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Best Poems Written by Jim Carpenter

Below are the all-time best Jim Carpenter poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Jim Carpenter Poem

Bury Me At Sea

When my time passes
And there’s no breath left in me,
Take my ashes to the oceans
And set my spirit free.
There I can rejoin my friends
There I will not be alone.
There I can make my amends
There I won’t be unknown.

Far too much blood spilled onto this planet
Makes its way to the sea.
The raining of blood by droplet
Rejoining there finally.

Don’t leave me in the cold, cold ground.
No – No imprisoned tomb for me.
Let the waves be my stone bound
An anxious tide, my cemetery.

There I can float on endless waves
A moving monument to see.
And if you leave a tear on my grave
I can float it away with me…

Details | Jim Carpenter Poem

In My Mind

Within the passage of time
I see you, my enchanted ecstasy,walking
Down a cobblestone street in silhouette.
Carefully placed footsteps echoing the
The pavement without the slightest of regrets.
Through the faint gas lit corridor
Vintage smells and a whispering wind
Accompany me.
Now matter where I go -
No matter when I go –
Footsteps going forward
Revealing the past.

In a cumbersome transom blended 
With a tap-ta-tap, tap-ta-tap
Of a horse drawn carriage –
Therein our song is revealed.
Where else but in music do thoughts 
Blend reality with emotions?
There in my mind’s eye
Tap-ta-tap,
tap-ta-tap,
tap-ta-tap.

Do I have any life but this?
If not - let me lead it from here.
No death there be ‘lest
Dispelled from there.
Nor any ties to earths to come.
Nor any action in any effort of new.
Except in the blessed extent
In the realm of loving you.

And in my mind’s eye –
The music,
Tap-ta-tap,
tap-ta-tap -
Of cobblestone and hoof –
Ta-tap
Always 
Ta-tap
Returns me to you.

Details | Jim Carpenter Poem

Salty, Sultry, Juicy Sweet

The hottest lines - one after the other I devour
Salty - sultry - tasty - juicy sweet like a toasted flower.
The ink runs from the corners of my brain,
Oh God, have I been eating poetry again?

I made the mistake of swallowing one set of rhymes when
The librarian appeared, putting on her necklace chain
Reading glasses while looking down her nose.
Her eyeballs rolled, her head shook out her woes.

Tearing off another page with her walking toward me,
She was about to release the dogs - I had nowhere to flee.
She stomped her feet and began to weep
As I crumble the next page into a heap.

She backed away as I snarl and I bark,
Crunch, crunch, crunch - swallowing all the way to the question mark.
Finding her nerve she approaches me with a moan,
Then I watch in amazement as she tears off a page of her own.

Folding it up in the palm of her hand, she smiles
And growls and shoves the whole page in while
Pulling out another book from a hidden pocket of her dress.
We sneak off together into a hidden recess.

The hottest lines - one after the other we devour
Salty - sultry - tasty - juicy sweet like toasted flowers.
The ink runs from the corners of our brains,
Oh God, have we been eating poetry again?

With baited eyes we snarl and bark,
Chomping with joy in this bookish dark.

Details | Jim Carpenter Poem

Heartbeat

All hail thy – sweet – small – courtesies of life.
For smooth do they make the road of it.
Grace and beauty – they cut so deep not unlike a knife -
They beg all inclinations toward love at first sight.
Yes, ‘tis those courtesies which let the stranger in.
And those tones and mannerisms, they too have a meaning.

Oh - ‘tis a blessed thing,
One for which I could lose myself
To the honor of my aching.
I fear a heart which bears all to itself.
Oh yes, open – ‘lest it shut it all out.
So I ask, “Are not my eyes the scout
For which my heart journeys?
That vision, is it not flowing through my arteries
Bringing my heartbeat’s rhythm in tune?
Oh, let that beat be mine none too soon.”

With that said, she laid out her arm in front of me.
Taking hold of her fingers in my one hand, I aptly
Apply two fingers of my other hand to her wrist -
Firmly - and begin counting her heart's throb.
“One – two – three – four,” counting out aloud
Measuring each heartbeat as it happens –
Hoping to find the art of her fever.
I close my eyes as I continue to count – thinking –
There is no occupation in the world comparable
To feeling a woman’s pulse.
And when I had counted to twenty five
I looked up into her eyes and
At that instant I felt her pulse quicken.
She clutched my fingers tighter in the one hand
While pressing the wrist of her other hand
Harder into my account.

Is it possible for two to become one bone and flesh?
If that is true, what is everything else to become?
Sometimes yours while at other times the other has it?
All the while to be generally on par tallying up the score
As each of us permit the other to share in ourselves –
At least in as much as a man and a woman need to.
Not unlike a bag full of pebbles which started out jagged
And rough, with very little gleam.
Only ‘tis after being years in the bag together
Do the stones, having had many amicable collisions
Wearing down their angles and edges, do they
Become well rounded and smooth with the brilliance
Of their combined luster.
Nothing to either could have ever been
Accomplished alone.

She looks back into my eyes as she presses her wrist into me
and asks,
“How does it beat with you?”
Placing her hand on my neck I say,
“Feel for yourself -
‘Tis an improvement –
‘Tis my evidence.”

Details | Jim Carpenter Poem

The Little Room Within

‘Twas damp, cold and lonely - not much bigger than a closet.
But the little room within me is mine.
It has no niceties such as a bed chamber but
To one side – when pressed upon hard enough –
My walls will open revealing many hidden chambers inside.
But my walls have no doors and until now no one has ever
Stayed long enough to find out the secrets hidden inside.

Then you came along – you who had scarce warmed
Yourself against my thoughts when I saw that look.
You spun around and around in the small wit that I am,
A more perplexed look I had never seen.
I pressed upon you to sit here within my warmest of thoughts.
The case of your look was the case all by itself.
All I could feel was your resentment for bringing you in.

My hard planked thoughts and plastered breaths were not 
Favorable - even to my own sensations – as if I were trapped
In some sort of desolate omnipotence – 
But I dared not to mention my little hidden room within.
Though not a thing had been left to be wished there was nothing
As terrible in it as the knowledge that you thought I was possibly
Absent of the capacity to supply you with your inner most basic needs.

The glow of health and happiness had somehow left your cheeks
And your brisk lively conversation seemed forever removed.
Like a stone in the road, I seemed to bring you
More distress and I wondered what stupidity had led me
To bring you here to fumble around in my mind.
As if we were both too delicate to communicate 
Our tangled tongues said not a word.

I wanted to say,
“Please, please press harder against these walls 
And you’ll see, you’ll see that the muscle and tendon
That covers these internal walls are 
Just a parody for my own protection.
I made the mistake of moving this thought closer to you.
At first you squirmed to get further away from it 
But in doing so you had to push against me.
One single piece of paper fell from shirt pocket.

You snatched it up an unfolded it and
Proceeded to open my imagination to a wrinkle entitled
“The Little Room Within.”
I watched you as you read peering through my façade. 
You then proceeded to pull out another wrinkle
Then another - and another
Until the room within me was no more.
You entered deeper and deeper into me 
On your hands and knees –

– And I –

I 
followed 
you 
all
the 
way 
to 
the
inside 
of 
me.

Details | Jim Carpenter Poem

Insane Love

Insane, insane what follows old
A tragedy yet to be told.
Though ye walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
It is love that we most of all must bequeath.
Amongst green pastures grows a flowering field
One not tainted by what this life yields.
Some where in the withered forget-me-knots
It lives long enough to be what it ought.
A shining prince upon a silver steed
Riding home to find that which was decreed.
Nothing more than just a thought
Of something born here in Camelot.

Oh mastery of misery art thou my friend?
Do we have so much to gather or defend?
Send us upon this grievous plain
To battle all that must be regained.
Oh ported soul of Arthur’s gallant lot
Send to us the dear Sir Lancelot.
He be the bravest of all heart,
His bravery known right from the start.
He hast no legend braved in fear
Doing the right by his lady Guinevere.
Life deals us such a broken art
Of a re-painted love here in Camelot.

The quest be of ill fated charms
Where love survives the coat of arms.
To be so brave is to be a slave
Fighting for the thing we crave.
For no coat of arms can delay
Love’s onslaught once on display.
For to pour the grail back into the flask
Would be to hold love as a captured task.
For ‘tis love that captures all at last.
And nothing loved can ever truly pass.
Though the lance laid silent Lover Lancelot
His secret survives him here in Camelot.

Details | Jim Carpenter Poem

Come Back To Me Now

The grand wind blows as it hums along – 
This dark and grey velvet morning hardly risen.
 A well dressed classy drunk smears her finger across
 The doorman’s lips and whispers, “Don’t tell anyone.”
Stumbling along while someone else curses
 A garbage truck outside stops and reverses -
– beep – beep – beep.

 Standing there in her favorite long coat
 The desk clerk seems to gloat -
 Gloat over every marvelous thing she ever wanted.
 In this, the one day when she is thinner -
 Outside a siren shrieks repeating the tormented,
 Is she a saint or a sinner?

 Finally the quiet idles up there eternal
 Inside her blessed Penthouse suite.
 From her barred window she watches a crosswalk signal
 Still standing in her long winter coat.
 Across the alley she sees someone on a fire escape,
 As they wrap around and escape down the funnel.

 In the serenity of the street below a Cupid like boy 
 Salutes his mother.
 The mother stoops to pat him on his noggin.
 Then mommy makes a sculpture of her packages,
 As the boy salutes again.
 Up there behind her bars the drunk thinks she is different somehow.

 Taking off her coat she opens a book entitled “Value”
Finding a written sentence that ends with “come back to me now.”
She gives the legacy a second look
 And thinks how absolutely - positively - wondrously dear -
 If only she could believe what she read -

 And then she disappears.

Details | Jim Carpenter Poem

The Eclipse

Silent Circles
Suspended in light
Spiraling eloquence
Reflecting the night

In a dance
One shadows
Then becomes
shadowed
Circling each other
Within passions
sight

Ruling sun rays
Line them up
Like an audience
A troop 
Circling as One

With haloed
shoulders
We mask the solitude
‘Neath the starry
valence
Of night
Oceans waving 
Conjoined in balance
Of their ever
enlightened might

Life is
As a grand eclipse
Fleeting moments
Waltzing
Around the sun.

Once shadowed
We forever shadow
Dancing
Till morning’s dawn

To and fro we sway
Dancing with words
We say
Living eclipsed
As one….