Taxidermist

You a ferrous metal and I a magnet

Drawn to you by design,

Yet sin degrades all

With it’s terror and it’s squall.

On my worst days

When I listen to the liar

Saying “It’s okay its natural

Like breathing

Or seething.”

Desires denied

Sorrows multiplied.

I shower and feel the skin come off

Everytime hoping the next layer

Will be thicker and less porous

Keeping out the slithering vapours

That slide in so easily.

You told me I’m brand new

But why do I have these phantom pains

From a spine I no longer have?

For you demanded that too…

Tonight don’t let the darkness bite.

Sometimes the prescription for these lenses

Is so strong I can’t even hear you,

My fingers trip over themselves

Can’t ever get the whole story out.

Why are all old men bent over?

Do we all hide our magic?

I am pierced not as though by arrows

But as though by poetry

Run through to the crux of the matter.

The matter of matter

Of what matters,

Do I?

That which upsets me inspires me most

And it’s true tragedy

Brings a man to the surface.

For years now I’ve been far beyond the surface

Can you place me back beneath?

Give me a mermans lungs and let me not choke.

I am both hope and cheer

I am both charm and jeer.

I feel the spectre anticipating

I can hear it berating

And I see it slipping in and out of me

I read the putrid pleasantries

It writes on the corridors of my mind.

Ghost, demon, ghoul whatever name you’ve chosen

Allow me to address you directly this day

Do you not see me?

Look me in the eyes

Hold my gaze I dare you!

I am but the slain wolf

Of greatest hunters

The master taxidermist

Stitching me back together with sterner stuff.

Good or evil a wolf still has teeth

Come now and let us do battle!

I grow tired of dreading the looking glass

Of fleeing the hour where shadows lengthen

Like fear with nightly growth spurts.

That particular kind of weariness

That makes life bleed heavily.

Coffee isn’t enough to hold my hand

To prop open my eyelids

With tent pegs meant for home.

I require victory

I thirst for conquest

Over strongholds in my heart,

Then I may rest.

You have birthed in me a rage

The greatest of the age

You’ve been biding your time

And committing your crime

But I have not been idle

I have known a donor of strength

That will make me victorious.

Come now bring your weapons

See if it does you any good

A man of my word you will soon learn

Light too can bite.

I by might imbued me

Will fight till bones protrude thee.

– Vagabond Prophet

– Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with “Facing your own Ghost,” literal I know but here it is.

Deadly Sin #6

Gluttony, as defined by the poets dictionary.

Definition: Chasms called mouths always open and consuming. A need that’s never met for the ever unreasonable demands. Twisting natural appetites into power struggles, your tastebuds revolting over what once was good enough but now only offends.

Other definitions include: Appetite for appetite.

Hunger for an excess of something.

Particular desires met in particular ways, still never satisfy. Like filling a bucket with a hole in it, or planting in the garden where pests are known to ravage.

Antonyms: Satisfied, content, healthy appetite, “I’m full.”

Gluttony only seeks to put your desires just out of reach no matter how high you climb.

– Vagabond Prophet

Deadly Sin #5

Greed, as defined by the poets dictionary.

Definition: Hungry hands with unnaturally sharp claws. An ever hungry need for more at the cost of anybody but yourself. Too many teeth for too small a meal, stealing your neighbours supper and still being unsatisfied.

Other definitions include: Unfulfilled desires fueled by diesel and fire.

Eight days a week insisting on nine, willing to kill to get it.

Coupon hoarding for the sale that’s never good enough.

Sharpening knives for the bones you make into broth. Elephant bone soup still insufficient.

Given enough weapons would invade every nation.

Given enough heat would boil the sea to make your tea.

Antonyms: Content, happy, at peace, needing nothing.

Greed only seeks to convince you that nothing about you or your life is enough.

Deadly Sin #4

Sloth, as defined by the poets dictioary.

Definition: To have one’s soul trapped in half set concrete. Wanting to move and able to move but the effort is beyond conception and eventually desire is too. Conforming to whatever mold you happen to find yourself in out of ease. Especially pernicious as being the most comfortable of the sins. Every tragedy, every dream, every ambition can be safely ignored with nothing more than a blanket and a pillow.

Other definitions include: Laziness.

A lack of interest in living.

To have had your blood swapped with a thick thick roux.

Some slip into it for a brief reprieve from calamity, and find themselves so sluggish that they can’t ever leave.

Antonyms: Vitality, energetic, productivity.

Slothfulness only seeks to ruin hearts by stagnation. To still the waters of your mind until they can nourish nothing at all and never feel another ripple at all no matter how one seeks to disturb them.

– Vagabond Prophet

Deadly Sin #2

Wrath, as defined by the poets dictionary.

Definition: What happens when mortals confuse themselves as Gods and allow themselves rage undiluted by servitude to a sovereign.

Other definitions include: Red pumping so violently that it lashes out with unkind words and unkind hands.

Tempestuous resolve to cause suffering and destruction.

Antonyms include: Kindness, Peace, Justice, righteous indignation.

Wrath only seeks to tip the scales and in that plunging down land with heavy fists on whatever it may.

– Vagabond Prophet

Calm to Thrill

Hot to chill

Calm to thrill,

Rage to despair

I don’t even care.

You can throw your mood up and down

You can rent a loft in town,

You won’t beguile

With either tears or smile.

You can use all your wit

You can throw a fit,

Reloading your charm

Like it’s a firearm.

You want between skin and rib

You cancer so glib,

You’re very scent presaging

The war that you’re waging.

I don’t care what you want

Nor how you may haunt,

I’ll leave no quarter

You miser you thwarter.

– Vagabond Prophet