Tag: poetryriot

Peacock

I am a peacock preening feathers

So you might not notice

How slight I really am.

Maintain this sheen make it gleam

Lest it betray my fear

Of prying eyes

From fiendish spies.

So many layers built upon

For year after year after year

I don’t remember the colour

Of my own natural skin.

There are few and far between

That see me as I am,

When days length gives way

To evenings hold and nights sway,

All the shimmer and shine

Of my prized plumage

Means nothing in the dark.

The fear of being known

As well of being unknown

Keeps me painted today,

Now you know my secret

Seen the crack in my veneer,

When twilight comes

And the brilliance of the sun

Angles just right I’ll see yours too.

Wear your flaw proudly

It’s what makes you unique

Makes you not by rote,

Not just a laugh track

On the rerun of anybodies life,

Not just another zoo attraction

Be a rebel a renegade

Choose to boil or freeze

No matter the centigrade.

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 “Cracked Veneer.” This was nifty, thanks again.

Tapestry


Some sentences finish themselves,

Picture a chicken and a stump

In a barren backyard

Grass all plucked and gone,

Does your mind not add

The beheaded bird

The bloodied ax?

And if I tell you of a man

Proposing to his love,

Does your imagination not

Force his knee to bend?

We all fill things in,

The way we think they ought to be,

And we all do it the same way,

How curious, how strangely universal

We can be when it’s not actual speech.

What does this say of us

Why is it this way?

Is there some common thread

Throughout the tapestry of humanity?

Some golden but fine little shimmer

That says we are all built

By the same carpenter?

If this example avails

No spark of truth for you

I can do this all day,

I’ve paid attention too long

To not recognize the artists strokes.

– Vagabond Prophet

Peek-A-Boo

Formed me from clay

And left me here to stay

My lungs drew their inaugural breath

Signaling I was my own

I am a force

I have a voice.

Now the lengths I have gone

To use that power, to use this voice

In ways never intended.

How does this make sense of you?

When everything I’ve said untrue

How can I climb my way to truth

With feet that have only been uncouth,

Kicking thorns into your skull

Until the stone rolled away

And you brought a brand new day.

What act of devotion

Could I do to prove,

What pilgrimage could I take

And die along the path,

What trophy could I earn

To prove how much I love you

To prove how much I thank you

For making this blind man see.

As I sit here and ponder

My thoughts begin to wander

To when you gripped my hand

And pulled me from the muck.

Maybe it was the Midas touch

That had made the boat finally sink,

The rapacious attempts to better myself

With the pleasures and leisures of the world.

I had begun to think of myself as dead

As a blackened heart whose rosy cheeks

Had not yet realized that the blood

Pumped into them was damned

Polluted and meant for the grave.

I actually believed my transgression

Was too great, outweighing your grace!

How foolish was I?

Did you laugh?

Did you snicker at my childishness?

Before you pulled back the veil

In this high stakes peek-a-boo

To whisper to my soul “Here I am.”

You lovely source of true delight

You safest place amidst the plight

How fully you dismantled my delusions,

How quickly I became aware

It was never your grace that was small

But rather my faith.

A single thought of yours so spacious

I could occupy it for a century

And never find its borders,

I could spend summer after summer

Diving into those waters

And never plumb their depths.

I needed to see myself for what I was

For the monster I was becoming

Before you could save me,

For what man thinking himself complete

Would take a helping hand?

It wasn’t until the storms outside

Mirrored the ones within

And you calmed them with a word,

That I thought to come to you.

Now I pray for others

The ones I would call brothers,

That if they ever leave the zoo

And find all the beasts

That don’t live in cages

The beasts that pound and scratch

Their way through the echoing halls

Of each and every soul,

That they would call for help

Against those deadly baffling foes

And you always faithful to answer

Would smother all their woes.

– Vagabond Prophet

Darkling

Under waning moon and festooned sky

With darkness to illuminate the night

It is already morning

Though beneath blackened heavens

One couldn’t hope to know

It will soon reverse its darkling effect.

This is faith beyond the wraith

This is hope surpassing spectres

Yesterday’s sun is no

Assurance of today’s

But faith sticks out its hand

Until warmed by mornings kiss.

– Vagabond Prophet

This Obscure Chasm

Where my skin ends

And your breath begins

And this obscure chasm

In between where the magic lives.

The magic we claim

When the distance we shatter

With the urgency of affection

When my bad breath didn’t matter.

What does ten years

Of happiness look like?

Smile lines and stretch marks

Scars and hair gone thin

With weariness and worry,

Unshaven legs in winter

Tangled into mine,

And hatchets I won’t bury.

For no quarrels with your laurels

For me to drive a stake,

Only hands to hold

Only dreams to pave a road for.

And if you should lose your mind

If the woman I know and love

Dies behind your eyes

I’ll love you like the night sky

Like a star long gone

That my eyes

Won’t stop believing in.

– Vagabond Prophet

For @delightfulharmonypoetry , heres to many more years darling.

Thanks @josy57 for the prompt “This Obscure Chasm.

Dad Jeans

I was unprepared to have

My heart ensnared

By clutches oh so small.

I was born of summer

But you were born of heaven

With joy in your smile

And sunlight in your eyes.

Born in November the trees

Shade giving virtue had fallen

Honeybee long gone

No longer searched for pollen.

But your young and tender body

So needy and so small

We both got the warmth we needed

In the embrace of one another.

Now every pair of pants I own

Has holes in the knees

They are all worn and torn

From being a train or horse

For you to explore the universe,

From crawling to find you

I the monster in your tale.

I get to see the world anew

From the eyes of a child

Who knows not what borders are

Only what kindness is.

– Vagabond Prophet

@delightfulharmonypoetry

thanks @josy57 for the prompt “Worn and Torn.”

Strongholds


Haven’t I strayed, hurt and betrayed?

Has not curiosity and the exciting risk there of

Driven me to my favourite car wrecks?

Again and again and again…

I do that which I despise

And don’t understand

Your truth comes in the door

Ready for a long stay

Yet I evict it so quickly

That it gets no chance to decorate.

This is what happens when

I let my blood flow through

These corridors I call arteries,

Instead of letting the blood you spilled

Run through my heart

And with joy so loud it crumbles the walls

Of wicked strongholds so fortified

I had begun to grow around them.

– Vagabond Prophet

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.

Pavement Pillow

The edges bleed on everything

When it rains this hard,

It seems the world is weeping.

To staunch the flow

We have to work together

To pray for warmer weather

For those who get their lullabies

Whispered from whatever

The cracked pavement pillow

Speaks to them tonight.

– Vagabond Prophet