Fortified

Always have song present

The melodies of beauty to usher you

Through the monotony of life,

Crescendos to hold you through lows,

Melancholy sounds to remind you

In joy, that this is not yet home.

Music has lulled me

Invigorated this spirit,

Fortified my bones

When milk no longer could.

Harmonies even curlier than my hair

Have spun my heartbreak into epiphany.

Reminding that he speaks through all

If you only have ears to hear.

Always have song present

To comfort you when bothered

To bother you when comfortable.

The most beautiful sounds making sadness

Pulling tears from your eyes

To stretch into harp strings.

Always have song present

When you’ve canoes with no oars

And tusks with no boars

Rhythms yet unknown

Will guide your feet to safety.

– Vagabond Prophet

Solitary Refinement Chapter 1

vagabondprophet:

Dearest Elizabeth June 18 2017

I hope you and the children are well. I miss you guys so much it’s painful. I still cannot believe I’m in prison. Convict, inmate, incarcerated, prisoner, criminal. I never ever thought that these words could be used to describe me.

It all sounds so fruitless to tell you now but it’s just like I said in court. I had been laid off from my job, more workers than they could afford once some of the investors pulled out of the contract. I didn’t want to come home from work early to tell you I had to look for work again, not again.

It was raining that day so I took the bus. When I was at the bus stop I was talking to a guy about how he hasn’t seen me at this time of day before because I just got fired. He was a big guy, broad shoulders, shaved head. He told me he owned a business and was actually looking for able bodied men who take directions well.

“I can do it! I’m your man, let me see it’s Friday today so I’ll get you a resume and references and meet you on Monday? Does that work for you?” I said to him.

“ That won’t be necessary, I trust your word. If you tell me you’re solid I’ll believe you. Just don’t let me down.” He replied.

That bastard! He was so friendly, so kind. You always said I was too trusting of people and I should have listened to you. What was I thinking! Getting hired at a bus stop without any kind of interview or anything. I should have smelled the bull shit right away but I couldn’t, all I could think was how I wouldn’t have to tell you I’d lost my job.

I was so happy. I’d been saved. After one day “working” with this man I find myself slammed in jail, the court, and now here. All so fast.

Day one he just told me that we were just picking up some cash from somebody who owed him on the way to the work site. So we pulled up to the back of this building and he told me to wait by the door with a bag. I just stood there waiting, totally oblivious they were robbing the place until alarms started ringing and cops showed up to cuff me. The bag I was holding had a gun in it I didn’t know about, the other guys had bolted out a different exit.

Now I have to listen to the people here drone on and on about things I really can’t care about. They keep talking about programs that they offer here. Education, skills training, that sort of thing. So many guys here haven’t even finished high school. For me though it all sounds so pointless. They keep reminding us to take our programs seriously as they prepare us for rehabilitation into society. I know how to live in society! I was real good at it too. I had a job, I paid taxes, I got educated. I was a construction worker for goodness sake I was the damn poster boy for responsible citizen. Working hard to support a family, rain or shine. Exercise in the evenings, cycling to work to reduce my carbon footprint. All the stuff these programs are supposed to prepare me for. Now I’m stuck here for five long years.

I can’t even pretend to care about how any of that matters. Right now all I can think of is how today is Father’s Day and I’m in prison. I’m going to end this letter now and go to the visiting area in case you guys decide to surprise me with a visit. It’s the only thought that’s gotten me through the day.

Sincerely,

Your Husband

I finished this a while ago. Would love to know what people think of it, if you like what you read in this first chapter search the tag “solitary refinement” on my page and you’ll find the rest.

Thanks everybody.

– Vagabond Prophet

Shooting Stars

Stardust and comets tails

Solar winds fill heavens sails.

Blowing me

Across celestial sea.

The seven seas cast

Exactly upwards

To wet the fires

Of stars long gone cold.

Gentle hands so strong and pure

Kindling fires that must endure

To live long enough and die well enough

To inspire the likes of me.

Stardust and comets tails

Burning up so hot

Wearing destruction as a cape

Hurtling through infinite black

In search of an audience

For illumination.

I’m in the nosebleed seats,

Can’t bare to get any closer

But I’ll applaud loudly

And hope it carries as your light

Even in my death

Even as I burn up

Crossing forbidden barriers

To reach your heavenly ears.

– Vagabond Prophet

Ice coffee and gasoline
Two things I need tonight.
Locomotive power for a paralyzed mind.
Electrically sweet and combustible both
Give me strength to carry this yolk.

If you see smoke in the distance
It’s likely me with pen and pad
Burning the candle at both ends
To have a double portion of wax
To use on a waning portion of myself.

Vagabond Prophet

Vapour falls so heavily
Starting streams of its own
Leaving trails on the rock
Carving stone over time.

Nobody knows if trails
Join back up
Or branch out on their own
Without following each one
To its greatest length.

Water most immeasurable
And beyond capacity
Both of comprehension
And containment.

– Vagabond Prophet

Nooks and crags
Hard and rough to the touch,
Stories hidden deep within
Somewhere between
The rings and the sap.

Hardest foundations
For the tenderest of shoots,
Finest green needles
Homes for nomads of the forest.

Towering over all
The only witness of history
And with tightest lips
You perform interpretive dance
With your roots underground,
Accomplices in beauty
Can’t help but join the show.

– Vagabond Prophet

Drowning

Rushing in and out,

Twice a day everyday.

Highs and lows

In lofty throws.

Leaving lines on the rocks

Of past embraces

Felt a thousand times before,

Too be felt a thousand times more.

Predictably relentless,

Like taxes or red lights,

But much more real

With much more zeal.

No easy thing to resist

To shift your weight

From bottom to top

Full speed and full stop.

I’ll give my all to fight this squall

Resist a sea that plucks

Whenever it pleases

Tossing whitecap teases.

That’s just how it feels

Living here and believing

In stories great and true

Though some may say askew.

A world in love with authenticity

That’s somehow always fiction

It can feel so hollow

And unsated with each swallow.

This rhythmic pulsing of humanity

Blood pressure from disease untreated,

I know this cure

It’s simple and it’s pure.

I’ve never done drugs

Yet know what addiction is

I’ve been the man in sin

I’ve been lost in swamps within.

I have battled my own blood

Wrestled my own current

Distraught with its intent

To assimilate to a soul bent.

I have fought to untangle

My dreams from nightmares

To realize in deepest chagrin

The differences are thin.

If you want to walk against the tide

Of your broken nature clawing

I’ll show you the path

But first get rid of wrath.

When water starts rising

Up and past your navel

Find the one rivulet

Rebellious and immaculate.

The one teaspoon in an ocean

That when tide rushes up

It rushes down

With upside down frown.

Follow it abandoning all

Strip all that drags you down

Be cleansed by drowning the part

Of you that was dead from the start.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for the prompt “Against the Tide”

Deadly Sin #3

Pride, as defined by the poets dictionary.

Definition: Taxidermy of the soul, taking what is dead and setting it up as a trophy to be admired above all other living things.

Other definitions include: To paint a thick coat of most beautiful paint over what is clearly rotten wood, then boasting about your masterpiece.

Preferring night lights to star light, simply because they do what you tell them to.

To be so puffed up with air, you actually believe you’re strong until somebody comes along and pops you.

To take every offense so personally as though all ill intent was always aimed at you.

To have an inability to gaze into any surface not a mirror.

Antonyms include: Humility, empathy, caring for others, generosity.

Pride only seeks to convince itself it dwells above that which is common, deserving more while earning less. Such a heart can never know a higher power, such a heart can never admit need.

Ice Cream

Ice Cream ain’t got nothing

On the sweetness and smoothness

Of her skin on my fingers.

Vinegar ain’t got nothing

On the sting in her venom

Lying in wait, beneath a tongue

Usually so sweet.

Sheets of egyptian cotton

Ain’t got nothing,

On the comfort she brings me.

Any other woman

Ain’t got nothing,

On the love I have for her.

Burned too many times

In a flame of her own blood

Heart now singed at edges

But tender at the center.

Medium rare ain’t got nothing

On her perfection gained by fire.

– Vagabond Prophet

Deadly Sin #2

Wrath, as defined by the poets dictionary.

Definition: What happens when mortals confuse themselves as Gods and allow themselves rage undiluted by servitude to a sovereign.

Other definitions include: Red pumping so violently that it lashes out with unkind words and unkind hands.

Tempestuous resolve to cause suffering and destruction.

Antonyms include: Kindness, Peace, Justice, righteous indignation.

Wrath only seeks to tip the scales and in that plunging down land with heavy fists on whatever it may.

– Vagabond Prophet