Time to Detach

 As nightfall came into bed I slipped

My shadow stepped into my inner cathedral

Announcing it wanted an audience to quibble

Why didn't I say what I really meant?

Why didn't I go where I wish I had went?

It gave me examples for next time around

I dismissed it at some point taking flight into sleep

I awakened more slowly than normal it seemed

Slowly recovering I walked through the house

Sitting in my lanai I could see squirrels and sunshine

Surrounded by doves gently cooing away

I said "Oh how beautiful it is this new day!"

I will wait and do nothing, just watch it unfold

Waiting with patience in my safe nest

Progress will happen, now it's time to detach.

Kelly Voelker

Selective Gatekeeper

As I lay in bed

I fantasized about honesty

What if I could give feedback

True and concise

Ending the offerings

Which missed more than hit

My sensitive feelers

Both defensive and hid

Waiting for meaning or

Connections of fate

Revealing the purpose

This new phase creates.

-Kelly Voelker

No Egos

I sought out warm pools

To warm my bones

To sooth away tension

Amid geezers and crones

I shed preconceptions

I welcomed the greetings

Of how are ya's and hi's

I floated and dreamed

While the others conversed

Surrounded by calmness

No egos were nursed

-Kelly Voelker

Welcome

In a moment I could see

What was all a lie

Had been telling me

To fear that which was true

That which was true 

Said nothing except

Welcome me and

Introduce itself. 

-Kelly Voelker

Daybreak Potential

As new as the sun

Early at dawn

My native amazement in

Self satisfied style

Filled me with daybreak 

Potential and smiles

Freshly suspending 

This moment in time

To savor the flavor and

Rejoice a while!

-Kelly Voelker

Anywhere West Painting series

 Anywhere West Series

by Kelly Voelker

Oil Paintings with Beeswax Medium on Paper

9" x 12" paper shipped in 12" x 16" floating glass frame*

To PURCHASE,  email me at kellywriteaway@gmail.com.  Venmo and cash accepted.

This summer I'm at the Windmill Market.  Windmill Market, at the Old Pilger Rest Stop near Pilger, Nebraska, on hwy 275.

2024:  June 29, July 27, August 31, September 28

.                                                                             #1 Anywhere West.   July 2023   SOLD 

#2 Anywhere West July 2023    $125

                                                      

#3 Anywhere West July 2023  $125

#4 Bio Vitale  SOLD
1 Print available $27

#5 Grassland $125  SOLD
1 Print available $27

#6 Change $125

#7 Spirit of Sage SOLD

#8 Anywhere West One  SOLD

#9 Anywhere West 2
Framed in Barn Wood $155

#10 Wetland $125

#11 Sand Landscape $125

#12 Coyote Not for Sale
Prints available $27

To purchase,contact me at kellywriteaway@gmail.com

*All paintings ship in floating glass frame.  

Strangers and Roommates

We are coupled for life

Strangers and roommates alike

My physical body and me

Mysteries to each other

Unable to see

Unable to know

The depths of each other

Learning of new things

Surprises and wonder

We will never understand or imply

We will never agree which of us really is "I".

-Kelly Voelker

The Delta

Always traveling winding round

Faster, slower, success bound

Long is the river of the prime voyage

I'm at the delta of revision

I've brought myself with my sediment

Like the bottom of a wine bottle

All that's left after a rich life savored

To a large and endless horizon 

A large body of water, new to me

With no obvious current or direction 

I cannot go back up against the stream

So I sit here in the delta

Letting the muddied waters settle.

-Kelly Voelker

When Trust is Pruned

If you've ever felt pretty

Or valued so wide

The growth kept on greening

The branches confide

As though the surroundings

Would have ever more

Of your blooming and greening

Towards expansion du jour.

In years of your habit

Maturing in height

Someone decides

"I'll prune you tonight."

For any who have had their

Trust pruned or sheared,

May your branches recover

More lush than last year.

-Kelly Voelker

Bleak

 It was here I learned

The meaning of bleak

I felt it in my bones

Here week after week

The word whispered 

Behind my mind's eye

Suggesting a feeling

Of others before I.

-Kelly Voelker

Bleak* - (of an area of land) lacking vegetation and exposed to the elements.

(of the weather) cold and miserable.

(of a building or room) charmless and inhospitable; dreary

*Definitions from Oxford Languages

Dusk

The breeze at dusk was kind and good

So some clouds went as far West as they could

To watch the sunset glow and dim

As shadows drew the landscape grim.

-Kelly Voelker

Our Own Canopy

Within our own canopy

Of perceived reality

Relying on none

Alone in the sun

Besting our own

Personal records

Refraining from drama

Obeying our accords*

Between our own

Conferring aspects

Keeping it pure

Keeping it abject.  

-Kelly Voelker

*accords - official agreements or treaty

*abject - (of a person or their behavior) completely without pride or dignity; self-abasing.