Tag: blotchedpoems

Wooden Heart

The featureless face

Has known no joy or sorrow,

So when you see me

With my visage deeply fissured

Remember life has hewn me.

I have peeled back my skin

To let life better in,

It has shaped me

As the river does the canyon.

Beginning a flat expanse

Until the life bringing rush

Begins to carry away

What was dead.

Leaving only the elemental me

The undilutable you

The saturated facthood

Of who I’m made to be.

I stowed the truth away

Far below deck

And tightened my sails

Heading always west.

You and I always tied

Though I may have denied

Your course set east

Made taut the distance between us.

The chord stretched tight

It sang a plight

Plucked beautifully by the wind.

The song so mournful

The plaintive cry so sorrowful,

Weeping into the sea

Tasting the salt pouring from my eyes

Into the salt spoken from your tongue

I knew I could not escape you.

Though you’ve been forever constant

Today is no assurance of tomorrow,

Carve me sharply

Take hammer and chisel

Sculpt this stony soul.

With careful but persistent love

Shape this brow

And make cavernous my visage

As you alone see fit.

When this trunk falls

Count the rings

Of this wooden heart

And know I thank you

For the chance to have grown at all.

I’ll even thank you for the toothy blade

That brings me to my knees

For death that day

May be better than growing pains.

You demolish me more beautifully

Than I could ever adorn myself.

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 thank you for the totally groovy prompt “A featureless face.” It’s always a good time.

Reflections

Does the sea reflect the sky

Or the sky the sea?

For the water cool and still

They placid extract a pure blue.

Yet if they swell and spit

Should they whirlpool

I see black clouds enraged

Above my splitting gunnels.

If I survive my storm

And you weather yours

Should our eyes meet again

I’ll find love reflected in yours

On distant sandy shores.

– Vagabond Prophet

Shaken awake by sun rays

Piercing curtains piercing dreams

As the balloon pops to remind me

Life is on its way.

Rushing without sirens

Some emergencies announce themselves

When your stomach enters the room

Before your tongue.

Now in the recycled air

Of the bloodless lair

Where the sterile everything

Instructed my body

How to be itself.

All the faces went blank

When the pushing yielded little

And the little one turned.

Drapes pulled up

So I couldn’t see

Them cut into me,

Poorly upholstered tragedy.

I heard no cry for my breast

I saw no quivering lip,

Now screaming in his stead

I grabbed the knife and threatened

Them to uphold the life

I’d so carefully procured.

Code white bled into pink

And tiny black blankets

Wheel away my dreams.

Thoughts of different futures

Feel like pulling out sutures

From the scar that I still bare.

– Vagabond Prophet

– I heard over the intercom system a code white in the OR, and then right afterwards a code pink in the OR. There are only so many procedures with a conscious patient. This is what my brain did to fill in the gaps of my knowledge.

Televise

Gone are the days

Where groping in the dark

You’d find a dangling root

To pull yourself out

Of those churning waters.

You’ll find no part

Of me to cling to

You can choke and sputter

You can shriek and utter

Those desperate last gasps.

All the while arms crossed

Just waiting for that

Last bubble of life

To disturb the surface.

You were a natural predator

Already plucking the best parts of me

While I was yet lacing up my boots.

Things we’ll never agree on

What is good what is evil

What could bring me joy

What could leave me in ruins.

You brought the thinnest of smiles

To cover the broadest of lies,

The cataracts in my eyes

You put there I despise.

Knowing the power of words

I know yours mean nothing,

We once were close

And would walk towards disaster

Holding hands intertwined.

Now the hatred

The righteous rage

The resolution

To burn and cut your roots,

Now I’d televise my secrets

To get you just a little

Further away from me.

Though I have adorned 

Your treachery with poetry

Don’t mistake it for forgiveness.

– Vagabond Prophet

“What we’ll never agree on”, the wonderful prompt given me by @josy57. Thanks pal!

Open Maws

With the urgency of

A green light turning red

I steal away to this desk.

This pen a knife

Carves into my sleep,

A peculiar creature is me

That my ideal starting point is this.

All the classic tales

Of girls in cloaks

Of wolves in night gowns

Taught me nothing,

I had to learn for myself.

If I couldn’t write

I’d be plunged into night.

I have to sharpen my own claws

And cut my own teeth

It is the hour I face my wolf

And we both have open maws.

– Vagabond Prophet

Gasoline

The yawning chasm

The muscle spasm

The heavy eyelids

That cry for more unrest.

There aren’t enough hours

For me to complete towers

I began many moons ago

Though I work the mortar daily.

I’m a stardust child clean

Now laced with gasoline

Strike a match

Watch chemicals react

See me explode

This heart barely intact.

– Vagabond Prophet