By: Jon Carter

fear

I can hear the drums under my feet,
they are waiting at the wrong gate
for me now.

sleep, it is only sleep
that I want – but even in death
sleep will not come.

it’s the next thing, always the next
thing and the fear is that there
will never be an end to it.

I didn’t ask to be a pawn like this-
I didn’t ask for this wager.

and yet here I am, and so are you.

they are waiting at the wrong gate
for us now.

the hair is up on my neck and
I can still hear the drums.

###

garden

the universe tends
to shake things that don’t want
to be shaken.

like me, now.

we call this a warning
against being comfortable…

we’ve been told being comfortable is
where
things go to die,
especially things like art.

this is oxygen for the roots,
this is sustenance,
this is the shit that makes
us grow.

in the garden
under the sun
it always gets done.

###

the wind

the driver says
it comes on the wind,
the crazy feelings-
the wild shit.

one call of the wind
and your free will is brutalized on the spot,
murdered,
then you are released into the night.

maybe I can feel it on the wind now…
there is a convincing drive to it
wherever it goes,
I suppose I will go as well.

and when I was a kid I tripped down some
concrete steps
and fell into the stars…
I could still be there.

now the things I see around corners
cripple me.

what is the point of wisdom?
I’m tired of being up here.

insight was what I wanted before
I knew

what insight meant.