Peace?

When my own mind works against me

What peace can there be?

My right hand throwing rocks

Through my window and

My left hand hurling it back.

In the wild, the ensnaring

Searching tangled roots

I find my fallen mangled boots

And having donned them

March in circles.

Though I spiral endlessly

On the opaque and indiscernible

Ramblings of this nomad mind,

They never churn themselves into butter.

Wasting my time on mundane nothings

I practice braiding water,

I pick my own bones clean

And though Bob Marley said it right

And all three birds are here

I still worry about everything.

The sun’s ray

That brings decay

To the cloth long in the sun,

The shortened days

Where days dismay

Is crushed by weight of night.

I given options often choose destruction

The addictive nightmare

Where at least I’m alive,

I the froward soul

In need of constant reminding

That air is for breathing

Was always meant to fill me

Rather than something to exorcise.

My heart lacquered with

So much bitterness and trauma

It is marinated for disaster,

Like Icarus I collide and burn

With my expectations of myself.

If to you this sounds tiring

To fling oneself into the chasm of chaos,

Then congratulations are in order

For your sound mind and stout heart

And though there is always help out there

So many miles from home

Not all minds and hearts are equal.

When my own mind works against me

What peace can there be?

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 prompted me with “A rock through my window.” Thanks for that it is always such a joy writing your prompts.

R.I.P.

One year ago today

You decided to go

Sometimes I’m in disbelief

I didn’t know

So we weep

With tears for you

As an ocean opens up

To swallow you

Gravity reversed, taking things away

While your demons on fear fed

Maybe thinking you’d find

a place for your head

Did you feel cold

And lost in desperation?  

When you were standing

in the wake of devastation

We wonder what you’d say

About this grief unraveled

Maybe ‘weep not

For roads untraveled’

In the wastelands of today

When there’s nothing left to lose

You showed us how to survive

That’s a truth not a ruse

No I don’t know

Why is everything so heavy

How much water is too much

For this splintering levee

You helped so many stay afloat

And keep climbing their ladder,

Wherever you are please know

In the end, it really did matter.

– Vagabond Prophet

– Rest In Peace Chester Bennington, we miss you.

Underneath

Madness can consume you,

Make you quake in the night,

Sadness can grip you

With all of its might.

Anxiety, depression

Spectres that may dare

To follow your steps,

Never playing fair.

If it twists your shape beyond

Anything I know,

Punching holes in the gunnels

No paddles left to row.

You sinking ship

You vessel capsizing,

I won’t be idle

Carefully strategizing.

I’ll dive headlong

Into that nameless place,

Searching for you

Looking for your face.

I’ll try to pull you out

Save your from its teeth

Yet if I can’t

If we’re stuck underneath.

That’d be alright

I’ll fall in love with every version

That insanity creates

Every stray thoughts stray excursion.

– Vagabond Prophet

Need and Needles


Driving downtown seeing all kinds of people,

Walking everywhere in haphazard zigs and zags

Unshaven, unwashed, mind reeling from life.

Existing is a heavy weight

Sometimes too much to bare,

It wrinkles the straight creases in the mind

Making things appear that weren’t

Or taking away what you’d known.

It’s not just bums who chose this life,

It’s Ricky who’d been raped as a boy,

It’s Vicki who’s children

Don’t speak to her anymore.

When there’s this much need

And needles,

It’s everyone’s problem

And there’s no fencing it in.

– Vagabond Prophet

Focus

vagabondprophet:

Madness can be comfortable,

Like a sleeping bag

On a snowy day.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Sadness can be tolerable,

When everybody leaves you

And you can finally get some sleep.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Betrayal can be manageable,

If you betray yourself too,

It’s no different.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Then that all changed

I got locked up.

Psychiatry Ward.

More like circus

For people who

Just couldn’t handle any more.

Insisting on the existence

Of Neverland or something like it

And always being denied.

Every levee breaks

And every tower shakes,

Just ask the princess.

She’s in room 11B

Says her name is “Lady Hopscotch”

Her tower dropped her to the ground.

So when I got locked up,

Seeing walls of white like snow

I tore my bed apart

And crawled inside my mattress.

Just shut it out,

Focus on warmth.

– Vagabond Prophet

Focus

vagabondprophet:

Madness can be comfortable,

Like a sleeping bag

On a snowy day.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Sadness can be tolerable,

When everybody leaves you

And you can finally get some sleep.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Betrayal can be manageable,

If you betray yourself too,

It’s no different.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Then that all changed

I got locked up.

Psychiatry Ward.

More like circus

For people who

Just couldn’t handle any more.

Insisting on the existence

Of Neverland or something like it

And always being denied.

Every levee breaks

And every tower shakes,

Just ask the princess.

She’s in room 11B

Says her name is “Lady Hopscotch”

Her tower dropped her to the ground.

So when I got locked up,

Seeing walls of white like snow

I tore my bed apart

And crawled inside my mattress.

Just shut it out,

Focus on warmth.

– Vagabond Prophet

Focus

vagabondprophet:

Madness can be comfortable,

Like a sleeping bag

On a snowy day.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Sadness can be tolerable,

When everybody leaves you

And you can finally get some sleep.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Betrayal can be manageable,

If you betray yourself too,

It’s no different.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Then that all changed

I got locked up.

Psychiatry Ward.

More like circus

For people who

Just couldn’t handle any more.

Insisting on the existence

Of Neverland or something like it

And always being denied.

Every levee breaks

And every tower shakes,

Just ask the princess.

She’s in room 11B

Says her name is “Lady Hopscotch”

Her tower dropped her to the ground.

So when I got locked up,

Seeing walls of white like snow

I tore my bed apart

And crawled inside my mattress.

Just shut it out,

Focus on warmth.

– Vagabond Prophet

Focus

vagabondprophet:

Madness can be comfortable,

Like a sleeping bag

On a snowy day.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Sadness can be tolerable,

When everybody leaves you

And you can finally get some sleep.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Betrayal can be manageable,

If you betray yourself too,

It’s no different.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Then that all changed

I got locked up.

Psychiatry Ward.

More like circus

For people who

Just couldn’t handle any more.

Insisting on the existence

Of Neverland or something like it

And always being denied.

Every levee breaks

And every tower shakes,

Just ask the princess.

She’s in room 11B

Says her name is “Lady Hopscotch”

Her tower dropped her to the ground.

So when I got locked up,

Seeing walls of white like snow

I tore my bed apart

And crawled inside my mattress.

Just shut it out,

Focus on warmth.

– Vagabond Prophet

Focus

Madness can be comfortable,

Like a sleeping bag

On a snowy day.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Sadness can be tolerable,

When everybody leaves you

And you can finally get some sleep.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Betrayal can be manageable,

If you betray yourself too,

It’s no different.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Then that all changed

I got locked up.

Psychiatry Ward.

More like circus

For people who

Just couldn’t handle any more.

Insisting on the existence

Of Neverland or something like it

And always being denied.

Every levee breaks

And every tower shakes,

Just ask the princess.

She’s in room 11B

Says her name is “Lady Hopscotch”

Her tower dropped her to the ground.

So when I got locked up,

Seeing walls of white like snow

I tore my bed apart

And crawled inside my mattress.

Just shut it out,

Focus on warmth.

– Vagabond Prophet