Original Poetry about anything and everything.
Render flesh from bone
That by its strength
My weakness will atone.
Vagabond Prophet
– There’s a chance that I may or may not but definitely did utter this in my kitchen, in my villain voice, while picking the meat off a rotisserie chicken for my lunch. Would somebody kindly tell me what the hell is wrong with me?
I tied a hangman’s noose
Within the womb
Around my neck was slung
And from those gallows swung.
I was six days late
The pressure wouldn’t abate
I’ve always been
Afraid of change.
I came out looking blue
Foreshadowing how I’d feel
Writing this at all.
I was timid, I was quiet,
Sleeping days away.
Always compliant
Never outspoken.
Obedient, a good kid
They’d say.
Now looking back as a man
With fissures throughout my heart
I think it’s not that simple.
Never outspoken sure,
For every strongly expressed opinion
Was shouted, and frightened
This gentle child into quietness.
So I grew with roots reluctant
To claim soil another may one day want,
Older brothers younger sister
More abrasive than I.
I like tile they like sandpaper,
Every attempt to rough me up
Only made me smoother.
One day I was called to manhood
By nothing but necessity.
At an age that couldn’t be expected
To swing a hammer well.
Hell I couldn’t even swing a decision yet
How could I possibly step into shoes
Strangely unworn before
And with strength strike
The nail on the head.
I filled those shoes in time
Sometimes feeling room still
By my big toe.
I swung a decision,
I’d be the man I wanted to be
To be different than the example.
A timid trailblazer still covers ground,
A kite broken free may crash,
Or fly higher than ever imagined.
The world needs good men
I’ll fill that need or die trying,
She needed me to be more,
My soul began
To grow chest hair.
So that’s where I’m from
There’s my past laid out.
My future?
Well that’s up to me isn’t it.
– Vagabond Prophet
Running like mad,
Arms flailing
Legs wheeling
Breath burning.
The bus takes the bend
And I realize
It was never the right one.
It’s sign shouting #1
Yet as it rushed up behind me
All I could think of
Was a fear of being forgotten.
Vagabond Prophet
Such pure blue sky
Meets pure black thought,
Can I be one with blue
Without tarnishing you?
Under burden I can’t shoulder
Will your perfection smoulder?
Say it’s not in vain
Come in this heart reign.
Complete this work
Bring me out of mirk
Though my name on every nail
Come in might to fill this sail.
– Vagabond Prophet
Oh! Look over yonder
Ye brilliant must ponder
As earthen staff impaled
Into oceans deepest trench.
Between Sun and Moon
Where quilt of stars are strewn,
She of light and he of darkness
Made their battle.
She of goodness, green, and soil
He of shadows, pride sure to spoil,
Her majesty wielded supernovas
His insidiousness armed with blackest hole.
Blessed Queen of sky and birth
With shield of light and rod of earth
Might of the heavens
Their blows making water quake.
Rod met sword and musically rang
Swirling waters to themselves clang
When staff broke in two
And plunged into ocean depth.
Causing terrific quake
Causing world to break,
The known globe scabbing over
Solid ground for creatures yet to be.
They yet meet blades
Sparks becoming glades
Every piece of celestial debris
Adding to our home.
– Vagabond Prophet
– Today I was tasked with writing a creation myth, enjoy.
I procrastinate everything,
Like going to the dentist.
Especially going to the dentist,
It’s been twelve long years
Since I sat in that sterile throne.
Now I’m left tonguing nothing
Where teeth used to be.
Better false teeth
Than a false smile.
– Vagabond Prophet
That word ‘aftermath’
Conjuring images of bombs
And rubble and fallout
Of a nuclear kind.
Could it be different?
Let’s make it different
Must act now
There is no rewind.
Aftermath of kindness,
Fallout of justice
Desperately needed
In a land dying to unwind.
– Vagabond Prophet
Poetry: Writing what you feel,
Erasing half the words
And praying the page itself
May read between the lines.
Vagabond Prophet
I lilt and sway
Just like Gord’s voice
When he sang Fiddlers Green,
Soundtrack for my life.
Sinclair drops the bass,
Fay crashes cymbals,
Paul and Robby plucking strings,
Like wizards to make waves
For the words to dance all over,
Like the wind in a storm,
A real nautical disaster.
Yer not the Ocean but the surface is green
And the dark interweaves
In a lonely iridescence,
It’s terribly deep and the cold is complete.
Just like the ocean.
Loving your country, playing songs of small town news,
I can teach my children about the nation
With rock and roll.
Canada divided into thirteen parts,
A discography of thirteen albums,
No coincidence.
The most honourable thing yet,
That you evolved to challenge a nation
Unknowingly flawed, abusive.
Adoring your home, but not calling it perfect
True patriotism, true love always seeks to improve.
That’s just what you did
You are ahead by a century.
Now Downie gone,
But his voice will ring out forever,
As he walks among the stars.
I still lilt and sway
Just like Gord’s voice
When he sang anything,
Soundtrack for my life.
– Vagabond Prophet
– for ‘ The Tragically Hip’, quotes throughout this poem from their songs: Nautical Disaster, Yer not the Ocean, Fiddlers Green, Ahead by a Century, The Drop Off.
– If you don’t know this band you should, He rhymes Catharsis with ‘My arse is’. If that’s not a clever lyricist I don’t know what is.
Hot or cold
Mild or bold
Wet or dry
Make a decision already!
You circle around the globe
Trying to ‘find’ yourself,
What you should be
When you come to fruition.
Circumlocution embodied,
You try on every outfit
And voice every thought
Over and over
For thirty whole days.
It’s like this every year,
You can’t make up your mind
To stay in the past
Or leap to the summer.
Yet May always comes
To usher April out of the room.
– Vagabond Prophet
Vagabond Prophet 