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

Before Words

Before words were ever said
Uniform responses couldn't blend
Each person unique was read
A natural sound or gesture
Willingness to understand and mentor

Before books were used
Alertness was but for cues
A sigh, a glance, a normal stance
Before behavior was standardized
I wonder why, whom and where
Could thoughts be transferred with a stare
Or known in advance by character each
The code of human before speech.

-Kelly Voelker

A Temporary Lifestyle

A temporary lifestyle
For temporary needs
In temporary circumstances
Direction I will heed

Intending to tread lightly
And not establish habit
A routine nonetheless
Has taken to me rapid

Maybe I can skip past
Details to the end
Skipping unread pages
The story to upend.

- Kelly Voelker

heed - pay attention to; take notice of
upend - set or turn (something) on its end or upside down

Let it Run Down

If a river must run in order to be
Let it run peacefully down to the sea
Let it make eddies and wrap around rocks
Let its banks hang with currants a-vine
May it meet grasses in clumps too in kind

I will just stand on the banks as a witness
With bucks, eagles, herons and muskrats there too
We will allow our worst to move on
Staring in silence at the pattern of stream
Grateful and honest above drifting thought
On the banks of the river, innocent as fawn

-Kelly Voelker

Auto Finish

Yesterday opened a chute
Gravity was waiting there
Ready to receive
What the Center will transmute
Somewhere a silent sun
Masked by the light of One
We call the Sunshine

The chute opened at night
When all waves became troughs
The moon was irrelevant
Pulling its way but the Center
Pulled harder and I trusted it

I gave away my idea of what I should be
Leaving only what I AM
All the moral debts paid towards
Countless bad investments
All the blame for making these decisions
All the blame for not seeing the risk
All the blame for not finishing
A race which I cancelled

I was not meant to produce
I was meant to create
What has value only to
Others who create beauty
Out of deep contemplation
Out of casual accidents of beauty
Born from the act of merely starting

What I was meant to produce
Finishes itself because I introduce
The Source of Creation to those
Who doubt it comes through
Each of us as we are turned
Uniquely inside out.

-Kelly Voelker

Born an Empath

Born an Empath

Sensitive

To killing bugs

To killing animals

To destruction

To loud noise

To criticism

During the decades

Where I appeared

Less sensitive

I used people as gloves

As a bridge between

The Empath and

The world as it is now

While working

Gloves were necessary

I was more confident with gloves

They were a necessary

Extension of me

A bridge between

The Empath and

The world as it is now

In Mid-Life

More solitary

Poetry and computers

Communicate for me

Plants also are a bridge

Between the Empath and

The world as it is now

The last of my

Family and friends

Are my fortress

Shielding the Empath from

The world as it is now

From this fortress

I will paint the future

Into Being

What I feel day by day

Now by Now

-Kelly Voelker

Nudist Spies

When cold snaps trigger brittle chills
Mammals fur plumps bigger, thicker
People layer wool and down
Layers over ears are wound

Trees behavior opposite
Shedding leaves from highest bonnets
Undressing right before our eyes
Leaves then dressing ground well over
Plants and insects taking cover
Dying, sleeping, frozen still

The trees remain as
Stoic flow charts from
Earth's main frame hidden under
Keeping tabs reducing clutter
Winds and snows and weeping staffs
As snows and ices melt in morn
Sun returns a bright adornment
O're the grey and brown adjustment

When all else flees, sleeps or dies
The trees become nudist spies.

Living in a Greenhouse

We live in an experimental bubble
A grayness tones down
Even the brightest experiences
So that we never really win
We never really finish
We never really overcome
Without something else
Toning down the victory

I'd like to imagine
Living in a greenhouse
Instead of a bubble
Where the sun is warmer
Even on cloudy days
We can capture growth
Beyond where we are now

Outside this bubble
Is a compassion so deep
It's warm pulse shakes apart
Our defenses and reasoning
It melts away any explanations
Leaving only hot thick tears
Leading to laughter or sobbing
Both so completely emptying
Our minds and hearts
That only gratitude remains

For no one here and now
Can feel or know it
Only after a great fever and suffering
Can I know it
Poetry, nature and right composition
Show us the Beauty that doesn't usually cheat
To help us win this game.

-Kelly Voelker

The Kinglet is Hopping

The trees may be cut down
The intentions unknown
But the kinglet is hopping
So I won't be forlorn

He hops from the right side
And to the far left
It's always the same
And always the best.

The bushes where rabbits played
Are cut down and gone
But the kinglet is hopping
So it must be a dawn

Of something now cleaner
Of something now new
The kinglet is hopping
And the squirrels are now too.

-Kelly Voelker

*Kinglets are tiny insect and spider-eating birds.  The one I see always hops the same direction, and has all spring and summer.  He rapidly checks the edge of the lawn where it meets my patio for food, and then goes into the lawn to hunt.  His habit is always from the right to the left.

The Cross of This Existence

I'm aware of Divine presence
I'm aware of Earthly stance
I know which one I'm into
Sometimes I misstep in this dance

A harmony would be here
If something could only bridge
The nothingness of being between
Poles that do not shift

The orchestra of crickets
In the morning stillness knows
The cicadas and the fireflies
Dusk's bridge to the unknown

They're the lateral perfect balance
To the extremes psychics feel
Between the seen and unseen
Where life went, when and where

Between living and where life went
Is a thin and beautiful veil
Which to the blind is distant
But close when I'm aware

I feel crickets as a cosmic song
As heard here on this Earth
When everything is changing
It ensures I know my worth

The essence of pure consciousness
Is a chirping, ringing song
Sped up past our senses
From dusk and through 'til dawn.

-Kelly Voelker

What Does the Hemlock Know?

What does the lovely hemlock say
Amid mid-summer storms
Prevalent and principled
Exists as if the norm
To be so terribly poisonous
And feared in stories old.

Yet with every summer
In each pasture, roadside fence
The hemlock thrives among
Those side by side, cattle whom
Heads are down to graze
Just browsing 'round they roam.

Now mid-summer suddenly sees
Hemlock dry and brown
Amid a rainy summer
It prepares for early fall.

"What does the hemlock know", I say
"Why is it leaving now?"
A wise and fearsome plant it is
And yet it's gone away.

-Kelly Write Away

Poetic Ambition

I woke up from a troubling night
Unwanted rhythms and unwanted senses
Insisted on telling me things which were extra
Nothing I needed to know or act on
Just a jazz jumble all the way to dawn.

This morning I decided to wake up from this fog
Looking at sunrise from the couch lit me up
Wanting to create and make herbal salve
Wanting to eat a big breakfast out in public
Being with neighbors and whomever is there
Sharing a moment of soul food and care

Now as a poet and psychic in One
I want a small practice to occupy and run
A storefront open to heal much of what
Torments and hinders those who would want
Freedom and peacefulness not obstacles
Hidden and posing as "should" and "should of's"

I want to be as important and seen as a
Lawyer or accountant or hairstylist place
Offering deep seeded answers today
With no tools needed just grace and a chair
Who would be bold and who would turn cheek
At such a pure calling to help others on the street?

-Kelly Voelker