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).