Tag: new poets society

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.”

Prompt Day 22

vagabondprophet:

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.

Can’t believe its been a whole year since we lost him.

Pounds Per Week


I am awake when I should be asleep

I am awake when I should be awake,

I save resting for the space between stanzas.

For I read these thoughts aloud

To a vast and dusty crowd

That claps and cheers me on

From the PM to the AM and back again.

I should close these eyes right now

But with stalwart rhythm this mind churns on

And the quill moves more eloquently

If I keep this blue gaze fixed

On a white page inked black.

Perpetual sleeplessness is my vocation,

Though no references save the coffee vendor

That weighs me out in pounds per week,

You should know I am a professional

And I will not burnout, for this backlog of dreams

Demands vigilance of this exact kind.

– Vagabond Prophet

Grip

Grip tightly to the bravery

Caught at brightest noon

When your form casts no darkness

Behind itself.

Grip tightly through

The long evening shadows

And the deep black of night

Until the sun boldly climbs the hills again.

– Vagabond Prophet

Wardrobe

Beware the song with steps danced slowly

With melody so sweet that each word

Eagerly leaps from your tongue,

Do not let beautiful mantras

Robe your mind with lies.

Beware the wolf with wardrobe full of deceit,

Having spent its days learning your itches

Content with scratching before biting,

Not all pleasures good

Many dipped in arsenic

For hunted animals,

In dead of winter of course

He calls you precious.

A caution for the new tenant

In the old house

Unaware of the boards that creak

To wake a sleeping beast,

Know where you are and be on guard,

Mindful that home is a place nobody has been.

Careful with the man who never plays pretend,

Never trying to be somebody better than he is

To make it fit by force, always at ease

With a spirit malnourished.

Traits so wonderful never fit naturally

But in time you can grow into them.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for prompting @mildreflections and I with “Hunted Animals.”

Hope folks like it.

Kamikaze

I have no blood

I have no heart

Only a red sea in my chest

Tide in highs and lows

Every single second

At the beckoning of a moon

Behind the very sky.

Pulled by things unseen

Plucking feathers clean

Pruning vanity clipping pride

Silencing remarks so snide.

In the end I’ll be a nomad

Walking ever inland

To where the gardens grow

I’ll have no grass to mow

Only seeds to sow.

Come with me

Come one come all

Untie the dreams safely moored

Let them risk open waters

And swift unseen currents.

Be swept away by the music

That’s played in the background

Of your dreams.

Be the kamikaze 

That forgot to say goodbye

Overwhelmed by the importance

Of the task at hand.

– Vagabond Prophet

Long Hours

Pen long hours in the dust of your memories,

Discern the bones from the dirt

Excavate the traumas and trophies

And see the foundation of your story.

Pen long hours in the grass of your youth,

With quills wearing feathers so dashing

With ink carve away the parts not needed

White page given meaning by its embrace with black.

Pen long hours in the forests of parenthood,

Admire and prune growth so eager

Never embarrassed or furtive

Only looking for a limb to climb.

Pen long hours in the clouds of age

Wrinkled and grey, ready to let go

Aching to rain life down into the dust

The memories of woodland creatures

Awoken by the hopeful magic of petrichor.

When the sun sets on your inkwell

And life has penned long hours on your soul

And you lay in your spiral bound coffin,

Know that a story is never wasted.

– Vagabond Prophet

Cluttered Skies

The light reaches out

Long fingers touching everything.

Hobo tents and bank roofs alike

Both glistening under

Last night’s rain.

Sky still cluttered

With the aftermath.

If the heavens do not discriminate

With their celestial perspective

Maybe we can learn something

Under cluttered skies.

– Vagabond Prophet

Can boldness be regrown?

Dousing dreams in gasoline.

Can I have all the strength of attack

And all the safety of defence?

Or was the armistice

Only ever meant

To leave me disarmed.

Can one have faith

Without first having doubt?

Could I have roots with depth

Beyond my own

Grafted to this timid trunk

To make a steady

Yet brave hero?

Oh let it be true

That this and more

Will come to pass,

A day where the world rests

Squarely on my shoulders

And sits there comfortably

For I’ve been imbued

With your might.

– Vagabond Prophet