Chronic Observatioin Disorder Poem by Amberlee Carter

The quiet wait, contemplate,
the scene- everything it contains,
The mundane, the magic,
the vibrant, the apathetic-

I flip through chronicles
passed years and minds,
searching for the sparkle and shine-
The intimate relationship
between passion and poet- The moment

when I play artistic roulette
with deathXthree,
time, fate and reality-

An empty click,
a noiseless clatter,
epiphany of a savior-
willing and able
to be a savior of no one

Divinity walks on water,
crushes stones beneath His testimony-

I quiver
beneath the weight of my heart,
beneath the burden of my shoulders-

To walk on the universal tongue
leave my footprints- Linguistic beauty,

so you'll know where I have gone
though where I go you'll never know-

I stare from my broken window into
a vision of tomorrows
and yesterdays, into
an absolution I cannot escape-

It is neither desperation or rage,
neither passion or lust that
ages my touch-
but something more incommunicable,
something so vague as love.


These streets,
these endless journeys are
familiar like wrinkled pages from
an older, wiser journal,
a progression from another life, I lived
in another space/time realm of motion-

I am aware of
the tread left in the snow
by a Christ as he goes-
It means goodbye in the hardest sense:
there will be an ember
burning in the home he's chosen to abandon
this morning,

the sunset is with me,
enraging the edges of my shadow-
The sky is falling faint today,
and I wonder what
the saddened light suddenly remembers
from its past, overlooking wars and crucifixions,

to some unimaginable future it fears.