Chronicles

Wood grain warped by knot in center,

The weakness the flaw

Removed to learn it was the cornerstone.

Extracted and everything starts to crack

Splintering lines rush to furthest border,

Why is it so that we should crumble without scars?

The chronicles of your ventricles

The hallways your blood strolls through

Provide for me an answer.

The best things the strongest things

Are made so by pressure

By a measure of suffering

And persecution,

The flower pressed

Preserved by adversity.

– Vagabond Prophet

Scales

Jagged memories the kind you handle carefully

Or not at all,

Lest they claw their way through

The corridors of your mind

With all those telling pin pricks of blood.

Thoughts intruding at cruelest hours

Syphoning off what was left of your spirit.

Shed them all peel them off

Scrape them from reluctant skin,

Cutting scales from skin grown accustomed.

Trading all loneliness for solitude

And all grief for joy,

Goodness earned through strife

Is a high price to pay

But not to is much higher.

– Vagabond Prophet

Silver

Silver chain with silver locket

Open to discover sweetest of faces,

And between them a helm.

Reminding me that life is a vast sea

And I must always find true north

No matter how the waves may roll and pitch.

Their cheeks their smiles

Bringing pinkish hues

To this heart fanned into flame

By the ones who share my eyes.

– Vagabond Prophet

– Thanks @josy57 for the promp “A lock around your neck.”

Okay folks. I have to stay up until 4 AM. Any company to talk to would be welcome.

Fickle Plumage

vagabondprophet:

Diuretic of the mind,

Extruded thoughts

Shaped by force.

Dread and malevolence,

Hornets in my pockets,

All good excuses.

I know the real reason

I push everything out

At transparency o’clock.

I pluck every bit out,

All that fickle plumage,

To let you see underneath.

I don’t need both hands

To count all my friends,

I just need both hands to be thankful

For the friends I have.

– Vagabond Prophet

If you’re breathing not but smoke

I’ll suck it out

And between us we’ll still have

Two good lungs.

Vagabond Prophet

@delightfulharmonypoetry

Do roots speak to trunks?

‘You go up, I’ll go out

Together we’ll conquer the earth.’

Wild charm,

soundless music

Wordless poetry.

Vagabond Prophet

Fruits of the Spirit #6

Goodness as defined by the poets dictionary:

Definition: Goodness can’t fit properly in a person so it comes out the hands and it pours out the lips.

Goodness cares nothing for its host, but rather for those around the host. This most generous of parasites that would give your possessions away simply because another has greater need.

Other definitions include: The change one wants to see in the world, dancing down the street to unheard music handing out sandwiches.

Care for others, regardless of liking the others in question.

Antonyms: Selfish, self-centered, Unempathetic.

Only goodness forsakes its own hunger, to feed a starving stranger.

– Vagabond Prophet

@mildreflections we’re almost finished! Can’t wait to see what you do next.

Onion

Exiles from the country

We’ve only ever dreamt of,

Refugees from the war

Inside us all.

Like a child miscarried,

The loss complete

But the blood just keeps coming.

I have worked for the firing squad

And know they never exhaust their work,

That injustice builds a tower

Weighty enough to soften

The strongest of spines.

I know that the aortic drum

That beats insistently

With bright red sounds,

Can drive one mad

With its loud demands.

For reasons such as these

Death row can be a freedom,

Homecoming in the coming of death.

A concrete and tangible end,

Real life to sink one’s teeth into

Before your teeth is all that’s left.

Every lungful Sisyphus’ work,

Life too much at full strength,

Some people taking handfuls of night

Just to get through the day.

Oh to find some relief

In this march to our demise.

Lean in close now,

Bend your ear to my lips

As I whisper urgently

With news that changes everything.

Your circumstance may remain,

But perspective is everything

Learning that not all blows

Are for breaking but for shaping.

Be the sculpture carved

From the inside out

With hope turning red from blue

As it swims to the surface.

Peel back the layers

Feel your eyes well up

I’m not an onion I’m a man

Transformed from an earthen bulb

Some black layers true,

But I’m pushing past the dirt now

And you can too.

– Vagabond Prophet

– Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with “Sisyphus’ work.”

Escapee

I am the foolhardy child

Who ran from the safehouse

To the hands of my accuser.

Escapee fleeing my own freedom.

You pursued me relentlessly

Like the sun the moon,

Saying you’d take me

Ignoring all scars

You’d not reject me

Until the shore rejects the waves.

You won me over

Under a clear sky

Using stars always there

To paint new pictures just for me.

Now in the heat of the night

I whisper the truth under

Moth laden lanterns

To others lost as I once was.

That you took my place

In a risk that made heaven

Hold its breath

To erase my coming death.

– Vagabond Prophet