Darkling

Under waning moon and festooned sky

With darkness to illuminate the night

It is already morning

Though beneath blackened heavens

One couldn’t hope to know

It will soon reverse its darkling effect.

This is faith beyond the wraith

This is hope surpassing spectres

Yesterday’s sun is no

Assurance of today’s

But faith sticks out its hand

Until warmed by mornings kiss.

– Vagabond Prophet

Embroidered

Many words I’ve written for thee

Deeds done and songs sung.

Six years ago you came

I remember it so clearly

Your blood was too sweet for safety

That it had to be diluted

And your mother

Looking smaller and stronger

Than ever before

Stumbling to feed you.

The pain in her face

Overcome by the joy

At seeing you expect her

Her soft touch and her smell

Her sound and her warmth.

That just by being herself

She could bring you comfort,

Eased all the pain of your coming.

Now from baring you into the world

Your mother now has scars

That she wears proudly,

As though embroidered with pride.

So many days ago,

So many spills and fevers and tears,

And each one is such a treasure.

My clever curly boy,

Young storyteller in the making,

Thank you for teaching me

That the most important thing I’ll ever do

Is be a loving dad for you.

– Vagabond Prophet

@delightfulharmonypoetry for our boy on his birthday.

This Obscure Chasm

Where my skin ends

And your breath begins

And this obscure chasm

In between where the magic lives.

The magic we claim

When the distance we shatter

With the urgency of affection

When my bad breath didn’t matter.

What does ten years

Of happiness look like?

Smile lines and stretch marks

Scars and hair gone thin

With weariness and worry,

Unshaven legs in winter

Tangled into mine,

And hatchets I won’t bury.

For no quarrels with your laurels

For me to drive a stake,

Only hands to hold

Only dreams to pave a road for.

And if you should lose your mind

If the woman I know and love

Dies behind your eyes

I’ll love you like the night sky

Like a star long gone

That my eyes

Won’t stop believing in.

– Vagabond Prophet

For @delightfulharmonypoetry , heres to many more years darling.

Thanks @josy57 for the prompt “This Obscure Chasm.

Waxless Candles

The wind half sighs half moans

The struggle that is

Its passage through the night.

The calm before the storm

Never came for them

Only the wind

Only the waves

Only the rain.

Like waxless candles

They burn bright

And getting hotter

Through the darkling night.

Until the night is over

And their wick is all turned to ash

Hoping the deeds that they’ll forget

Will be rekindled at next dusk.

They end up forgotten

They end up refused

Forsaken and misused.

Knowing only the hard pavement

For a pillow in this November,

Nothing as bright or as chilling

As the winter sun

Shining boldly yet coldly

In a brilliant and frigid embrace.

The windows frost

And their breath exhausts

Caught, taken it is

By the unforgiving cold.

Like Icarus they collide and burn

With their hopes for themselves.

Meanwhile they all wonder,

“How can I be healthy,

When every doctors definition differs.”

– Vagabond Prophet

Dad Jeans

I was unprepared to have

My heart ensnared

By clutches oh so small.

I was born of summer

But you were born of heaven

With joy in your smile

And sunlight in your eyes.

Born in November the trees

Shade giving virtue had fallen

Honeybee long gone

No longer searched for pollen.

But your young and tender body

So needy and so small

We both got the warmth we needed

In the embrace of one another.

Now every pair of pants I own

Has holes in the knees

They are all worn and torn

From being a train or horse

For you to explore the universe,

From crawling to find you

I the monster in your tale.

I get to see the world anew

From the eyes of a child

Who knows not what borders are

Only what kindness is.

– Vagabond Prophet

@delightfulharmonypoetry

thanks @josy57 for the prompt “Worn and Torn.”

Eleventh of Everything

Sky dimly lit by crescent moon

That itself clothed mostly in shadow

Yields little light

On those battlefields which

One hundred years ago

Run red with bloody rivers.

War is not deserving of poetry

But the lives of young heroes are,

Death ought not have its praises sung

But the courageous acts

Of fearful boys should be told

In tomes with gilded edges.

Today at the eleventh of everything

When no more bullets sang

I will still this heart that beats

In a nation still free

To thank those who found strength

To leave their home

To defend its definition.

– Vagabond Prophet

For Remembrance Day

delightfulharmonypoetry:

love is, 
being so upset I can barely breathe
calling you and hearing your voice calm my fears
hearing you smilingly tell me your secret compartment filled with affection
finding it with your instruction
there in the dusty recesses of the past 
you thought of future me hurt or craving
you tucked some sweetness away for a rainy day
i love you, this says to me
I thought of you then and I thought of you now
of a future when I might have the thing to make you smile 
if only for a second, if only for a bite 
I wanted to be ready to bring you delight

i don’t know why you love me, most days
Most nights too 
but please don’t ever stop or I don’t know what I’ll do

@vagabondprophet

Awww shucks.