Original Poetry about anything and everything.
You’re breath smells
Like ashes and regret,
I’d like to tell you what I think
You just might get upset.
You’ve always been
A bone of contention
Calling me out on things
Of your invention.
You’re like a pencil
With erasers at both ends
You’re words don’t get far
And my faith in you suspends.
Always needing help
Yet rarely any offered,
You’re the last in and first out
So yes I am a scoffer.
– Vagabond Prophet
Early October when the bomb went off,Tearing us apart.
A brother here, a sister there.
Scattered across the globe.
Like the shock had made
Roots suddenly disappear.
Wandering to find them again.
Something to anchor me to life,
And something to pretend
That none of this ever happened.
It was like walking under a tree
Green burning bright
Like a star in the night.
Until it drops its snow
Right down your back
And your spine inverts itself.
The snow no colder than
The snowball fight earlier.
But never expected.
I never expected any of this
I trusted you,
I loved you.
But after you left,
We didn’t talk for months.
You didn’t understand that.
How could you think,
Nothing would change between us?
When you tore my heart right out.
I was a child,
Not a liver,
I’m not that resilient!
Are you stupid?
Or can you just think
That wishfully?
Couldn’t you have thought wishfully,
About her too?
Build her up in your mind.
Something better than she was,
Instead of leaving me all alone with her,
The only boy around.
We were six!
Then just three,
Only boy was me.
Brothers dug for oil,
Money for their toil.
We all got new family.
Pretend it’s normal
This prefix ‘step’ for everybody.
A monosyllabic word for ignorance.
Did you have stinging nettles
In the corners of your mind,
Shrouding your secrets from yourself?
I didn’t know what a man was!
How could I instantly become?
I guess you didn’t know either.
I found a new father,
He’s never let me down.
He’s unshakable.
Yeah we talk now,
About the weather,
And the price of gas.
But it will never be the same,
I can’t think that wishfully.
I won’t struggle to get as close.
You used to hold me close,
Just to be near me,
I treasure the memory.
It was twelve years ago you left,
Twelve years with a cleft heart.
When you changed the definition of home.
I’m trying to be eloquent now,
But all I can think of,
Is just how much it hurt.
– Vagabond Prophet
I need more musicI’ve got rhythm in my veins
And a heart that pumps
Not blood but a beat.
To create something
To be consumed by the ears,
To bring into life
Meaningful sound.
My heart beats
In polyrhythms,
And my feet journey
To find the melody.
So you be the woodwinds
And I’ll be the strings,
I’ll learn you first by ear,
And then by heart.
– Vagabond Prophet
If you keep words inside
You won’t explode,
You’ll just die.
Everyone will forget you,
Just occupying a grave,
Keeping it cold for the next owner.
Worse than saying too much,
Is saying too little,
If I pontificate at exhausting length
I apologize but only a little.
One day I will die
And all that will be left
Is my words,
Passed down in words.
– Vagabond Prophet
I need to.
– Vagabond Prophet
Hello what is your emergency?
Stickers we need stickers!
Is that all?
Yes sir, we’re right out.
So I ran across the building,
Borrowing from someone else.
Mam, I’ve got your stickers,
You should know people are dying.
Next time I’ll bring
Them oxygen masks,
You can find your own
Damn stickers.
– Vagabond Prophet
You don’t make your coffee like this?
Then you’re doing it wrong,
If water and grounds don’t
Spend time loving each other
What magic can there be?
Your mug deserves better,
Give it the devotion it deserves.
It’s worked so hard
To stimulate your mind
With weak and empty brews.
Instant coffee, pah
More like disdain right now!
Give it time trust me
And it’ll give fertile soil
For the seeds in your soul.
– Vagabond Prophet
On my walk to work,
Rain washes yesterday away,
Wash me like a fruit
Don’t let me go astray.
Cars go speeding by
I really hope they see me,
I’m ready for the day now
And this puddle is gleamy.
If the water keeps on coming
It’ll find what’s underground,
I pray it’s strength for the day
Something I’ve not yet found.
– Vagabond Prophet
Dear Joshua April 15th 2018
I hear what you’re saying and I appreciate that you’re concerned about my safety and that you want to help me take care of the other things dear to my heart. I really do. I just can’t do that though, I can’t talk to anybody about Kal or Trevor and if I know Liz at all if I trouble her with legal garbage than any chance I have of mending things is gone for sure. I just have to hope that at some point the last drop of water will flow under the bridge and she will miss me enough to come by with the kids. With Kal and Trevor though that’s a whole different animal. Let me put this plainly, if I complain that Trevor has threatened me and that I feel threatened by Kal I may be killed. Trevor has friends in high places so I can’t really trust any of the authorities I may complain to, and even if I complain about Kal I don’t want to have that conversation with Trevor when he says something like, “So I heard you don’t think I can keep you safe, well let’s see how who you do on your own.” It’s just, it’s all bad. Thanks for trying to help but this is one of those things that rests squarely on my shoulders.
Yesterday I accidentally broke the tip off of a knife in my cooking class when I was trying to filet a fish and I bent the blade too far trying to get between the skin and the meat. The teacher told me to put the knife in the garbage and get another. I nodded, and pocketed it.
Joshua, please understand me. That was the most terrifying moment of my existence. Not proposing to Liz worried she would say no, not the complicated births of our children, not all the times I had to skulk back home and tell her I was out of work again. This was even more terrifying than that time we were hiking and I slipped on some gravel and almost tumbled down a cliffside, or the time I was driving my car and got hit by a snow plow.
It was a simple enough thing to do that I’m sure nobody noticed, but it was like in that moment I made the decision that I will kill somebody if I think I need to. Like I’m a murderer at heart just waiting for a life to take and nobody else knows it yet. Having finally passed that check mark of morality, that under the right circumstances I’ve decided I will stab somebody to death, I really didn’t feel good about myself in that moment but I also felt like I kind of had to. I also felt a strange sense of power that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. The means and resolve to kill is not something that sits well with me but I need to get back to my family one day and that means I need to survive prison. I tried to stay under the radar, I tried not to make enemies but I have them anyways.
I didn’t worry about Kal sleeping beneath me as much last night while I lay there with my white knuckled grip on the knives plastic grip. I actually slept a bit myself. My God did I need that. You don’t have kids so I can’t compare my exhaustion to you with even that. When your tired taking care of kids it’s a happy kind of tired. Yeah your sweaty and dirty from playing with them at the park and cleaning up after them in every imaginable way, but it’s your children and you’d do anything for them. The weariness that comes with fearing for your life is so completely different, always checking over your shoulder. Every time I’m standing outside and I feel the wind on my neck I’m filled with dread that I’ll turn around to see Kal pushing me down to do something horrible. Relentless panic is a horrible thing and I hope you never experience it. Maybe animals really can smell fear.
Do you think anybody else here feels the way I do?
Thirty Two years old
And he’s really gone.
Body beautifully adorned
And underground.
What now life?
What will you do now?
Will you strike me down
Or make me endure this?
Future I can’t see
Evasive and ever changing,
The past never changes
But tortures every moment.
The present sharpens
And blunts me
In equal measure,
Useless for every task at hand.
How will I scrape
Out an existence,
If grief sands me down
To a featureless stone.
Blunt and sharp in equal measure,
Useless for every task at hand.
– Vagabond Prophet
Vagabond Prophet 