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

Peek-A-Boo

Formed me from clay

And left me here to stay

My lungs drew their inaugural breath

Signaling I was my own

I am a force

I have a voice.

Now the lengths I have gone

To use that power, to use this voice

In ways never intended.

How does this make sense of you?

When everything I’ve said untrue

How can I climb my way to truth

With feet that have only been uncouth,

Kicking thorns into your skull

Until the stone rolled away

And you brought a brand new day.

What act of devotion

Could I do to prove,

What pilgrimage could I take

And die along the path,

What trophy could I earn

To prove how much I love you

To prove how much I thank you

For making this blind man see.

As I sit here and ponder

My thoughts begin to wander

To when you gripped my hand

And pulled me from the muck.

Maybe it was the Midas touch

That had made the boat finally sink,

The rapacious attempts to better myself

With the pleasures and leisures of the world.

I had begun to think of myself as dead

As a blackened heart whose rosy cheeks

Had not yet realized that the blood

Pumped into them was damned

Polluted and meant for the grave.

I actually believed my transgression

Was too great, outweighing your grace!

How foolish was I?

Did you laugh?

Did you snicker at my childishness?

Before you pulled back the veil

In this high stakes peek-a-boo

To whisper to my soul “Here I am.”

You lovely source of true delight

You safest place amidst the plight

How fully you dismantled my delusions,

How quickly I became aware

It was never your grace that was small

But rather my faith.

A single thought of yours so spacious

I could occupy it for a century

And never find its borders,

I could spend summer after summer

Diving into those waters

And never plumb their depths.

I needed to see myself for what I was

For the monster I was becoming

Before you could save me,

For what man thinking himself complete

Would take a helping hand?

It wasn’t until the storms outside

Mirrored the ones within

And you calmed them with a word,

That I thought to come to you.

Now I pray for others

The ones I would call brothers,

That if they ever leave the zoo

And find all the beasts

That don’t live in cages

The beasts that pound and scratch

Their way through the echoing halls

Of each and every soul,

That they would call for help

Against those deadly baffling foes

And you always faithful to answer

Would smother all their woes.

– Vagabond Prophet

Brace Myself

Rubbing fiberglass on my chest

Scuff the skin, make it more thin

That air may avoid my lips

And enter my lungs directly.

Avoid the middleman

Dad always said

He’s only there for your money

Standing with vitriolic smile

And outstretched hand.

I am a master of depravity

I put my face into the furrows

I find it makes me grounded

If I plant my dreams in soil.

When flowers grew no more

In the arid plains of my heart

I asked you to hold my hand

And walk me to greener land.

Though you’ve burned my sorrow

In flames of your love

I still feel sometimes tarnished

Like a pencil erased

The page retains impressions.

My blood I’d taught

To tell just backward riddles

Still sometimes pumps a lie.

When I wake from dreams

And cry out to you

And am deafened by the silence,

Sometimes silence is the answer.

For sometimes beauty

In obscurity

Greater than in clarity.

How tenaciously I’ve fought

For my right to rot,

Only to have you grip me tighter.

You borrowed my burden

Yet refused to give it back,

Now I ride this river

Mile after mile.

The water it transforms

From the muddy browns

To the salty blues

Until the heights above

Are as vast as

The depths below.

Now even if I fall

It’s only deeper in to you

And the only preparation

I now make

Is to brace myself for grace.

– Vagabond Prophet

Hey @josy57 thank you for the prompt “Borrowed Burden,” as always it’s been a joy.

Redundancy

I’ve been little else but lawless

Little else but wayward,

In the redundancy

Of my delinquency

How do you not grow tired?

When you’ve been little else but lovely

Little else but gracious

In the insistency

Of your consistency,

Please don’t end or waiver

For I need you so.

– Vagabond Prophet

Vintage

Hold me up to the light

Inspect me under looking glass

With delicate brushes

Comb me over

To prove I am authentic.

This is borrowed strength

I am festooned with the strands

With the ribbons of blood

Strewn within me

From those that went before.

The stewards of memory

May know and verify

That I am the proud owner

Of vintage skin and antique blood.

These are legs

That have been leant

A tongue only for a term,

And a heart

I still make payments on.

It’s a rent to own program

You bleed yourself dry

For long enough

You might just get to be yourself.

Dying every day

And living every death

With your blood in my veins

That you died to provide.

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 yeah you! Thanks for prompting me with “Borrowed Antiques.”

Printing Press

I’d believed the lie

I conjured nigh

The hour of my undoing.

That I am unforgivable

That I am my mistakes,

Thinking some fears

Can’t be assuaged

Those depths too deep

To ever plumb fully.

Now disregarding my grief

For your magnitude,

Your tongue the printing press

That published the good news

With words inked

In your blood

That should be mine.

– Vagabond Prophet

Stitch

The coffee bitter

May lend vigor

As your need beckons

With cast iron eyelids.

The aching blistered feet

May still travel

As your destination croons

“Come hither.”

The convoluted spine

May still bare some burden

As I trudge the road

Trodden by many before me.

I can see their faith rewarded

In the footprints on the path,

So many that I follow

But none that do return.

Now this knotted mind

Will journey on and surrender,

The rebels in my heart

Will lay down arms

And all past harms

Working backwards

Will stitch themselves.

– Vagabond Prophet

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.

vagabondprophet:

Big Dipper

One bright and starry night

Just a lad with teary eyes

Lost the bout in the fight

When you pulled back the disguise.

Crashing through partition

I was fully completely, undone

Unraveled my tradition

My top no longer spun.

You broke through all other choices

When you addressed my need

I’d been listening to cunning voices

Devise a cunning deed.

Now that path I have forsaken

Thankful I’ve found another

After all the lies I’d taken

And their attempts to smother.

Now these ideas inverted

With tools forged in heaven

From the river of grave you diverted

To raise me like bread leavened.

All it took was looking up

The big dipper your spoon

Serving the love on which I sup

So much grander than the moon.

How did I ever think

Your grace was not enough

When you fill the sky, fill the rink

To refine this diamond in the rough.

– Vagabond Prophet

– Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with ‘the path I have forsaken.’

Big Dipper

One bright and starry night

Just a lad with teary eyes

Lost the bout in the fight

When you pulled back the disguise.

Crashing through partition

I was fully completely, undone

Unraveled my tradition

My top no longer spun.

You broke through all other choices

When you addressed my need

I’d been listening to cunning voices

Devise a cunning deed.

Now that path I have forsaken

Thankful I’ve found another

After all the lies I’d taken

And their attempts to smother.

Now these ideas inverted

With tools forged in heaven

From the river of grace you diverted

To raise me like bread leavened.

All it took was looking up

The big dipper your spoon

Serving the love on which I sup

So much grander than the moon.

How did I ever think

Your grace was not enough

When you fill the sky, fill the rink

To refine this diamond in the rough.

– Vagabond Prophet

– Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with ‘the path I have forsaken.’