Strangers

“Don’t talk to strangers”

My mother said to me

But the stranger inside

Whispers so elegantly.

Ignore it but can’t silence

Over time drowns out my mother

As she sounds stranger and stranger

And the voice within becomes familiar.

Thorn in my side

Coaxing out the best of me

With weaponized linguistics

Moving like a flood

Churning like blood.

Long twisted corridors

Forgetting the way back.

Learning courage is not concerned with results

But only the attitude of the heart

Amongst daunting threats

And that faith anchored properly

Allows for some doubt.

Now ignoring the whispers

That never quite abated

For the songbird with truths instead of lies

Belts out harmonies so joyous

So majestic and sonorous.

I think my mother meant something different,

Perhaps “Don’t let people stay strangers”

Know them, converse and learn

Whether to continue friendship

Or let them slip through my fingers

Like coins no longer currency.

Trading thorns for crowns

Painful business that is

With skin grown over affliction

Yet worth it, every time.

– Vagabond Prophet

Ten Year Reunion

Some looking the same while others new inventions,

Some with different coloured hair and others with thinning,

Some still learning and others still choosing not to learn.

More chapters in every story,

Woe and joy mixed up

Like a cocktail we’re now old enough to drink.

All those years ago I had been in a storm,

And though I didn’t know all of them

They were the other rocks that the spray fell on.

I the most prominent point

For the breakers to break upon

In the tempest of my youth,

But they were there too

And I mustn’t forget that when

People at home left

They never did.

Stupid, smart, ugly, and cute alike

Their familiarity something I could count on.

Ten years later and I’m nearly rebuilt,

Strong and safe and surely surrounded by love

As I near completion I’m reminded

Their may be some stones here yet worth keeping.

– Vagabond Prophet

vagabondprophet:

Insurance

I am the .1 percent

Can’t be disinfected

I’m the tsunami

That can’t be detected

And for the house fire

That can’t be expected

They say insurance,

Get insurance

But insurance is just paper

You scribbled all over

Saying you’ll get money

When your world is over

Money’s just paper

And paper starts fires

This just complicates

And stirs in me a fire

So now you understand

I hope it’s all clear

If you lose everything

That you hold dear

Your paper won’t help you

I won’t be held liable

When I take your life

Like something easily pliable

Because I’m

About

to snap.

Cheese

vagabondprophet:

If even milk can die

And turn into something great

What does that say of me?

In my current state.

If fruit can perish

Turning into wine

Give strength to my gut,

But not straight off the vine.

Okay you’ve made it clear

I’ll undergo the transformation,

I’ll die and die again

Is this truly salvation?

– Vagabond Prophet

Bad Part of Town

vagabondprophet:

They call this

The ‘bad’ part of town

The part with the foodbank

And the building for supervised visits.

Families separated

Estranged by circumstance,

Needy, not bad

Desperate not volatile.

I’ll tell you about

The bad part of town,

It’s up on the hill

It’s all chrome and glass.

Throwing food away

Every single day

Ignoring their children

Who just want to play.

– Vagabond Prophet

Fruits of the Spirit #2


Peace as defined by the poets dictionary

Definition: A tranquility of the spirit that envelopes body, mind, and soul.

Slowing and making graceful your actions for the lack of emergency. The cool waters to calm the aching muscles of your weary heart. The world spinning on as it ever did but your own thoughts remain steady and don’t sway in every wind that blows by, untossed by the waves that ebb and flow. Anchored to steadiest of ground and content in a secure hope, casting aside worries, not because they’re not worrisome but because peace covers it and renders it unimportant.

Other definitions include: The draught that aims to tame the flame which burns your passion into poison.

Achievement and maintenance of amiable relations with your neighbours, forgetting the grass and the corresponding colours but learning about the people behind the fences and being okay with the differences.

Antonyms: Anxiety, restlessness, anger, wrath, violence.

Only peace endeavours to leave blood unspilled, instead doing its good work to bring air where before was only despair.

– Vagabond Prophet

@mildreflections thanks for coming along on this journey, can’t wait to see what you come up with next.

Sanguine


Hundreds of different bandages,

For hundreds of different wounds.

Some with silver, some with glue,

Some that cover most of you.

These ones in my hand

To contain maggots

While they eat

The dead flesh around a wound.

Insect like vultures

Subsisting off decay.

If blight should red or green or blue,

Antiseptic solutions for that too.

Every answer to every question

Understood by spinning blood

And squinting at urine.

What I’ve learnt from this place,

Sanguine in both definitions

Can be present in one body

That’s clinging to a bed

In a crowded hallway.

Medicine is a nice way of saying

A poison that we trust.

“This is going to hurt a little bit”

Means this will be torture.

That the suffering of those

That wail like feral beasts

Are beyond dignity

Looking only to survival.

“Decreasing quality of life” means that

This person isn’t worth many more dollars.

Mostly I’ve learned that hope

Is the ultimate trump card,

Hope covers all bad news,

Is a treatment for any diagnosis.

Peace can’t be prescribed

But can be spread by gentle hands

And kind words.

I only put gloves on a shelf,

Yet I now know the fingers

That will know them so well

Need my diligence

To impart some resilience.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with “What I have learned from you.” Hope this is okay.

Fruits Of The Spirit #1

mildreflections:

Long Suffering as
described by the poetic dictionary

Definition:

Forging soul like moulding iron. The furnace screeching
unspeakable horrors, constant heat feeding molten flames and the periodic fall
of a hammer; all endured and all absorbed finally delivering a glistening
product.

Other Definitions:

  • Riding on a bumpy road. Tossing, falling but
    never stopping to reach your destination.
  • Enduring absence; holding hope when all seems
    unreachable.

Synonyms Include:

  •    Tolerant
  •    Strong Will

Antonyms Include:

  • · Complaining

Long suffering is to
realize that good things and great laurels are not gifted through ease but
earned through diligence and discomfort.


Collaborating with @vagabondprophet . Thank you for letting me in on your project.

Glad to have you on board. Great job keep it up.

vagabondprophet:

Disarmed

You were armed to the teeth

With something underneath

Disarmed by my smile

That goofy grin not yet yellow,

You ran away for miles

Losing your shoes in the mire.

Years later it was your turn

I was disarmed by your beauty,

But I ran to you not away

For yours is a beauty that beckoned me

Closer and closer still

Until nothing between us but time,

Time to let our love perfect,

Sweetening and intoxicating as

Years go by.

– Vagabond Prophet