Another Other

Another Other

I had to take a nap today

I was completely exhausted

From trying to be someone I’m not

I guess that’s why some have to drink their coffee

I guess that’s why some have to smoke their pot

It seems we’re all one day thrown into this game

This game where so very few are winners

This show, this play, this fantasy world

Of lights, of sounds, of spinners

We’re supposed to act one way in public

Then be another whole other in bed

We’re supposed to smile like there is no tomorrow

Even when our past and our present are dead

We must laugh when we want to be somber

We must cry when we just want to leave

We must carry every one else’s burdens

While our own over Gibraltar we heave

Into the oceans of forgetfulness and naught

I had to take a nap today

I need one every time

I work to live out another’s poem

Instead of living out my own rhyme

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

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.