwest's own endowed
It's time to seek them out now
The season is at hand
Examine with full focus
Their exquisite high design
Unfolding in unlikely
Unattended scenes
Displaying truth that beauty
Cannot be so erased
By neglect or abandonment
By drought or hottest sun
The iris comes back always
It's I R ... I is . . . ONE

-Kelly Voelker

Lifespan of the River

Lifetimes are like rivers
Meandering through time
Some seem never ending
Others end entwined
Giving all their life force
To another stream
Who will carry
What it can as far as
Where we cannot dream

The ultimate destination
Is the source or larger plan
We have never been there
Until our sudden end

The deltas are these places
Calm and not as fast
Whether reached in old age
If we haven't diminished
Or run out of our banks
Dispersing all we held as
Silt and sand and slough*

Life is a collection of
What we travel through
What we're still attached to
Sinks before we're done
Servicing another
Or becoming part of mud.

-Kelly Voelker

Slough -

1. 1.

   a swamp.

   • NORTH AMERICAN

     a side channel or inlet, or a natural channel that is only sporadically filled with water.
2. 2.

   a situation characterized by lack of progress or activity.

Delta - "When a river reaches a lake or the sea the water slows down and loses the power to carry sediment . The sediment is dropped at the mouth of the river. Some rivers drop so much sediment that waves and tides can't carry it all away. It builds up in layers forming a delta."

NOTE:  As I think about this, civilization can be thought of as a delta.  The layers and remains of so many lifetimes of effort and best attempts.  A city or a library can even be thought of as a delta.

Oh Magnolia

Oh Magnolia
I've known you through all time
Peeking through as softly
As a rabbit in the vine

If there were a symbol
Fragrance or a touch
Which is all I'd ever
Think or feel or want

It's you who are this
Breathless fresh and dearest
To my oldest heart depth
To my hand so neareth.

-Kelly Voelker

There is No Purpose

Lately a concept has visited me which suggests there is no purpose, and to stop looking for one could be the ace of swords to free the soul and mind.  When I really understand this concept in moments of higher clarity it brings up laughter in me!  Like the joke was on me to think there's purpose, and the whole time there wasn't!

We all eventually accumulate a few things we hold as true, and live by them.  For example, I like to be motivated and inspired by the beauty of nature.  Yet, yesterday while gardening, I realized that nature is disgusting sometimes.  This also brought up laughter from deep within me!

Maybe we simply lock and unlock beliefs when it suits us as a tool to navigate where our secret will is trying to go.  Since our will is secret even to ourselves, it has to trick or train us into doing its bidding.

Another moment I felt laughter well up in me was thinking about cemeteries being a waste of time and effort when put into perspective against reincarnation or even resurrection.  The overwhelming majority of people are forgotten in two generations or less.  Their personalities not known, their habits, their thoughts, their accumulated wisdom gone with them to be recycled into the land and ether.  What is passed on is far from what those who knew them remembered, and so it is all false information which others attempt to keep "alive" for others, when it is dead and lost to the living.

The highest laughter came to me when I was explaining this concept to some friends.  A phrase came out rather by accident that I find hilarious.  It was "our existence doesn't matter".  Meaning our existence or multiple existences on this planet do not matter.  The struggles and triumphs are known only to us and even if written down, they will not be read.  With information streaming faster and faster, no one has the time to care, because they are thinking about their own pointless existence.

I will end this by saying that I have even more laughter rising up from within me about these thoughts and my attempts to bring them to a few people for a few minutes in eternity, only for them to disappear thereafter.  Every person will try a lifetime to find purpose and most won't find the truth that I have found, so I was lucky for a moment, but it doesn't matter.

-Kelly Voelker

I've Become an Equation

Kaleidoscope changes of the familiar
Projecting themselves to the perimeter
Of what one believes to be fake
Beholden then later as a beautiful mosaic
With light shown through images
All different I think
Unimaginable changes I lived like a champ
Now indivisible through fog and now damp
Breaking connections then up from the deep
An intelligence finds me from the bottom of the heap
How did it make it from the cutting room floor?
Why the connection? To settle a score?
I've changed and I've tumbled
Now different in scope
Others remain as they bob in the sea
As if time shifts around them and
They could not change
If Heaven and Earth can't
Then who the hell can?
To maintain identity all of that time
Would exhaust me to boredom
More quickly I'd climb
To get out of, get rid of routine
I've become an equation
Not a prime number same.

-Kelly Voelker

equation - A written representation of a chemical reaction, in which the symbols and amounts of the reactants are separated from those of the products by an equal sign, arrow, or a set of opposing arrows. 

prime number - A prime number is a whole number greater than 1 whose only factors are 1 and itself.

Spring in the Ashes

I was burning papers outside in a burn pile.  I noticed all that remained from the last fire was a metal spring.  I wondered what archaeologists would think if they found this simple element, which really says nothing about the notebook or calendar it bound or what was in the notebook or calendar.  Even at this short time expanse, I cannot say for sure if it means anything at all about the civilization we live in.

Later, I heard on the radio, that nature has very specific proteins to create life, and they look like a spring, and some like a Slinky.  They fold up and will tolerate no imperfections.  At certain points in the life creating process, with their specific perfections in tact, they descend into utter chaos only to emerge with the process more advanced than it was before.

From our limited vantage point, we cannot see or understand most of what is going on to perpetuate our natural world as well as what is living out its existence demolishing what is created.

Our sciences are short sighted without physics, and we lack much of the information to even understand ethics.

Ethics are understood best by allowing a broad breathe of intention to guide us towards higher forms of civilization.  Within this, the strong, targeted will of some will have an effect on the trajectory of ethics, but they are thankfully blind to the coarse of nature's final intended destination.

This destination, is only temporary and will branch out towards other specific directions in the sphere of this dimension, and as a particle of insignificance for the Universe to assimilate.

-Kelly Voelker

Destroying the data of
Irrelevant gain
Leaving the outcome
To wind and then rain

No meaning no order
Just everything same
Reverting to elements
The spring still remains.

-Kelly Voelker

The Grasses' Promenade

Brown winter grasses
Forced down to the ground
Forced to behave like the
Frantic water flowing over it
Towards ever lower places
Ever larger lakes
Never large enough 'til
It formed the grand consciousness
Of all water

The grasses hurried as the water
To protect the ground and remain
There after in the disguise of water
Brown dry currents of grass
Protecting what it could
All else yielded and released
Leaving tree roots suspended in air
Over raw river banks ensnared

After having no choice but to serve
Land and acquiescing to the flood
The grasses regained power and rose
Upright off the ground through
Their horizontal remains
Towards the sun refrained
Grasses . . . the proud
Waving mane of the plains
Allowed to brush the belly of deer
Offering to hide one insect from the next
Green renewal and healing
To regions and fields
Creek banks and meadows
Proudly a-wave
The grasses' promenade*.

-Kelly Voelker

*promenade -  a public walk, typically one along a waterfront at a resort
- a leisurely walk, or sometimes a ride or drive, taken in a public place so as to meet or be seen by others.
- (in country dancing) a movement in which couples follow one another in a given direction, each couple having both hands joined

Uncomfortable Lanyards

Time changes avenues
To sure and known things
Travelers and families
All changing with age
Relationships, friendships
Acquaintances too
Can become islands
In view but not touched
Awakening truths about
Routine and myths
Change seems appropriate
Yet cruel in its methods
I wonder why memories
Are a feature still standard
When often they picture
Uncomfortable lanyards*
To maintain or seek out
Or keep within range
When horizons hold
Sunshine and not so much rain.

-Kelly Voelker

*lanyard - late Middle English lanyer, in the general sense ‘a short length of rope for securing something’, from Old French laniere . 

Cry Out the Despair

I don't want to be here
A day or a year
I don't want to stay here
Oh dear oh dear
I want my old landscape
I want my old friends
Some day I will return there
To the open high desert
Alone in the wind
To cry out the despair of
This region, this climate
The disappearance of joy
I want to break out of this
Jail of my own restoring.

-Kelly Voelker

Frontier Angels

Like frontier angels
We floated with few words
Down the stairs
Through the doorways
Stepping silently
On socked feet
In the farmhouse
Of the Great Plains
Nestled next to the creek
For guidance and play

Like frontier angels
Our flannel nightgowns
Billowed with the heat
Of the giant oil furnace
Heating our bones
Directly and deep
During the dark
Of bedtime hours and
Before the dawns bright
We connected together
As children of Light.

-Kelly Voelker

NOTE: I wrote this about my Mom and I, in our flannel nightgowns, taking a moment to enjoy the comfort of hearth and home amid harsh winters in the Midwest.  During these moments, we weren't Mother and Daughter, we were just two souls connecting in silence, twice a day, in the same spot to recharge for the next 12 hours.

My Cloverleaf

Three days watching from my room on the third floor, I look at the cloverleaf's revolving pace. Each truck ticking by, engine's compression breaking in the sub-zero temperatures. Every driver of these ever-revolving trucks is a master driver. Each driver is more capable than most people at navigating weather and hypnotic, repetitive sequencing along the linear route. Each driver is driven as he drives, to meet the next tick on the click of larger ticks on the clock of commerce. How many of these master drivers exist, when so prevalent as this just on my cloverleaf?

Three days watching from my room on the third floor, I look at the Wendy's across the street on one petal of my cloverleaf. Is it just another modern roach motel poisoning time-crunched, value-conscious travelers? I realized after going there myself, that it is managed by a wonderful and capable person; responsible day in, day out, for staffing as well as making sure the food is hot and satisfying. This person is responsible for the facility itself functioning perfectly for restrooms and seating. It's an indoor travel park for the pausing traveler.

Three days watching from my room on the third floor, I see countless semi-trucks parked as their drivers sleep, and yet others are chatting with the 24 hour night manager of my hotel. Is she happy for the company? It matters not, for as a bartender, it is her job to entertain and accommodate those who need a place to rest, or someone who just wants to stand and visit awhile after sitting and being alone for hours on end.

This is just my cloverleaf. How many others as you replicate each across the United States? I will not think of fast food restaurants as roach motels but now, but as efficient ships with their own captains and crews, serving the public at all hours, sleeping, eating, and then doing it again and again. They meet the public's needs on a daily basis without fail, and if they fail, someone else must meet the need. Are their needs being met on this timeless extent?

-Kelly Voelker

cloverleaf - a junction of roads intersecting at different levels with connecting sections forming the pattern of a four-leaf clover. (North American)

extent - the degree to which something has spread; the size or scale of something.

Code of Tiny Details

My mind open wide
My eyes scoop up
The vast prairie landscape
Mile after mile
Yielding tiny details
Huge subtle patterns emerge
The local spoonbill scoops
Large amounts of water
On the move
To yield tiny zooplankton
From which to nourish himself
To survive longer than other fish
From what is written
In the code of the tiny details.

-Kelly Voelker

What Do I Sound Like Inside Your Mind?

For those who don't know me
When reading my poems
What do I sound like?
In your mind on your own
You must make up a sound
As you're reading the lines
Fashioning an image of
What someone like me
Would sound like if fluent
And speaking to thee
I never read aloud my own poems
It feels unnecessarily naked
Like my voice cannot own
The sentiments shared here
From an ancient wise soul
Sarcastic about society's
Strongholds and norms
Yet hopelessly loving
Trace sentiments hidden
In mundane experience
Each horse had been ridden
Each path had been trod
A great depth of experience
Eager to respond
A witness and sympathizer
From the mysterious beyond.

-Kelly Voelker

When I Finally Relaxed

When I finally relaxed
My body had changed
Not holding my breath
Not being so vain
When I finally relaxed
My hair had extended
Full of shine with no style
As genetics intended
When I finally relaxed
I expanded inside
Blanketing feelings
Evicting my pride.

-Kelly Voelker

The Thrill of Spill

Once my bucket was finally full
I gushed and overflowed
Onto the page and
Onto everyone in range

Then I am once again
A little less than full
Still once again

Sorry for spilling
Some people
Don't like to get wet
Only when they are
Expecting it

-Kelly Write Away

Feelings Blend

Life slowly rolls out details for us
Making the complexities simple
Our perspectives change slowly
This causes disorientation
When attempting to revisit
Old places and people we knew
Our memories inaccurate and few
Unlikely people move into iconic positions
Iconic people move into helpless positions
Our peers of yesterday are leaders of today
Yet in their faces is seen
The person they were as we
Realize what was can last
Even as perspectives mask
The essence of people now and then
Is a beautifully witnessed feelings blend.

-Kelly Voelker

Treading Time

Treading water seems to imply walking on it.
I'm treading time
Many days I feel I have already dialed it
Forward and back
But this time, this place I'm treading
Must be important
A chapter that is not understood
A few words not noticed
My character's entire reason
For being part of the plot
Instead of just mentioned by name
The scenery keeps changing
But I'm still here marking the days
Treading the time
No one can guess the outcome
They soldier on as if they know
Their images seem to sharpen with age
As mine fades ever more quickly
Maybe it is tiring to keep turning back the wheel
Of a vessel which is being pulled hard the other way
Resistance only exists as my own pondering
Questions within questions
Where everything seems certain
Except for what I'm doing here.