Tag: faith

Real Rainbow

I’ve known anger burning red

And despair oh so blue,

Envy green and cowardice yellow.

I’ve had my countenance turn black

Under a sky of grey

A real rainbow of disdain.

I am not lazy or sloth like as of late,

Come here touch my brow

And feel the residue of my toil

That brings me naught but rot.

Until you came into my life

Breaking dams that held nothing in only out

Flooding dry lake beds

And sprouting gardens where there was dust.

Because of your works not mine

I can call myself justified in time,

A second hand treasure

Better than anything wrought

By these calloused hands.

You can still feel the sweat on my body

See it drip onto a brown soil

Watch me work a land green and budding

See the sun set red

And rise brightest yellow.

I can push off into a vast blue sea

And not care if I sail or get swallowed

For both is to be loved.

You’ve carried me in your shadow of light

Through the deepest blacks

Protected by your majesty

Into a brand new country

With brand new colours

A real rainbow of joy.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with “Second Hand Treasures.”

Undaunted

These mornings are still cool

While afternoons with heat

Make me perspire into the night.

What can I don

For this time between seasons?

Much the same as

The pains of destiny.

Knowing I’m for the next world

Yet under orders to toil here

To prepare the land and hearts.

For both predicaments

Will take much patience

A period of suffering

And a measure of courage

To look the end of time in the eye

Yet remain undaunted,

Though still perspiring into the night.

– Vagabond Prophet

Shapeless

Souls, water, wind,

Angels, demons, and love.

Things most likely to dance

Between polar opposites of good and evil

Can’t take shape, won’t take shape.

Molded my nurturing and vitriol,

Only shaped by what it pushes against,

I’ve been shaped by a God above

That loves me somehow,

A devil below

That loves me like

A beautiful yet poisonous plant.

I’m shaped by people on either side

That love me wonderfully

And hurt me wonderfully.

A candle burned at every side

Not just at the ends

Until all that’s left is wick.

Needing something to slow my melt

But God is above and that doesn’t work

Until he turns me upside down

Whispering in my ear,

“I’ll shape you masterfully.”

Cut away the gnarled bits

Sand the rough edges.

Wipe stain upon the wood

Bringing out the grain

That needs that touch

To come to the surface.

– Vagabond Prophet

   Thanks @mildreflections for prompting @josy57 and I with “the shape of a soul.

Shackles

Punish me brutally

Lock me up in shackles

Give me what I deserve.

All these years I’ve begged

Just to get what I’m owed

Only to realize

There is nothing worse.

Now learning my earnings

Are what you’ve saved me from

I’ll swear my allegiance

To your promise

That doesn’t fit on paper.

Who else has threatened death

With life

And won?

– Vagabond Prophet

Drowning

Rushing in and out,

Twice a day everyday.

Highs and lows

In lofty throws.

Leaving lines on the rocks

Of past embraces

Felt a thousand times before,

Too be felt a thousand times more.

Predictably relentless,

Like taxes or red lights,

But much more real

With much more zeal.

No easy thing to resist

To shift your weight

From bottom to top

Full speed and full stop.

I’ll give my all to fight this squall

Resist a sea that plucks

Whenever it pleases

Tossing whitecap teases.

That’s just how it feels

Living here and believing

In stories great and true

Though some may say askew.

A world in love with authenticity

That’s somehow always fiction

It can feel so hollow

And unsated with each swallow.

This rhythmic pulsing of humanity

Blood pressure from disease untreated,

I know this cure

It’s simple and it’s pure.

I’ve never done drugs

Yet know what addiction is

I’ve been the man in sin

I’ve been lost in swamps within.

I have battled my own blood

Wrestled my own current

Distraught with its intent

To assimilate to a soul bent.

I have fought to untangle

My dreams from nightmares

To realize in deepest chagrin

The differences are thin.

If you want to walk against the tide

Of your broken nature clawing

I’ll show you the path

But first get rid of wrath.

When water starts rising

Up and past your navel

Find the one rivulet

Rebellious and immaculate.

The one teaspoon in an ocean

That when tide rushes up

It rushes down

With upside down frown.

Follow it abandoning all

Strip all that drags you down

Be cleansed by drowning the part

Of you that was dead from the start.

– Vagabond Prophet

   Thanks @josy57 for the prompt “Against the Tide”

Such a passionate love

As to spill past covers front and back

And into my veins.

So if I must bleed I bleed for love

Your sacrifice surging forth

From my languid vessels

And into plain sight.

Where devils and angels

Fly unseen by those of us with skin.

Vagabond Prophet

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 11

Do doubts even have shadows?

Any dark place I need to travel through

Before I come to true belief.

Maybe doubt is like darkness,

Only the absence of its antonym.

Hey courage! Good to see you

Didn’t recognize you with your long face.

Yes it’s true temptation seeks me out

When I’ve been happily in drought.

I’m afraid of the thoughts

That my own thoughts thought,

Just like I’m afraid that blood tires

Of the burden of oxygen.

Hemoglobin sitting down on its one job

Letting my life slowly slip into the gutter.

I’m afraid of being the man this morning,

The one with electrodes hanging from his head.

Electric power to shock himself into obedience,

A rebellious body to match my mind.

I’m afraid that one day I’ll meet the younger me

And he’ll be ashamed at what he’s to become.

I’m afraid that inaction will rust my very soul,

Yet action is so terrifying, with gears as misaligned as these.

I’m afraid of a current

Ever growing more swift

Until all of my writhing

Counts for nothing at all.

I’m afraid of paperwork,

So I often let the paper work me,

I’m afraid of losing people

And I’m afraid of losing myself in the aftermath.

I’m afraid of the way that time never slows,

“Ready or not here I come!”

I’m never prepared

Always caught unaware.

Okay so there it is

All the fright and trepidation

Laid out with trembling and shaky hands

Arranged into piles to be burned.

He came for fears like mine

And fears of others

Not to eradicate

But to render unimportant.

To prod this coward into courage

And unwrap this wire

I tangled myself in

Calling it self care the whole time.

You don’t take my fear away

You just enable me to meet it

Giving me just enough strength

To survive the battle.

I still get scars I still get bloodied

Just as any soldier does.

Yet I also have my master whispering,

Whispering in my ear in darkest moments.

Promises of a better future where fear is over.

When its days are done and gone

And the nails are in the casket

That we’ll fling into the fire.

Gild my skin and bones with bravery

To keep fighting until that day,

Sharpening my sword

On the steadiness of your truth

And resting my soul in the vastness of your hands.

I can feel you embroidering my heart

Every stitch hurts like hell

Yet you’re promising me heaven,

I can feel beauty taking shape in the corners of my vision.

You’re helping me pretend at strength

Until it’s no longer pretending.

In the crescendo of your love, you called me worth your death!

Me!

This poem won’t get rid of fear,

I tried to make it do so and yet

All it can do, and all I can do

Is be a reminder of the one

Who will chase it away in his good time.

– Vagabond Prophet