Act VIII

Honing the details of setting my table

Keeping it balanced as well as I'm able

Now I'm the wine from the grape that rolled off

Sipping on nuance and laughing inside

The South is a tempest but I will not move

Holding my own, I sway and improve.

Act VII

Creating a beauty for Mom's impending end

We became much more and ended as friends

A harmonious, meaningful, peaceful transition

I treat it as treasure, not an imposition

Experiencing family as never before

Choosing to follow a sister to a strange shore

Pirating treasures after others upend

Creating a new life as I can now depend

On my autonomous being who has no designs

But simply exists to see richness behind.

Act VI

I arrived in my hometown with a small-time RV

Camped on an herb farm earning my keep

Played cards with Mom everyday of the week

Ran on the track like did back in high school

Gardened and worked some to keep my mind sharp

Painted and wrote some to reconcile odds of

Me being back here as grounded as clods

The prairie's poetic, expansive and nods

So I continue, no need to use prods.

Act V

I was swept to California with no ties to cut

A golden appeal and tension relaxed

Seamlessly grafted in an abundant locale

Social bonds formed as we relearned some truths

Sightseeing, basking and enjoying our fruits

The fruits were some knowledge of a wider concept

Creation, invitations and bonds were cemented

Until my mother required attention.

Act IV

I matured in the business of beauty and care

Created a rich home of love and tradition

Garnished with eccentric details of mine

Warmed by my animals and love of a kind

I expanded as natural for someone who is grand

Not what I expected, could handle or stand

I rolled off a table, messed up and tilted

Towards again city to pick out the splinters

Too big to employ too small to start over

I started again where I was once in college

Talented, hopeful but faith somewhat tarnished.

Act III

In response to an ad for some models in town

I stumbled upon a new world to surround

Myself in the rolling edges of beauty

Trends and the products used to adorn

Me and my friends with a bright uniform

Changing as fast as the seasons and shutter

Keeping me employed and restoring their order

What a beautiful fun-filled number of decades

The grooming and primping of others we would

Elevate ourselves as we mirrored their good

Soundboards and switchboards and loyal fanatics

Of successful charades and pretend their dogmatics

We learned the full ways of the rich and pretentious

Knowing their real selves, confidants and breaches

Supporting their egos and covering their stitches.

Act II

The shock of awareness in my new destination

Hurt plenty but healed with inquisitive ways

Venturing further than others choose

At the newest of edges I fed on the splash

Of fashion and artistic means but no cash

I missed my old family back on the farm

I returned to the nearest encampment near home

A far cry from city life, hollow, forlorn

My practical skills barely kept me afloat

But my faith in my future was a seaworthy boat

Of enthusiastic and laughter-filled breaks to which

Offices, blue collar bars can't relate.

Act I

I had it all as a child

Kittens, horses, and I ran wild

Chickens, willows, guineas and streams

Ice jams and fruit jams and beavers and breeze

I had loving and fun family at dinners

Home baked filled rolls, desserts and critters

I had wide open skies and freedom all day

When I reached a ripe age, I was drawn far away.

Imagine a white grape on a level wood table

Rolling off boldly, too close to the edge 

Of what people wanted and what they would dread.

Kelly Write Away

Odyssey - Series of Poems, Acts I - VIII

 Preface

My adult life was a succession of intense loves.  This series of Acts is my own Odyssey. 

It was inspired by the following quote: 

"It's hard to love a woman and do anything" which comes from the famous Russian author Leo Tolstoy, written in his classic novel Anna Karenina.

I realized instantly, after reading that quote, that love of any kind distorts the expected trajectory of youth as they leave home. Even love of pets distorts many potential trajectories of the intended course in life.

Also acknowledged by me, is my own role as "that which was a roundabout or stone in a free-running stream" for others.

In this series of Acts, I have managed to keep out romantic reasons and templates surrounding or as subsets of any phases of my life, leaving only the skeleton, or trajectory, minus romantic drama and passionate crescendos.  

I will be adding separate posts for each Act. There are Acts I - VIII.

Each is a short poem.

Blackbird Nursery Rhyme

Blackbirds raucous

Gimme what you've got

Two young blackbirds

With their mamma out

Trailing, flailing

Gimme what you've got

What feeds blackbirds

Learning now what's what

Blackbirds raucous

Gimme what you've got.

~Kelly 

Dishonest Good Byes

For those who are drawn away

By duty, routine, adventure 

There remains those

Who assist in deed and say

Bon voyage, come what may

But in whose heart, quiet and earnest

Silently pleading, "Don't go, don't go"

Then a quickly silent, "Please don't go."

Then in private grieve your absence

For a moment they suffer some then come about

Dishonest good byes hide love and connection

Shocked, unplugged

Left with the truest friend inside

Solitude trusts you will confide.

Kelly Voelker

Alive With Grief

Would I rather be alive with grief

Or dead with indifference

Herein lies the obvious significance

My own continuance implies preference

To submitting myself raw

To the emotional world wounded

The billowing caws

Of a primal core me

Coloring red my everyday tea.

-Kelly Voelker