Ebb and Flow

Welcome to the ebb and flow

To the sporadic spells of rain,

To the workload that swells to meet

Your well rested vigor.

Good day to the hat

You only notice in its absence

Hello to the fireworks

Hope exploding for a future

Less volatile than the past.

Welcome to the ebb and flow

Of weather that scalds and chills

In the same day.

To the violin bringing

Tears of joy and sadness

In the same melody.

Greetings to the planet

Where hearts of men prevail

And the only chance at redemption

Lies outside the world altogether.

– Vagabond Prophet

Long Hours

Pen long hours in the dust of your memories,

Discern the bones from the dirt

Excavate the traumas and trophies

And see the foundation of your story.

Pen long hours in the grass of your youth,

With quills wearing feathers so dashing

With ink carve away the parts not needed

White page given meaning by its embrace with black.

Pen long hours in the forests of parenthood,

Admire and prune growth so eager

Never embarrassed or furtive

Only looking for a limb to climb.

Pen long hours in the clouds of age

Wrinkled and grey, ready to let go

Aching to rain life down into the dust

The memories of woodland creatures

Awoken by the hopeful magic of petrichor.

When the sun sets on your inkwell

And life has penned long hours on your soul

And you lay in your spiral bound coffin,

Know that a story is never wasted.

– Vagabond Prophet

Cluttered Skies

The light reaches out

Long fingers touching everything.

Hobo tents and bank roofs alike

Both glistening under

Last night’s rain.

Sky still cluttered

With the aftermath.

If the heavens do not discriminate

With their celestial perspective

Maybe we can learn something

Under cluttered skies.

– Vagabond Prophet

Can boldness be regrown?

Dousing dreams in gasoline.

Can I have all the strength of attack

And all the safety of defence?

Or was the armistice

Only ever meant

To leave me disarmed.

Can one have faith

Without first having doubt?

Could I have roots with depth

Beyond my own

Grafted to this timid trunk

To make a steady

Yet brave hero?

Oh let it be true

That this and more

Will come to pass,

A day where the world rests

Squarely on my shoulders

And sits there comfortably

For I’ve been imbued

With your might.

– Vagabond Prophet

Happy Birthday

It’s my birthday today

Though every day is the anniversary

Of something

Today is the anniversary of me,

Of when ink first spilled

On empty pages of my life.

Old enough to know

Youth can’t be given

Only thinned

Like a ring resized

For ever widening fingers.

Young enough to know

Most of the book is yet unwritten,

Many trips around the sun

Not yet spun.

– Vagabond Prophet

Under the Weather

Under the weather

Above the soil

Where else could I be?

Unable to soar above

Subject to the way the sky

Indecisively swings on hinges

Like alcoholic binges.

The staccato of a door

Urgently tapped upon

When hail falls on my roof

Reminding me of what I’m beneath.

It’s okay it won’t always be that way.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with “under the weather.”

Sanguine

Hundreds of different bandages,

For hundreds of different wounds.

Some with silver, some with glue,

Some that cover most of you.

These ones in my hand

To contain maggots

While they eat

The dead flesh around a wound.

Insect like vultures

Subsisting off decay.

If blight should red or green or blue,

Antiseptic solutions for that too.

Every answer to every question

Understood by spinning blood

And squinting at urine.

What I’ve learnt from this place,

Sanguine in both definitions

Can be present in one body

That’s clinging to a bed

In a crowded hallway.

Medicine is a nice way of saying

A poison that we trust.

“This is going to hurt a little bit”

Means this will be torture.

That the suffering of those

That wail like feral beasts

Are beyond dignity

Looking only to survival.

“Decreasing quality of life” means that

This person isn’t worth many more dollars.

Mostly I’ve learned that hope

Is the ultimate trump card,

Hope covers all bad news,

Is a treatment for any diagnosis.

Peace can’t be prescribed

But can be spread by gentle hands

And kind words.

I only put gloves on a shelf,

Yet I now know the fingers

That will know them so well

Need my diligence

To impart some resilience.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with “What I have learned from you.” Hope this is okay.

4.5 Hours

4.5 hours sleep

Is not enough to support

Corporate expectations.

I’ll just hope that

I get all my stumbling out

Into this journal.

Oh that my sleeplessness

Transformed to black ink

Would take forms

Unthought of in wakefulness.

So I’ll bleed ink

Until the prolonged blink

Where they begin to

Carve my headstone

With keen edged tools

And heavy blows.

They’ll lower to the grave

Luckily shaped like bed

Then and then only will I rest.

– Vagabond Prophet

Remnant

Oh son with limber ligaments,

Elastic mind and sinew,

Let what remains of your youth

Stretch much further than mine has,

Let your vigour for adventure

Weather many winters.

Let your glittering eyes

Shine through every storm.

Spend your days in innocence

Picking flowers for your mother

And learn nothing of

The treachery of lechery.

Clothe yourself in all things joyful

And arm yourself with skills uncommon

Building bridges to others

Not walls to keep them out.

The flame that burns so brightly

If reduced to embers can survive,

Being blown into action days later

By desperate measures

From desperate lungs.

My lungs.

I’ll be your bellows

To forge within you

Strength I only heard of in age.

You’ll be better than me,

An anchor, a muster point

A lighthouse.

For those surviving the blight

Of those spectres in the night

And for all of them you’ll point

To the rising son.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for the prompt “what remains of your youth”

Deprived

Not enough hours in the day

So I carve into the night

With shrewd ambition

And blades waved blindly,

Forgetting its importance.

So many words in my brain

Rushing to get out

I see a splash and can’t tell

If it’s a jumping fish

Or just my foot at the other end

Of the bath.

Things in my mind stumble out

With little to no coaxing

Found strolling in cursive.

I’ve got battlecries pouring out fingers

And when the muse courses through

I’m it’s slave.

Take my sleep,

Let me eat not but toast

Allow me no reprieve

From the onslaught.

I can’t go back to drought

Not again.

Protect me from the rivers streams

Becoming desert floors,

I can’t bare to see the current

Turn to dust.

– Vagabond Prophet