Tag: prose poetry

Definition


What is a writer?

A thoughtsmith

Shaping words

With heat and strength

Into something you can wield.

Sometimes a sword

Sometimes a candlestick.

A poet much the same

But more nonsensical,

Like a soldier

Who dances into battle.

No less effective

Just different.

If you do it well enough

It can be understood

In every language

Like “Coffee” or “Mama”,

And maybe just maybe

Make people wonder

If we’re made for something different.

– Vagabond Prophet

Cheese

vagabondprophet:

If even milk can die

And turn into something great

What does that say of me?

In my current state.

If fruit can perish

Turning into wine

Give strength to my gut,

But not straight off the vine.

Okay you’ve made it clear

I’ll undergo the transformation,

I’ll die and die again

Is this truly salvation?

– Vagabond Prophet

Time You Genius You

vagabondprophet:


Give credit where credit is due

Time you genius you.

None carve as masterfully as you.

And she, she fears time ahead.

How it promises to tug, pull, and crease

Slowly unfolding her youth.

She doesn’t know my eagerness,

To see those same effects

See the whole canvas stretched.

I long to see the way

That she unfurls

Day after day.

As water smooths out stone

So time erodes her face,

A slowly chiseled beauty.

As the ax must blow by blow

Slowly strip away,

The fibers from one another.

So I anxiously await

The sands of time

Etching her away.

Crows feet will appear

The years will dig trenches

In the softness of her face.

I don’t believe in evolution

But her beauty does evolve,

A process of natural seduction.

She enchants me without trying,

As time goes marching by

I’ll orbit her still.

The more that’s scuffed away

Cut or split right off

To make way for something better.

Time you genius you

Master of shape

And all things exquisite.

You will scrub away her youth

Unravel her naivete

Leaving wisdom engraved.

Her body swelled and stretched

With babes not once but twice,

Lasting marks of conquest.

She fought to create,

To be the river’s mouth

For life itself to dawn.

Strip it all away,

This current face of hers,

What are you hiding?

A gift with one million layers,

That unwrap day by day,

No shortcuts.

The crescendo of her beauty

Will take many moons to reach,

I await that goddess truly.

Excess must be shed

To reach the final gem

I’ll hold her against the blows.

If time should bring her pain,

It’s no surprise but all the same

I will crouch down beside her.

With creaky knees and hazy eyes

A foggy mind and weakening spine,

I’ll crouch down to kiss it better.

If time should bring her grief

As part of this descaling,

I’ll be there.

Soak me through with tears

So they eat through me too,

We’ll ferment together.

I only wish to love her

Half as well as time,

Every fold and curve

Marked by its caress.

– Vagabond Prophet

Gesticulation Tower

vagabondprophet:

Pinstriped in the front standing

Just a little higher than everybody,

Our attention you’re demanding.

I’ve got to say you look smug,

Do you really believe

This’ll fit beneath a rug?

You’ll come falling down I say

Can’t say when,

But there’ll come a day.

Like Genghis Khan

Realizing defeat

Woebegone.

You’ll lose all your power

That you’ve clung to

In your gesticulation tower.

– Vagabond Prophet

vagabondprophet:

Unenlightening

I can hear it off the eaves

Drip drip drip.

Distant coyotes,

Yip yip yip.

The darkness and fog

Combine and decide,

Unenlightening.

Tonight we unenlighten.

The rain comes quicker

And thicker than before,

Making soil so fertile

As to be barren.

One dewy drop

Says to another,

“We’re so heavy, full of wet,

Tonight let’s unenlighten.”

That’s when I start to feel,

Along with tobacco smoke

Swirling in my mind,

I’m being unenlightened.

Flipping through your pages

Traditions get unraveled.

With your gold gilded edges,

The unenlightening is frightening.

Contradicting every wisdom

That I’ve ever known.

You put your trust in vagrants,

Rather than royalty.

You talked to strangers

Befriended cheats,

Trusted prostitutes,

Beguiling in the streets.

So I’ll do it I’ll commit,

To break the mold,

To be an idiot,

To become unenlightened.

Rain’s just pouring now,

I’ve just learned up is down,

Meaning we’re all drowning.

I’m the only one who knows.

Thank God for unenlightening.

– Vagabond Prophet

Little Knots

vagabondprophet:

Does your faith evaporate

Like water

On a hot sidewalk?

And children trample

On the remnant of your hopes.

What then?

Do you still believe?

When your heart

Undoes its rivets,

To let itself topple

Like a rookie jenga match.

Does your faith endure

The torrent of survival,

The steady drip of living.

Can it survive a head wound?

Or being trapped in a storm

With no way home?

It could be different you know,

You could let him carry you,

And work out the little knots in your soul.

Just know when your faith

In him is shaken,

His in you is not.

– Vagabond Prophet

Solitary Refinement Chapter 29

vagabondprophet:

Dear Joshua     April 26th 2018

It’s official I’m the worst father ever. Alister’s birthday was two months ago and I forgot! I was so busy looking over my shoulder and worried about hidden intentions from every face I pass I forgot my own sons birthday! Can you believe that? I have so much credit from work now I could have gotten him a whole stack of books, if Liz would let him have it of course. I feel like such shit that I did that, I’ve been sweating every minute of every day on account of the fear I feel, like it’s in my blood, or in my eyes. That cave entrance again, every mirror I look at. Everything I’ve been going through, all the weight I’ve lost and how scrawny and pale and bloodshot I’ve become doesn’t excuse this. What can I do now though, hope Alister forgives me? I don’t doubt he will, he knows by now I’m not reachable to him. As far as hoping Liz forgives me for forgetting it, I guess I can just add it to the damn pile of things I hope she one day forgives me for.

At least I’m still alive, I haven’t slept a wink since the night he first came at me. Every day at breakfast lunch and dinner he sits across from me now. If I get up to move he just follows. He looks me straight in the eyes as he eats his food. He ends every such time with a single word, “Tonight.”

Tonight?! Tonight what? Like I don’t know. He’s been doing this for a week, knowing I’m not sleeping. Sadistic bastard just wants to see me squirm. The things I’ve been brainstorming are insane, different ways to kill someone with a knife. I swiped another one from the kitchen. I didn’t bother with a broken one but rather a nice big sharp one. I just grabbed it when the instructor wasn’t looking. I keep it under my pillow now in case Kal takes the first knife, the one he met the other night.

Trevor too, shit Trevor. Yesterday he told me he won’t be able to babysit me anymore. I ignored the offense of the statement and simply asked him why.

“I don’t want to, I just don’t want to. Protect yourself you wimp.”

And when I pleaded him to keep me safe from Kal and told him what had happened he just backhanded me hard. I’ve got a real nice bruise on my right cheek now.

Can you come visit me? I’ve noticed the weather is crazy but could you try? I saw from the yard that some trees out by the road had fallen over by the wind and that the clouds looked pretty sinister. It might be the last chance you get I have no idea what the future holds but I know the face of a friend would be a welcome site.

A.N. So close! Leave me some words please!