Sense of Loss

 At last, I've put a finger

Firmly on a strange feeling

Before now I couldn't identify

When one sees pictures of hieroglyphs

Or tours a grand home from the previous century

Or as now when I carefully sift through

What is left of my parent's long life together.

Or when I see where a railroad track was removed

Or a one room schoolhouse standing in ruin. 

What is this feeling so sad and so dear

It is the profound 'sense of loss.'

I feel we are losing the ability to be simple and free

I feel we are losing our basic survival instincts

To a mountain of plastic nothingness.

Our virtues are tied to commercial holidays

Our emotions milked with well designed ploys

We rely on calculators as we rely on this nothingness

To chart our lives as emptiness drives so many

Out of their minds.

No stability thrives, as security hides 

From the amplified chaos the nothingness breeds

Can one construct from what's left

A life to preserve and use what others would refuse

In solitary satisfaction that these were correct actions

Are these surviving objects futile or essential clues?

-Kelly Voelker

Patterns and Depth

I AM the patterns and the depth I sweep away in a flurry of gust All the papers and tokens kept I accelerate the rust On ironclad beliefs you trust I change the weather In front of and behind To rearrange the plans you make To show you undulations of fate And spread apart the leaves you rake. -Kelly Voelker

The Precipice of Today

Is this the first day or the last Which progression will unmask Is it the last day of security Or the first day of impurity Where my beliefs and instincts fail Or my newest triumph will prevail Is this the last day of a glorious age In which we were too distracted to Realize it was the best we knew Is this the gateway to being tranquilized For an operation we wouldn't choose otherwise But settle on as diminished options rule A ways and means to stay as best As we can with herd control Today however beauty streams Even within societal extremes I still feel happiness and hope Stronger still than yesterday On the precipice which is today. - Kelly Voelker

Fishing for Answers

The thought that the worst

Could contain all the best

The thought that I might be

A little bit wrong

Even this thought felt

Like a new favorite song

The thought of recovery

After sickness and death

The thought of connection as

A new escape hatch

We're in it no matter

We're together the same

Let's hook the answers

Like a fish in our brain

So deep in the unknown

It won't yet have a name.

-Kelly Voelker

Inspiring Vitality

If I want to grow
By leaps and bounds
I will inspire
With others in tow

If I want survival
Beyond what I see
I will inspire
By thoughts ever free

Whether person or village
It matters not much
If there's no inspiration
It's mortal, unjust
Life-span inevitable
The story done told
No need to create
No need to unfold.

Whether person or village
Inspiration will seed
Unfolding of change
Which will blossom and feed
This imagination is: Vitality

-Kelly Voelker

Bad Blood

Bad blood eventually becomes
The infrastructure all come upon
When suddenly finding oneself
Caught up and captive
In red tape and systems
Which won't dare or heed
But hide in the shadows
Occluded by vagueness
Stonewalling ideas
Rooted in greed.

Secrecy protects
Ulterior motives
Preventing solutions and
Straight common sense

No news is possible
No facts can be found
No opinions well stated
So gossip abounds

Free flowing progress
Dries up or goes elsewhere
Preventing some new blood
From healing the wounds of
An old bad blood network
Too hidden to see
Stunting the quality of
The whole community.

Kelly Voelker

The Sun and Moon of Spirit

When my spirit faces the sun I string optimism 'round Problems and neglect. I see promise in the condemned Misused and historic relics. When my spirit faces the moon I realize I was seeing the world Through a lens of the future Not seeing right what is important In this particular reality. Not in this town Not at this time Only in this world At magical moments Appearing just often enough To keep my spirit facing the sun As an example or moment To outlast who won And during the moon I'm still here but not seen Waiting for a better day To improve what I see. -Kelly Voelker

Getting Caught Up

What would it take To get catch up with the pace Does it feel like you'll always Be losing the race? Have you fallen behind while In route of your dreams? Perhaps you have realized Nothing is as it seems. Not dreams, not your visions Not your career or provisions Not easily acquired Or maintained within hours You reasonably expected Or thought would suffice Instead you are living On borrowed money and time. What would it take to Achieve something more simple Within easier reach Not likely to stumble When satisfied within means Of a natural human Caught up is the person Who at heart is more humble. -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.

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).

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.

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.

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

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

Contrast and Colors Did Fade

When all of the contrast and colors did fade
Each person more natural and Earthen
Walked less noticeable through the day
Not sparking contention, desire or dismay*

When combined within range
All people looked similar, relaxed and maintained
Their tasks and their lives and their families more well
Competition was extinct and image for show
Egos were banished and security flowed

For no conquering, stealing or betrayals were done
Because harmony, joy, and accomplishments spun
Where more fun, more creative and more honor was given
To those who used wits to solve hitches in progress
And waste was not normal and anger was evil
Among the moderate pace of the self-governing people.

-Kelly Voelker

contention - 1.heated disagreement  2.an assertion, especially one maintained in argument.
dismay - consternation and distress, typically that caused by something unexpected

My Dreams are Blessings

In my state of Purity
My dreams will become
Blessings for all life on Earth.

-Kelly Voelker

What has me Agitated

What has me agitated
Isn't what it seems or kind
What has me agitated
Isn't senseless, mean or blind

On the innermost and unused
Reaches of my soul
A sensitive, protective mind
Wants so to control

Who and what are near me
Who and what will pass
Foreseeing opposition
Alerting senses last

What it sees is eminent
Near and is the prize
For a long term process
A cycle's end in time

Can I ride the ending
Before it's even written
Expecting certain changes
Expecting to be bitten

As I take the reward
For lasting through these tests
Will the rules return to
The patterns I know best?

-Kelly Voelker

agitated - feeling or appearing troubled or nervous
eminent - used to emphasize the presence of a positive quality