The Gift Orchid

The Gift Orchid

I see the remains of the potted orchid,

A symbol of friendship and time

Sitting brown and dead on the pavement

Shriveled completely from neglect

From busy-ness and lack of respect

The little things got in the way of the life things

And now all that remains is a dry and crumbling waste

That not even water will revive

It simply shows how we must invest the time, the effort

To keep what is living alive

While letting the sordid details to themselves

Don’t set what’s important up on the shelves

Until they’re a withering, nebulous ghost

Of the past.  What I want to last, I must water

What I want to live, I give life

Otherwise none of all this really matters

K, Duane Carter  8/11/13

Wreck it

Wreck it

In a place of freedom

I have the liberty to dream, to think,

To act

Which is why so many of our wondrous ones are enslaved;

imprisoned, silenced, tortured, wounded, scarred...someone, something

Doesn’t want them dreaming, creating, living...

So who is there to help them if not the ones who are already free?

What will the world look like when there is no slavery?  

It will look like the place I want my children and grandchildren to live

What creative genius is locked behind walls of evil filth?

What bringer of hope and life is shackled under oppressive chains?

Whose daughter has been stolen?  Whose son?

What child’s life has been stomped on and beaten all for the name of a moment’s pleasure?

In a place of freedom

I have the liberty to dream, to think, to write

To act

It is time

K, Duane Carter 7/13/13

Sense Eternal

Sense eternal

there seems to be a place where I live

yet I cannot seem to dwell there

I cannot seem to breathe the air there

all the while smoldering in this sordid heat

and dryness, dark and dust

I live in a land of angels and oceans

Streaming rivers, birds in flight

Mists dancing with the mountains

Where words are never enough

You have to breathe in the beauty

For it just becomes a part of you

I feel it in the depths of me

I know I am there

I can feel the colors, the sounds 

The movements of the symphonies eternal

yet I can still smell the dust, the heat

Instead of running through golden fields of wheat

I simply sit here and yearn for more

I refuse to live in an unending chore

But rather dwell in the beauty

Knowing that it must flow forth from me

Water for the trees

Healing for the nations

Joy and hope and deep libations

Of all that is good and real

there seems to be a place where I live

I simply have to dwell there

or maybe rather let it dwell in me

K, Duane Carter 6/29/13

Sun

Sun

I ride by the mystical mountains

upon a purely white, God-breathed note

I slip into His eternal chambers

with a single bright sound that He wrote

I allow my spirit to return quickly to Him

without shame I no longer hide

as I move into the fire of His sun

He moves me into this mythical ride

The myth is more than just happenstance

The truth is simply too much to flee

The throes of His love are simply too much to grasp

Until I realize their grasp is on me

I ride by the Mystic of mountains

resting on this purely God-breathed note

I lie here in His eternal chambers

being the song that He wrote

K, Duane Carter

Surprises (Theme of 2013)

Surprises

Sometimes God shows up in surprising ways

He comes upon us and messes up our left-brain strays

Waking us up from our slumbers

Our endless, stony days without numbers

Just waiting outside the realms of the religious

Calling us to spread out our wings and fly with Him.

He rests sometimes right above our heads

As we longingly look elsewhere for our bread

Standing outside in the rain and storm

Forgetting, ignoring our original form

Where the light caught our wings and lifted us higher

We have taken stones and form in place of fiery desire

It is less painful, but is not living

God patiently waits, He patiently waits

The light and the music continue to wake

The waves move within our souls, and our minds

To our hearts the melodies one day will find

Then breath will come, warmth will come

The stony caricatures will be undone

We will all find our wings and soak in the sun

Our songs will never be quite the same

Blast from the Past!!!

Longing
Time is fleeting by, never stopping
To hear the water from the rose petal dropping
Into the softened earth that gives us breath
The same earth which holds us after death
So much to do, so much to give
So much to see, we can’t help but live
For the time is fleeting, never stopping
To hear the withered rose petal dropping
To the chilling earth that beckons death
The same earth that holds our every breath
Of somber wind and playful breeze
Of peaceful lakes and roaring seas
That know not that time which slips away
That know not that death that shall come one day
To meager mortals, as they sit dying
Who can do nothing but complain how their time is flying
With the hummingbird: it is here, it is gone.
Days are so desolate when spent all alone
With only the clock as a friend
The day will soon end
As the life of a small rose petal, dropping to the softened earth.
What gentle mirth will be when there is no time.
kdc 6-87

I have been getting the last 25 years of poetry I have written put all together.  I've come across several I wrote as a teenager, and thought, "What the heck!!  Let's post this old stuff!!"  I was a little more dark and introspective back then....

Presents

Presents

I sit in the presence of golden and shadows

While my soul it does the same

Yet there is something wondrous about the light

In all of it’s amber revelations

That speaks of infinity, and, yes, beyond

A presence that is always there and always love

Even as the earth turns her face away

She is still met with warm and gentle kisses

Even though the light does fade

It truly never does

It is always burning, always bright, always beautiful

Nothing in this world can stop it

Nor can anything in any other world for that matter

I sit in the presence of the golden and the shadows

Knowing that even in the midst of coming darkness

The light is always shining on my face

K, Duane Carter 1/10/13