Zephaniah

Zephaniah

How can one write a song

When everything inside is dead

In place of Nietzshche’s song of killing God

I have murdered my own soul instead

It was too much guilt to kill the great Creator

The One that loved me so,

So I turned my gun onto my heart

And pulled the trigger

Countless times

I kept pulling and pulling and pulling and pulling

Until I felt nothing

No fun, no peace, no desire, no yearning

Nothing but a determination

To survive in perfection each and every single day

Yet perfection never came

Perfection never comes

Now I feel nothing

Not the pain of defeat

Not the joys of triumph

Not the torment of love

Nor it’s deep satisfactions

Not the love for my wife, my children

Only the hate for my enemies

This burns on the embers

Of my heart’s ashen stone

So my work here is gasping

Short, darkened groans

There is no song in all of that

No dancing, playful rhythms

I hear Zephaniah

I hear a singing

I feel the airy movements of dance above

Just like the butterfly’s wing that causes the maelstrom

I sense a great destruction, a ferocious, deep love

A destruction of all that is darkness

All that is hopeless

I see a great wind that will blow this away

I hear Zephaniah

A kindling has fallen on the embers

K, Duane Carter 7/14/15

Waking the Dead

I am newly arrived
Got here 40 years ago
With my eyes to the skies
And then as time rolled on
My eyes turned downward
And then inward
And that is where I lost the view
That is where I don’t know me from you
And now I have no clue how to get out of here
I’ve got no prophet, I’ve got no seer
To show me the way
This is my day
Day in and day out
Day in and day out
I walk round and round and round about
In the very same circle
It’s just the smells that get older and older
I look at the autumn leaves of fire
And somewhere inside of me it lights a desire
To go back to that place, that place once again
Before my eyes were turned down
Before my eyes were turned in
And know what it is like to see the sun
And to know its fire
To know the life of a heart of desire
I know it is there
It has got to be there
Because I hear it burning right before my eyes
I feel it stirring, stirring in my chest
Could it be, could it be that it came in my rest
And not from walking around in the circles?
I see a moth, its wings spread wide
It rests upon the screen door outside
And the light does display its wonder
Now I feel the splitting asunder
Of those things that keep me imprisoned within
I see the moth take flight again
And know that is about to happen to me
Set me free, Jesus, set me free

My God, I am alive!! kdc 11-2-09


I apologize for taking the title from the book that I just read, but this poem and the theme of that book are so closely linked that I had to use it that way.

The Picture

The Picture

There is a picture of God’s plan for us here
We start in the center with darkness
Then we see glimpses of His glory and majesty
We are then immersed in the crimson of His blood
And as we go outward leaving the darkness far behind
The realities of His resurrection and His glory become far more clear
And the realities of His resurrection power become far more bountiful to us
Than when we first saw those glimpses of His glory
They become so glorious that they overshadow the dimness of death and dying
They become so clear that all of this worlds other alternatives are dull in comparison
There is a picture of God’s plan for us here
He whispers His love for us in all things He has made
We see with our ears and hear with our eyes
When we simply take the time to listen and see
In ways that go beyond our mere reality
That is only a shadow of what is truly there
God places His love in a flower with care
And waits for us to simply kneel down and see it

kdc 9-14-08