Pure Blue

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

Prompt Day 23

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.

Aftermath

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

Prompt Day 22

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.

Prompt Day 20

Daddy’s home yay!

They cry from the top of the stairs

Wearing dresses and suits

From dancing with each other.

“Daddy, want to watch us dance?”

They spin and spin

Just like the vinyl on the turntable.

“Daddy want to see my super jump?”

“Daddy you need to shave,

Your cheeks are all scratchy.”

These are the things I live for,

Not praise but simply speech

From sweetest voices

Wanting nothing but my attention.

So I’ll watch them orbit the living room,

I’ll keep my cheeks all smooth,

For I am their daddy, and they my children

And they love me, it’s terrifying but it’s true.

They really love me.

– Vagabond Prophet

Lightning Rod


Through tempest spurned

And fury turned

On a meadow swathed in white.

Lightning rods attracting

The wrath of heaven acting

Shot forth onto dry grass.

Kindlings always destined

To burn up, never questioned

No dreams of an unscorched future.

To smoulder away

Paving the way

For those that will burn brighter.

– Vagabond Prophet

Prompt Day 19


If ink onto paper isn’t enough

If your black blood onto the sheet

Won’t suffice

You ink your skin.

I did, family crest

For a family spread the world over.

Related by blood

Black to crimson and back again.

Families change

Families grow

Families explode into a hundred pieces.

Brothers and I stitched a picture

Had it fixed upon our skin

A reminder of a past together

Where everything was safer

And we could explore forests in the dark.

The only fires worried about

Was the one that burnt our camp food,

Not the one that started in the shadows

To render home into ashes.

So no matter how we scatter

To make home for ourselves,

We’ll always find a safe place

In each other, in arms

In eyes commonly blue

And in backs commonly emblazoned

With lions and spears and shields.

And grace, most important of all.

Grace for ourselves and each other,

For how we’ve hurt one another,

And for our dad, gone under the pen now too.

Grace for him especially.

He’s hurt us all so deeply

But he still gave us our ink,

And ink is thicker than water.

– Vagabond Prophet