Harmony


I need more music

I’ve got rhythm in my veins

And a heart that pumps

Not blood but a beat.

To create something

To be consumed by the ears,

To bring into life

Meaningful sound.

My heart beats

In polyrhythms,

And my feet journey

To find the melody.

So you be the woodwinds

And I’ll be the strings,

I’ll learn you first by ear,

And then by heart.

– Vagabond Prophet

Solitary Refinement Chapter 25

Dear Joshua                                          April 3rd 2018

Hey Josh, I think I’m ready to talk to you again I just need to set something straight. Don’t talk bad about my wife. I get it, you see your friend being treated badly by his own wife and you want to say something about it and from your position I can see how you can see it’s not a ridiculous thing to wonder about. I just, I know she wouldn’t do that. If I let my mind wander that way I know that I’ll go crazy. I can’t take it to lose the hope of having my family back again one day.

    So I got confirmation that I’m definitely not overreacting by being freaked out by Kal, just the other day I saw one of the guards that I hadn’t seen in a long time tell me he’d be worried if he was me. He said Kal’s cellmates never last this long and that Kal must be getting frustrated, said to be careful and watch my back. It seems as though the guards can’t do anything about behaviour like Kal’s though, until he actually does something to me and I make an official complaint they can’t move me or him or anything like that. How wonderful it is to have my fears confirmed and then be told that there is no solution available to me. I’m so freaking done, every morning I look in the mirror and I see a frightened pair of eyes in a weary body.

    When I’m not working in the kitchen I’ve been in the library here, I just realized they had one recently. I used to like reading as a kid but as an adult after work and playing with the kids I always felt too tired to read and would fall asleep shortly after ever picking a book up. Now since I can barely sleep anyways I am actually able to read again. They have a few poetry books that I am enjoying, reading over and over as much as I can in the few minutes I have to spare. I love novels, but poetry is different. I’m learning lots of new words from them that I have to look up in the dictionary. It’s just so interesting that the pain and suffering of these poets chose to manifest itself in such beautiful ways. It helps me feel even though I’m going through this terrible season in my life, it can maybe just maybe mean something to somebody.

Just What We Do

Well never stop

As long as theirs bones to break

And lives to take.

As long as we pump blood

Well take yours

And use it to paint our houses

Use it to dress our spouses.

As long as  theirs smiles

I’ll turn them to frowns

For miles and miles

Dreams turned upside down.

I’ll take all your hope and put it on a rope

Saying go climb to the top

And then I give it a chop

To watch you dangle and dance

It’s not planned just happenstance.

Misery is the next stop

And the drivers never late

Rain snow or sleet

He will never abate.

It’s just what we do

And we like it too

See who can bleed the most

Of someone else’s blood.

– Vagabond Prophet

– I think this is a song too, it’s just hiding it’s melody from me right now.

Pell-mell

The current it sucks

All my fervor it plucks

And down it throws

To Davie jones.

But my love for you

And all that you do

Will never grow old

Forgotten or cold.

Your grin from ear to ear

Your unstoppable cheer

Your hair it fell

All messy and Pell-mell.

I quite like your voice

Saying I’m your choice

Insistent you are not deigning

Yourself to a man that is waning.

– Vagabond Prophet

Solitary Refinement Chapter 22

vagabondprophet:

Dear Diary  March 15th 2018

I need to talk to somebody. I’m going to lose my mind soon, maybe I should start talking to Joshua again soon, maybe I should write Liz again. Writing Liz took so much out of me the last time I wrote her, pouring out all my emotions knowing with certainty I will not get a reply. Josh, I was so mad at Josh for suggesting that Liz might not be faithful to me. I’m trying to look at this from his perspective, seeing a wife that won’t talk to her husband, won’t let her kids do the same, and won’t talk to her husband’s friends either. If I really focus on that I guess thinking there’s more going on than I can see isn’t exactly ridiculous, but what does that help? I love her and I believe she loves me and would remain faithful. If I let myself think otherwise I think I would totally lose hope. It’s hard to keep hoping, but I still look forward to getting out of here and going to see her even if she is furious and she hasn’t talked to me in a long time. Just that face, with it’s smooth skin and sharp lines and dark eyes, it’s still the one I see when I close my eyes and try to ignore where I am. I can almost forget I’m in a bunk bed above Kal when I focus on her, just the image of her doing something normal like cracking eggs into a pan. Sometimes I think of her wearing my baggy t-shirts while making pancakes on a Saturday morning. Everytime it manages to sneak a ray of joy and hope into my day no matter how bleak it has been. I hope it doesn’t get taken from me as contraband.

Did Joshua have a reason for thinking that about her? Maybe I should ask him. Not talking to anybody on the outside is worse than getting bad news from people on the outside I’m finding. When I think of how being ignored like this makes me feel I fall into a vivid daydream. I’m in the dark in a mountain valley, before the light withers I see tall mountains crowded tightly and high above me. After night falls and before I try to sleep I shout so I can hear the echo of my voice off of the mountains so I can feel like I’m not alone. No echo comes, nothing at all. My voice just disappears as soon as it leaves my lips, falling dead to the ground like a flower gone dry and tossed by a wicked wind. It wasn’t quite like I was mute, I could hear the sounds come out of my mouth, but they just never mattered and never got far. As if they were sterile, unable to father meaningful sound and just remaining mindless noise. Where did the hills go? What killed my voice? Questions, all I have is questions, even in my daydreams.

Evergreen

vagabondprophet:

Twisting and turning,

Sinews yearning.

For every rivulet.

Taking the hard way

Taking the easy way,

Whatever the heart desires.

Splitting stones asunder

To take its plunder.

Rich dark soil.

Fortifying Vessels

Nautical wrestles.

Carry me across the sea.

Winter might

Brutal white.

Sorting deciduous, evergreen.

Dieing yearly,

Rather queerly.

Just a little cold is all.

But evergreens don’t listen

To what the weather man has christened.

Fruitful all year long.

Hardy, immovable.

A truth that’s not removable.

That’s how I want to be.

Evergreen.

Never dead.

– Vagabond Prophet