Tag: peoplewithpoetry

Night Sky Conservatory


Do you remember the night sky conservatory?

The time we picked the lock at the gate

Snuck in after dark?

So innocent we felt like criminals.

Little did we know we were stealing

Each other’s hearts.

Do you remember the blanket I spread out

Beneath the stars that slowly revealed themselves

One constellation at a time?

Learning that darkness and light

Can really coexist quite beautifully,

Each gaining significance from the other.

Do you remember the bats

Scattering their silhouettes

Across our unhindered gaze?

Do you remember the creature

Moving not far away?

Do you wonder as I do,

If it was our budding affection manifest

To warn us we were falling?

Do you remember when you said,

“That was my first kiss”

And your very words

Altered my body chemistry?

Do you remember from all the years gone by

Amidst the tangled breaths and foggy windows,

All the vapours of pleasure

Turning into solid child?

How could I not believe in magic

When what I’ve known with you

Is the opposite of tragic?

– Vagabond Prophet

@delightfulharmonypoetry

Upstream

Absinthe green and gin white,

Bourbon brown and whiskeys bite,

Magic brews to subdue or embolden

How they see fit.

Sometimes loosening

A person held at bay,

And others shutting mouths

While throwing punches.

A carefully procured potion

With mystic contents

And curious results.

Magic all around us ought not be surprised,

By cryptic text in cursive illegible.

In the revelation that if we share a continent

There is always an unbroken chain of concrete

Connecting us together.

Keep your ear to the pavement

And feel my heartbeat in the

Slithering cracks and widening potholes

Gas prices rise and fall

In time with my bloods pulsing nature

Yet in the economy of you and me

An empty tank won’t keep me away

As we will always be connected

By a shared river of gravel and tar

I’ll swim upstream I’ll swim down

Please don’t be too far.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for prompting @mildreflections and I with “The green of absinthe.”

vagabondprophet:

Suburban Pirates

Remember when we were

Suburban pirates

Hoarding all the

Best sticks

For our tree fort

In our plastic war

It all felt so real

I can still hear the screams

I Attila the Hun

Taking hostage

Of the nun

Then you came

A shining knight

Dealt a brutal blight

Now we’ve both

Known defeat

Groveled at

Each other’s feet

Can we make up yet?

Can we be friends again

I’ll give you my

Favourite candy

It’s not poisoned this time

I promise.

– vagabond prophet

Pulp

I’m wide asleep and dreaming

Of a future where the world’s not caving in.

Always presumptuous,

Always idealistic.

Today I saw convict wearing green

Shackles on both hands and feet

Those in chains

Still have pains.

In my optimistic stupor I imagine

His crime one that’s victimless.

Dark hair and dark eyes

He had with dark remarks

For the guards at either arm.

I too have a hamartia

A kryptonite, Achilles heel.

Yet surely the stories not yet finished

Are the ones most in need

Of divine intervention.

I’ve been incorrigible

And the man in green may be too,

Yet I hope that on our piles of kindling

Similarly damp

That when a spark does catch

Our hearts can some salvation snatch.

That’s not presumptuous

That’s not idealistic,

I’m crushed by the weight of a savior,

And from pulp comes hopeful seeds.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for prompting @mildreflections and myself with “A presumptuous dream.” Hope this wasn’t wasted on the likes of me.

Antlers

Antlers sharp and many pointed

Broader than shoulders

Threatens without words,

Lean and muscular

Bounding high into the sky

Fences meaning nothing.

These creatures wise without books

Knowing the language of the wood

Hissing in the whispered wind

And threatening in it’s quiet.

Knowing things by instinct,

Meaning that nobody knows

Just how it knows things.

Aware that given long hours

In sunlight some things bleach

And some things burn.

Ears turn around

As my feet the ground pound,

You already know

By the shape of my thorax

That I’m rather different.

You vanish as you smell me,

You taste my breath on the air

And foresee that I always fail

More thoroughly than I succeed

I just might try to spare your life,

So naturally you’re afraid.

– Vagabond Prophet

Fireside Memories

Some trains won’t return to station

Yet as I travel long I see

Limbs tossed aside.

The thin arms that carried me thus far

Cast into the ditch

Now flaunt no leverage

Only strength,

Now travelling at great length

Finding enough pieces for a creature.

Pieced together makes a person

That I sit with at fireside,

Telling stories until stars illuminate

More than last remaining embers.

Telling me my own tales

That are strangely familiar

Yet gone unthought of for years.

Young enough to think

The weather man made decisions

Rather than predictions,

A man behind a desk with buttons

Overwhelmed by choice

And always choosing to be unkind,

Rather than a simple man

Trying his best to convey bad news.

Old enough to know that

Black is the colour for mourning

Because it attracts the most heat

Those grieving hearts need

As much as they can get,

Almost like an embrace.

Watching moving pictures with the neighbour

Father implores me to send him home,

Takes me to the driveway where

Man’s best friend is wrapped

In a yellow wool blanket.

People came to help

Digging a hole next to the tree

That reached halfway to heaven.

Now his bones are turned to soil

That roots wriggle against

To further their kingdom

Spreading fingers spreading shadows

On a boy fallen fully awake and weeping.

He’d been companion

He’d been protector

He’d played catcher and outfielder,

But most of all

He’d played my friend.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for prompting @mildreflections and I with “dismembering a memory”. A great prompt, hope I did a halfway decent job with it.

Paper Boat

Paper boats, mache moats

Cardboard levee, not at all heavy

Pretend solutions, real problems.

Nest of twigs and spit

Protection from monsoon,

Corrugated house

Shelter from the quake.

Water kicks up dirt

Dirt is turned to mud

Mud bakes into clay

Begetting ceramic crockery.

Ceramic pots hold dirt

Watered diligently every day

Round and round we go

In a paper boat dissolving.

While pirates in ships wooden

Papers rigid ancestor

Won’t be softened

Or misshapen by the storm.

To my paper boat I cling

Putting every hope on board

For wood never let me mark

With words from pen.

The secrets of a heart

Marred by tempest strong

Though I may sink

Behind I’ll leave my ink.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for promoting @mildreflections and I with “Paper Boat.”

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.