Tag: poetry

This Barren City


This barren city

These roads slick with tears

These sidewalks cracked

And mountains in every direction.

Here in the valley

Everything settles

The rain filling the fields

Running down from frosty peaks

To overflow my ditches,

The clouds fall on my head

Every morning making everything dewy.

In this barren city

Where anything can grow

Except good will towards

The hopeless, the shattered

The broken and tattered.

To the many who call these streets

Their home tonight,

No bed to rest your weary bones

No place to wash off bad decisions

Hoping tomorrow you are able

Tomorrow you’d have more strength

And someone in your corner.

To them and others

I say unto you

The city might be barren

But you don’t have to be,

The streets might be cold

But your heart isn’t.

The hope that rises with the sun

Will lift you from the pavement

And raise the dead in you.

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 thanks for prompting me with “This Barren City.” This issue is dear to me.

Shortcomings

mildreflections:

The problem is:

I feel too much,

Speak too little.

Fear too much,

Fight too little.

Dream too much,

Do too little.

Breathe too much,

Live too little.

The problem lies

In all there is to me,

And how little I make of it.  

                                – Mild Reflections

This, this is why you’re the best. I feel this way too sometimes.

delightfulharmonypoetry:

love is, 
being so upset I can barely breathe
calling you and hearing your voice calm my fears
hearing you smilingly tell me your secret compartment filled with affection
finding it with your instruction
there in the dusty recesses of the past 
you thought of future me hurt or craving
you tucked some sweetness away for a rainy day
i love you, this says to me
I thought of you then and I thought of you now
of a future when I might have the thing to make you smile 
if only for a second, if only for a bite 
I wanted to be ready to bring you delight

i don’t know why you love me, most days
Most nights too 
but please don’t ever stop or I don’t know what I’ll do

@vagabondprophet

Awww shucks.

Brace Myself

Rubbing fiberglass on my chest

Scuff the skin, make it more thin

That air may avoid my lips

And enter my lungs directly.

Avoid the middleman

Dad always said

He’s only there for your money

Standing with vitriolic smile

And outstretched hand.

I am a master of depravity

I put my face into the furrows

I find it makes me grounded

If I plant my dreams in soil.

When flowers grew no more

In the arid plains of my heart

I asked you to hold my hand

And walk me to greener land.

Though you’ve burned my sorrow

In flames of your love

I still feel sometimes tarnished

Like a pencil erased

The page retains impressions.

My blood I’d taught

To tell just backward riddles

Still sometimes pumps a lie.

When I wake from dreams

And cry out to you

And am deafened by the silence,

Sometimes silence is the answer.

For sometimes beauty

In obscurity

Greater than in clarity.

How tenaciously I’ve fought

For my right to rot,

Only to have you grip me tighter.

You borrowed my burden

Yet refused to give it back,

Now I ride this river

Mile after mile.

The water it transforms

From the muddy browns

To the salty blues

Until the heights above

Are as vast as

The depths below.

Now even if I fall

It’s only deeper in to you

And the only preparation

I now make

Is to brace myself for grace.

– Vagabond Prophet

Hey @josy57 thank you for the prompt “Borrowed Burden,” as always it’s been a joy.

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.”

Open Heart Surgery

The surgical blade

The drape that was laid

Upon skin built up for years.

Flat on your back

Ragged breath gone slack

Clamp down the mask

Begin the task.

The harm always starts

Before the healing can,

The cracking of ribs

The loss of blood.

If this is you

Going under the knife,

Remember some go a lifetime

With nobody seeing their heart,

For the struggling pump that it is

Trying to bale out a boat

Under constant downpour.

– Vagabond Prophet

Wooden Heart

The featureless face

Has known no joy or sorrow,

So when you see me

With my visage deeply fissured

Remember life has hewn me.

I have peeled back my skin

To let life better in,

It has shaped me

As the river does the canyon.

Beginning a flat expanse

Until the life bringing rush

Begins to carry away

What was dead.

Leaving only the elemental me

The undilutable you

The saturated facthood

Of who I’m made to be.

I stowed the truth away

Far below deck

And tightened my sails

Heading always west.

You and I always tied

Though I may have denied

Your course set east

Made taut the distance between us.

The chord stretched tight

It sang a plight

Plucked beautifully by the wind.

The song so mournful

The plaintive cry so sorrowful,

Weeping into the sea

Tasting the salt pouring from my eyes

Into the salt spoken from your tongue

I knew I could not escape you.

Though you’ve been forever constant

Today is no assurance of tomorrow,

Carve me sharply

Take hammer and chisel

Sculpt this stony soul.

With careful but persistent love

Shape this brow

And make cavernous my visage

As you alone see fit.

When this trunk falls

Count the rings

Of this wooden heart

And know I thank you

For the chance to have grown at all.

I’ll even thank you for the toothy blade

That brings me to my knees

For death that day

May be better than growing pains.

You demolish me more beautifully

Than I could ever adorn myself.

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 thank you for the totally groovy prompt “A featureless face.” It’s always a good time.

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Okay people. Going to be up all night again. Company is appreciated.

– Vagabond Prophet

Talk to me, join me on my journey of exhaustion.

Yup. One more time this week! Talk to me.

Mhmmmm

Please, join me in my nighttime wakefulness.

I am a crazy person and will not be sleeping tonight again. Anybody in the same boat?

If nobody comes along, it’s okay I’m prepared.

Another night shift. Any company is welcome!