Category: Uncategorized

Strongholds


Haven’t I strayed, hurt and betrayed?

Has not curiosity and the exciting risk there of

Driven me to my favourite car wrecks?

Again and again and again…

I do that which I despise

And don’t understand

Your truth comes in the door

Ready for a long stay

Yet I evict it so quickly

That it gets no chance to decorate.

This is what happens when

I let my blood flow through

These corridors I call arteries,

Instead of letting the blood you spilled

Run through my heart

And with joy so loud it crumbles the walls

Of wicked strongholds so fortified

I had begun to grow around them.

– Vagabond Prophet

Brace Myself

Rubbing fiberglass on my chest

Scuff the skin, make it more thin

That air may avoid my lips

And enter my lungs directly.

Avoid the middleman

Dad always said

He’s only there for your money

Standing with vitriolic smile

And outstretched hand.

I am a master of depravity

I put my face into the furrows

I find it makes me grounded

If I plant my dreams in soil.

When flowers grew no more

In the arid plains of my heart

I asked you to hold my hand

And walk me to greener land.

Though you’ve burned my sorrow

In flames of your love

I still feel sometimes tarnished

Like a pencil erased

The page retains impressions.

My blood I’d taught

To tell just backward riddles

Still sometimes pumps a lie.

When I wake from dreams

And cry out to you

And am deafened by the silence,

Sometimes silence is the answer.

For sometimes beauty

In obscurity

Greater than in clarity.

How tenaciously I’ve fought

For my right to rot,

Only to have you grip me tighter.

You borrowed my burden

Yet refused to give it back,

Now I ride this river

Mile after mile.

The water it transforms

From the muddy browns

To the salty blues

Until the heights above

Are as vast as

The depths below.

Now even if I fall

It’s only deeper in to you

And the only preparation

I now make

Is to brace myself for grace.

– Vagabond Prophet

Hey @josy57 thank you for the prompt “Borrowed Burden,” as always it’s been a joy.

Pavement Pillow

The edges bleed on everything

When it rains this hard,

It seems the world is weeping.

To staunch the flow

We have to work together

To pray for warmer weather

For those who get their lullabies

Whispered from whatever

The cracked pavement pillow

Speaks to them tonight.

– Vagabond Prophet

Redundancy

I’ve been little else but lawless

Little else but wayward,

In the redundancy

Of my delinquency

How do you not grow tired?

When you’ve been little else but lovely

Little else but gracious

In the insistency

Of your consistency,

Please don’t end or waiver

For I need you so.

– Vagabond Prophet

Vintage

Hold me up to the light

Inspect me under looking glass

With delicate brushes

Comb me over

To prove I am authentic.

This is borrowed strength

I am festooned with the strands

With the ribbons of blood

Strewn within me

From those that went before.

The stewards of memory

May know and verify

That I am the proud owner

Of vintage skin and antique blood.

These are legs

That have been leant

A tongue only for a term,

And a heart

I still make payments on.

It’s a rent to own program

You bleed yourself dry

For long enough

You might just get to be yourself.

Dying every day

And living every death

With your blood in my veins

That you died to provide.

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 yeah you! Thanks for prompting me with “Borrowed Antiques.”