Vacillate

Vacillate

It’s something that I simply do

Oscillate

Something old to something new

Then back again and back again

I search out for the intricate

Only knowing what is dubious

This shifting comes on, furious

Leaving me breathless, silent

Incredulous

Life should not be this way

But yet, it is this way

Maybe life should be this way

A coming, a going,

A yay, a nay

All in the same breadth of a lifespan

Wide as the needle’s eye

Narrow as the galaxies

This paradox will melt your mind

Or it will simply help your heart get stronger

I could go on, I could stay longer

Or I could just simply be

Metronome

Metronome

The clouds reveal so much more

More than we’ll ever know

All the while we sit on earth

Trying to force the poetry into rhyme

Trying to maim it into meter

The heart contains so much more than syllables

So much more than numbers and pedantic

I will not kill my soul on the altar of propriety

I will not bleed out my heart on the treadmill of the “arts”

Critics, hobos, and bankers all snuff their nose

But I see a lion in the clouds

Roaring along the birds of creativity and wonder

I see the sunset with the moon rising in the east

Though night has come

It is the full moon

And there is plenty of light for everyone

To see what the clouds reveal

The Poppy

I might be like this…

A colorful something amongst concrete and stone

A carefully designed something that sits all alone

Wondering how I came here

Wondering who I am

Not realizing that all is well in love and war

Not realizing that I do make a difference

Even if it is just for a wisp of moments.

Simple

Simple

Sometimes I just try too hard to be poetic

Trying to turn every little detail of the day into something profound

All the while life stands there beckoning in all its grand simplicity

A conversation

A smile

A beautiful face

The clouds

The mountains

The rain

All these things in short refrains 

That don’t require any histrionics at all

They don’t require any deep thought or shame

Just simply a moment of pure joy

A seed

Which grows into a giant redwood

Something of eternal depth and height and weight

All from the living of life in the day

Within the day I’ve been given

K, Duane Carter 1/7/16

Absolute Zero

Absolute Zero

Motion, motion

Constant motion

Like waves of water always yearning for the shore

Quiet, stillness

Is what I long for

Is this a moment for a both? For an and?

Is every moment an existence in tension?

Or does my heart simply long for a stability

Right in the midst of all this chaos?

In chaos the worlds began

The mesons still are quaking to this very day

From the sounds of His voice.

So why does my soul long for the stillness?

Why do I know you in the silence

In the places where no one else resides?

Has my heart chilled to absolute zero

The place where no one and nothing move?

Yet there is no place such as that for You

Maybe that is all that really matters

I draw as close as I can to You

Then all the frozen simply falls away

Nothing left but stillness

The stillness of a love that can not be overcome

The stillness of a love in all of its fury

The Moment

The Moment

There is a great heaviness on the carousel

This going round and round and round and round

The music of the grand calliope

Off keyed and somber now

After years of rust and rain

This necessary thing called pain

Supposedly a seed that grows in the furrows

Into some sort of beautifully lined fruition

Maybe it does

Maybe it doesn’t

There might just be a fragrance to the flowers

If I will simply choose to inhale slowly

The springtime air enters my nose

Fills my lungs

Finds its way to every single place in my being

There is a fragrance there I’ve never noticed

There is something there, something air

But I must turn aside to note it

What is this?

I see a eucalyptus, on fire

Yet not consumed

Suddenly, I sense the heaviness of a Spirit

Pressing out the heaviness of my soul

I think the former frightens me more

I know not what I came here for

Those things no longer carry any weight at all

Compared to this weight I feel, I crawl

To the point where I cannot go any further

Yet I must go further still

No human power, no human will

Could stand this any longer

But I will stay here until I’m stronger

Or I will stay here until I die.

K, Duane Carter 5/26/16

Image from Google Images and is not my personal photography

Restore

Restore

The very things meant to destroy your hearing

Will be used to spread the sounds of heaven everywhere

The very things meant to destroy your vision

Will be used to reveal the colors and the beauty of God

The things meant to destroy your soul

Will bring healing to the nations

God has spoken, it is true

Those things brought as destruction against you

Will be the very things that lift you higher

Higher than one has ever been before

So keep looking for the door