Tag: peoplewithpoetry

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

Two Bent Knees


I am the third son of a third son

Of a man with just one eye,

He’d have a hundred years now

Tucked under his belt.

Lessons he taught

From battles he fought.

Not the one across the sea

For his vision compromised

The childhood accident

The tragedy despised.

Running with scissors

And tripping with scissors

Not just a cautionary tale.

His war included no bullets

His attrition risked no shrapnel

Just the simple devotion of a simple man

To put bread upon the table.

Raising cattle in a frigid land

Where even water retains no flexibility

And gives up its crown for a time unchallenged.

Years later raising young by the seaside

His tidepool kingdom crashed down

When the water came in high.

One wife down and one to go

The missing mother divided

An already divided clan.

Trudging onwards to surest of horizons

His compass unflinching in its convictions,

His health faded but his faith did not

And the proof was in a vacant body

Found on two bent knees.

– Vagabond Prophet

@mildreflections I think you may like this, I was inspired by your poem about your grandfather.

Taxidermist

You a ferrous metal and I a magnet

Drawn to you by design,

Yet sin degrades all

With it’s terror and it’s squall.

On my worst days

When I listen to the liar

Saying “It’s okay its natural

Like breathing

Or seething.”

Desires denied

Sorrows multiplied.

I shower and feel the skin come off

Everytime hoping the next layer

Will be thicker and less porous

Keeping out the slithering vapours

That slide in so easily.

You told me I’m brand new

But why do I have these phantom pains

From a spine I no longer have?

For you demanded that too…

Tonight don’t let the darkness bite.

Sometimes the prescription for these lenses

Is so strong I can’t even hear you,

My fingers trip over themselves

Can’t ever get the whole story out.

Why are all old men bent over?

Do we all hide our magic?

I am pierced not as though by arrows

But as though by poetry

Run through to the crux of the matter.

The matter of matter

Of what matters,

Do I?

That which upsets me inspires me most

And it’s true tragedy

Brings a man to the surface.

For years now I’ve been far beyond the surface

Can you place me back beneath?

Give me a mermans lungs and let me not choke.

I am both hope and cheer

I am both charm and jeer.

I feel the spectre anticipating

I can hear it berating

And I see it slipping in and out of me

I read the putrid pleasantries

It writes on the corridors of my mind.

Ghost, demon, ghoul whatever name you’ve chosen

Allow me to address you directly this day

Do you not see me?

Look me in the eyes

Hold my gaze I dare you!

I am but the slain wolf

Of greatest hunters

The master taxidermist

Stitching me back together with sterner stuff.

Good or evil a wolf still has teeth

Come now and let us do battle!

I grow tired of dreading the looking glass

Of fleeing the hour where shadows lengthen

Like fear with nightly growth spurts.

That particular kind of weariness

That makes life bleed heavily.

Coffee isn’t enough to hold my hand

To prop open my eyelids

With tent pegs meant for home.

I require victory

I thirst for conquest

Over strongholds in my heart,

Then I may rest.

You have birthed in me a rage

The greatest of the age

You’ve been biding your time

And committing your crime

But I have not been idle

I have known a donor of strength

That will make me victorious.

Come now bring your weapons

See if it does you any good

A man of my word you will soon learn

Light too can bite.

I by might imbued me

Will fight till bones protrude thee.

– Vagabond Prophet

– Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with “Facing your own Ghost,” literal I know but here it is.

Obstacles

They were like rooftop geese

Building homes, raising young

In all the wrong places

In spaces unnatural for their kind.

They were like the hammock

Just waiting for a body to drop

Before the knot betrays its weakness

And plunges to the hard ground.

They had no vacancy

In their hearts for eachother,

The affection atrocious

The quarrels ferocious.

They were diehard tryhards

Attempting something significant

Only down this path at all

For some misplaced expectation.

Sparrows wearing owl beaks

To make folks think them wise.

The crescent waned

And so did the wax

On the long night of

Strained and forced relations

The stale devotion

Began to attract flies.

It died loudly I still hear it in my sleep.

Somehow I still wake with a smile

The puzzle box given me

Not a picture to copy,

So I turn the pieces over

To make something new.

Together we became like seeds

Endlessly turning ourselves inside out

In our attempts to climb the sky.

Now we’ve evolved into compasses

Caring nothing for obstacles

Only convictions and destinations.

Years ago now that I used your tongue

To ask for your hand

We venture together

Into the kingdom broad and tall

That’s casts its borders like fishing nets.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for the prompt ‘stale devotion’

@delightfulharmonypoetry

Shake hands with worry

Make all courage scurry

Give a nod to fury

Jingling his keys.

Veins pumping vanity

It’s vain it’s insanity

As I travel from solstice of length

To the solstice of brevity.

Trample something damp

To make myself feel strong.

I’m the prophet who having

Seen his own defeat

Only had bravery galvanized

To prove the fates wrong.

I chew on keys

To unlock the words stuck

On the tip of my tongue.

I should have known

How this would end

I had been tonguing

The fatal flaw for months.

And when I brought my

Jaws down to crush that dinner

I should have known

I’d be defeated, fractured into pieces.

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 thanks for the prompt “knowing when to lose.” This thing is weird but there it is. Out in the world now.

Days of Honey

I am Mr. Cash

I am the mourner,

I’m everybody dressed in black

Who am I?

Is grief not where I dwell?

Is sorrow not the gold mine

Where I scratch out a living?

These things you say to me

Only leave me perplexed,

My days stuck in traffic

My nights stuck in thought.

My swallowed tongue

My rib cage rung

Climbing up and down

From a mind with kidney stones.

Every thought taking such effort

To unearth from the depths

And push to the surface

The pain brings me to my knees.

My own heart is the box

Marked fragile, intentionally dropped

Because it says so.

Now these keys on the ring

For locks I don’t remember,

Need to find a resting place,

And those locks with wide open jaws

Awaiting the crooked teeth

Of this forgotten tool

Will not close their lips for any other tongue.

For it knows my shape

And lies in wait

To fulfill the promise

Made by someone other than myself

For I hold the key that another designed

And must seek for it a sheath.

The journey is long

The path winding

And so I am thankful

For the days of honey

That heaven finally brings

To remedy this bitter soul.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with “Swallowed Tongue.” This one kind of got away from me, hope folks like it.

Hickory

Once again I ride the town,

Hop on board until

The end of the line.

Through this haze

Of hickory smoke from

Wildfires too close for comfort.

Morning mists not yet burned

Mean everything is grey,

Sinking in deeper

As we saunter downtown.

It’s thick and it’s hot

Leaving streaks on windows

As though it’s the sweat of the flame.

Not the first time

Won’t be the last

Thay I pray for rain.

For pregnant clouds to come

And birth that fresh new life

On all that smoulders.

– Vagabond Prophet

Frigid

vagabondprophet:

The wind bites my face

And I know that’s your embrace

But it hurts,

Must you be so cold?

I make a hot cup of something

See I’ve got an answer for everything,

As usual I’m either too smart

Or too dumb.

I don’t even know which

It changes like a switch,

So let the wind bite my face

And make my legs go numb.

Let me stay stranded in the cold

No choice but to be bold,

When I’m captured by your might

Captivated by frightful beauty.

Make your frosty tongue

Climb every rung

And run piercing

Through every passageway.

Don’t give me a way out

Don’t make it a fair bout,

Call me to yourself

Grip me firmly.

Take me in your hand

Put on me your brand

Enchant me with

Your frigid brilliance.

– Vagabond Prophet