JON CARTER - POEMS

Jon Carter is a writer from Lufkin Texas. After being medically discharged from the ARMY, he settled in College Station, Texas, where he began his education in Psychology at Sam Houston State University. After a couple of years, he dropped out. His poetry focuses on the blank periods between major life events: marriage, divorce, jobs, arrests and substance abuse.

the lady with a bag of hearts
​

​I see her every day,
lugging around that bag with
all those poor men’s hearts.
it hardly seems worth the labor
to me but she
considers them
valuable.
 
sometimes I like to play
around and take my
heart out of my chest
and hold it over her head
and laugh as she jumps and
screams, trying to grab it.
 
I think to myself that
she is a silly creature,
but no matter how amusing
I consider it, I must
remain wary.
 
at its core
this is a dangerous game, and
I’ve been known to be
rather reckless.
 
maybe one day I won’t be
paying attention.
 
then life will remind me that it
calls for a certain
amount of heart, and I won’t
have it with me.
 
 

the world is sometimes beautiful
​

​sometimes I stare
at the ground and
imagine a fiery hole
opening up and
swallowing me whole
like all the whores
from before.
 
when will hell finally take me?
the dice are all
turning up
snake eyes
and i know
the luck is running out,
I know
I used too much of it too early.
 
but then I watch the fire
ants carry away the carcass,
I stare at the cracks
in the ceiling until they look
like something else,
I feel the sweat run
down my body under
the sun and damnit
the whores still
get my attention with their
short skirts bare legs cherry red lipstick
and I smile to them
and to life
and I figure
hell can wait for a little while longer,
 
there are still things
here for me.
 

take it slow
​

​the wind flowing
thru the tall
grass and it’s
brushing at my knees
and I stare far out
at the clouds
running up from
behind wicked
trees on the horizon
their glowing
purple white crystal forms are
climbing through
the clear blue ether,
higher and higher.
 
I’m smoking a cigarette
in a field along
the highway and
the cars are rushing by
and some of them
honk and scream
at my slouching form
standing here in nowhere.
 
I’m smoking a cigarette
in this field along
the highway and
I feel myself going
slowly insane,
even when I promised
myself that I’d
never go
out that way.