Tag: spilled ink

Bones

My story not too tragic

Not terribly traumatic,

Except for the traumatic bit.

I’ve not known poverty

I’ve not known hunger,

I’m intelligent and able bodied.

Yet I feel as though life

Is harder than it should be

And after all these years

Jason Wade has said it best,

“I need you now

There’s too many miles on my bones

I can’t carry the weight of the world

No, not on my own”

So there it is, that terrible truth.

Nice to know I’m not the only one

Who walks with this weight

So burdensome and heavy.

Yet by the end of song there’s hope,

“No more heartache, no more fighting

No more fears, only flying”

Thanks for spinning fears into verses,

Matching my heartbeat to a drum beat

And singing it out loud

In that low gravelly voice of yours.

– Vagabond Prophet

– Quotes from the song ‘Flight’ by Lifehouse, who Jason Wade is the singer of.

Prompt Day 16

Oh you brilliant bohemian you!

To count the number of times you articulated

For me something shapeless.

Thoughts I’d had for years that evaded endlessly.

Every time I reached for them,

Slipping between fingers like smoke.

Yet you penned it in ink

Plainly for all to see.

Is that how you wrote so much?

Stealing thoughts of others

Transforming them into beauty.

The only kind of theft I’m happy to pardon.

How fitting, how terrible

That you should die, your blood turned to poison.

Your body wracked with pain

And your spirits lacked of wind.

As though life smiled on the grace of words,

And decided you’d had your fill of loveliness.

Thank you for doing it all the same,

You plagiarizer of my mind

You thief of dreams.

– Vagabond Prophet

       – For Rainer Maria Rilke

Prompt Day 15

In some cultures legends

The killing blow of a previous life.

Some say stork bites, other say nothing at all.

My father, myself, my son and daughter

All have the same one.

Strawberry stain on the neck.

Were we rebels in France

And all got the guillotine?

Or all facing firing squads

For crimes against the crown?

I can hide it with my hair

But of the truth I am aware,

I see it in everything

Even in this birthmark.

I am a blemished and imperfect sacrifice

And you, you were perfect lacking nothing

And took upon yourself, every killing blow.

– Vagabond Prophet

I’ve no sense of direction
You provide me with wind to find my way
Holding wet fingers up high following your breath.

All sound is born from silence
And you created both.
Only you could dash me to pieces
And have it somehow leave me whole.

Vagabond Prophet

Atlas

An Atlas problem, back once broken

Beneath the gravity of everything,

One came and took my burden

The crushing load of life and sadness and sin.

You took it and took it so well,

No more world upon my back!

My hope begins to wax,

Yet my spine still slopes

It may take time, more than this lifetime

For my body to straighten.

I still find that boredom breeds only treachery,

In the serfdom of my heart

The beggars still start riots,

However bigger and above and transcendent!

By your melodies I escaped the weight of tragedy,

And in your sanctuary I’ll bend back to shape.

In your joy you’ll quiet this mutineers heart.

– Vagabond Prophet