Tag: blotchedpoems

Peacock

I am a peacock preening feathers

So you might not notice

How slight I really am.

Maintain this sheen make it gleam

Lest it betray my fear

Of prying eyes

From fiendish spies.

So many layers built upon

For year after year after year

I don’t remember the colour

Of my own natural skin.

There are few and far between

That see me as I am,

When days length gives way

To evenings hold and nights sway,

All the shimmer and shine

Of my prized plumage

Means nothing in the dark.

The fear of being known

As well of being unknown

Keeps me painted today,

Now you know my secret

Seen the crack in my veneer,

When twilight comes

And the brilliance of the sun

Angles just right I’ll see yours too.

Wear your flaw proudly

It’s what makes you unique

Makes you not by rote,

Not just a laugh track

On the rerun of anybodies life,

Not just another zoo attraction

Be a rebel a renegade

Choose to boil or freeze

No matter the centigrade.

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 “Cracked Veneer.” This was nifty, thanks again.

This Barren City


This barren city

These roads slick with tears

These sidewalks cracked

And mountains in every direction.

Here in the valley

Everything settles

The rain filling the fields

Running down from frosty peaks

To overflow my ditches,

The clouds fall on my head

Every morning making everything dewy.

In this barren city

Where anything can grow

Except good will towards

The hopeless, the shattered

The broken and tattered.

To the many who call these streets

Their home tonight,

No bed to rest your weary bones

No place to wash off bad decisions

Hoping tomorrow you are able

Tomorrow you’d have more strength

And someone in your corner.

To them and others

I say unto you

The city might be barren

But you don’t have to be,

The streets might be cold

But your heart isn’t.

The hope that rises with the sun

Will lift you from the pavement

And raise the dead in you.

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 thanks for prompting me with “This Barren City.” This issue is dear to me.

Potential

I am simple and strong

I am neither good or evil

For I do not choose my burden

Or even how I will carry it

That is done by the stranger’s hand.

I will with treasure tarry

Across plane, train, and ferry

To bring my payload

To expectant signatures.

Sometimes I am rushed

Sometimes I am empty or full

To the point my corrugated spine

Bursts and holds no more.

I am not good or evil

I am only potential.

If all this and more is true

Of me a cardboard box

What does that say of you?

– Vagabond Prophet

Tapestry


Some sentences finish themselves,

Picture a chicken and a stump

In a barren backyard

Grass all plucked and gone,

Does your mind not add

The beheaded bird

The bloodied ax?

And if I tell you of a man

Proposing to his love,

Does your imagination not

Force his knee to bend?

We all fill things in,

The way we think they ought to be,

And we all do it the same way,

How curious, how strangely universal

We can be when it’s not actual speech.

What does this say of us

Why is it this way?

Is there some common thread

Throughout the tapestry of humanity?

Some golden but fine little shimmer

That says we are all built

By the same carpenter?

If this example avails

No spark of truth for you

I can do this all day,

I’ve paid attention too long

To not recognize the artists strokes.

– 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.

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

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

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