Tag: spilled ink

By Rote

This is exhaustion

This is where my mind hibernates

And my arms and legs

By rote accomplish much.

No path less traveled

Was ever tread by rote

No trails blazed by bravery

Ever made half aware.

Shock me with lightning

Make my smile frightening

Scatter the bones of the strong

Into the soil of the weak,

Inferior they rise

With nobody paying any mind.

With banners high

And sharpened spears

Remembering the pain

Throughout all the years.

Though these thoughts may abate

My soul I prostrate

Riddle me with tumors

Spread vicious rumors

Leave me torn asunder

From every past blunder.

– Vagabond Prophet

Volunteer

A volunteer from the crowd now

Step behind the shroud now

While I run you through

With steely knives.

It is plainly murder

But the crowd goes wild

As long as bright red smile

Is painted on the face.

Stay your quarrelsome tongue

While this logic you’ve clung

Listens to my explanation.

In any other scenario

You’d demand my blood too

But when I’m on the stage

And you’re in your chair

I make the rules

Understand?

– Vagabond Prophet

Okay that was weird. Thanks @josy57 for the prompt “in any other scenario.” Really don’t know where this came from…

Myopic Quest

Running on the pier looking down

The gaps between boards

Like a cartoon flip book

Of shells and tides,

Sand and hills

Of seaweed and salt,

I speed past with curious

And quick steps.

I want to be grown!

Where my long legs can close the distance

Between myself and my longing

What’s the ending of this book

That unravels with each stride?

Now in pitch black mornings

Only lights come from

The neighbours kitchen,

She’s too early getting ready

For a lonely commute

Thick with too many

Other lonely commuters.

And so am I.

Now I want to be a child again

To have the freedom

To speculate every step,

Instead of insuring my marching

Is in time with the others.

Though these scenes juxtapose

I spray both with a hose

For now I know best

In this myopic quest,

The answer is devotion

Love and intention

The grass is greenest

On the side it gets watered.

– Vagabond Prophet

Hey @josy57 ! Yeah you, thanks for the prompt ‘myopic quest,’ I enjoyed this.

Kernels

What good can come

From his habit of sleeplessness?

Is this your question,

Friend that ones easy.

It’s true summer is defeated

By the frozen blows of winter

Yet winter begets spring.

The ore scorched by fire

And beaten by the hammer

Turns into brilliant jewelry.

All my hobbies and interests

All of my leisure and yard work

Put on the bottom shelf

Just for a time.

This brief opportunity

To affect change in the lives

Of desperate children

With no place to rest their head,

Is worth every minute of rest

That I put to death on the altar

Of servitude.

Are you sure? Is it working?

Do your yawns create some virtue

Does your unrested mind

Really get any good work done?

You queried

Arms crossed

Smirk pulled up high

Like a flag on holiday.

In midwestern climate

Can you trust good weather

Long enough to shed

Your cynical husk?

The sunrise is majestic

Whether I’m waking

Or not yet found my bed.

It is brilliance like this

I was made to reflect

And my silver mind

Pounded into mirror

By this bludgeoning war

Of attrition will serve me well.

I care not for

The scathing mockery

For I know that through strife

I may find

The unpopped kernels

Of my genius.

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 Thank you for the prompt “On the bottom shelf” I enjoyed that.

Stealing Flowers


I heard tales of you

From woefully unreliable sources

Who poured their propaganda

Like concrete,

Hoping to build a foundation

For themselves.

Lips on the inside

Teeth on the outside

You’d always bite

Before you’d kiss.

This is what I was told.

Now I listened to my friends

But kept a spark of doubt,

Upon meeting you

I was made to breath heavy

And fan it into flame.

Since then the fire

Has taken many forms,

Like traversing the town on foot

To see you for thirty minutes.

Like stealing the cities

Entire supply of yellow flowers

To brighten your grey workplace.

Like shade

Saving in summer

Yet deadly in winter,

Your smile careened

Through my heart.

Leaving mailboxes tipped

And street signs turned around

Now unsure if I’m driving

Too fast or too slow

But it’s towards you

So I push my foot down.

– Vagabond Prophet

@delightfulharmonypoetry

Fiery Wake

Like a shooting star

Could my death inspire

The minds of those

Standing far enough away

To only see the beautiful

The luminous.

Having stood any closer

They may observe

I carry as much darkness as light

But in the night sky

It’s a fact I hope to hide.

Having come from

One of those voids

That we still bother naming,

That I may one day

Land on a tangled

And ropy shore and climb

My way to legend.

Crawl to higher ground

To see my own fiery wake

Burn the gaze of watchers

Take their thirst to slake.

– Vagabond Prophet

Armed Guards

Shipwrecked on a shore

Of feral condemnation

From every corner of the nation,

Combing every grain of sand

To find some remnant

Of your past life.

They think you’re unconscious

But you hear the whispers,

“Why are we bothering,

Can’t we let him slip

Through the cracks of our care?

Should we slip some

Intravenous fear to finish him off?”

I know not why you fill that bed

Or why your breach of protocol

Has the hallway outside

Filled with more armed guards

Then I can count on one hand.

The endlessness

Of your listlessness

And your breathlessness

That keeps draughting

Maskful after maskful

Of precious oxygen.

The threat of whip and lash

If you manage to leave

In cuffs rather than a bag.

There is value in sweat

And valour in tears,

Do you know these things?

Or only preyed upon that fact?

I don’t know

I can’t know.

I know that

The words tied to your name

Are not yet set in stone

Not carved into your bone.

The consequence

Of confidence

Is responsibility,

Is it a mantle

You’re prepared for?

Is this even your fault?

Are you one of those sad ones

Born with a convoluted tubule

Connecting ear to brain

Always twisting the truth,

Like a game of telephone

The message constantly misshapen.

Were lies only passed through your hands,

But licking all those envelopes

Your tongue stuck

To the roof of your mouth

Making truthful speech impossible?

Now having cried so many tears

The sea mistakes you

For part of itself

And heeds not your cries for help.

Though what they say could be true

That you released quivering bullets

From a quaking hand,

Don’t let the ticking of the clock

Be the author of your days.

Remember when good news

Wears camouflage

And bad news wears neon

That I’d still lend an ear.

After this one simple question,

If you could relive your life

Would you ruin it

In a brand new way?

These are questions we share

For ourselves, for our souls.

What else do we share?

Do we share a blood type?

Could your A+’s

Meet my O-’s

And make a different alphabet,

Where the words tied to your name

Don’t anchor you the same?

– Vagabond Prophet

Thank you so much @josy57 for prompting me with “The words tied to your name.” 

More hospital related poetry for everybody, or as I like to call it…

Antiseptic verse

Enjoy.

Sky Wading

Late September morn

Only darkness and fog worn

Can’t see what shape

Sky thinks to take

For it’s too low

And I wade through it.

Come sun burn it up

Leave it scorched

And fling it back up

To the stars it belongs amongst.

– Vagabond Prophet

Outside the palliative care home

Walking through a descending sky

By hallowed ground

Some hope I’ve found.

Here where weakness strikes

Right where fissures

Are likely to fracture

Falling apart revealing every flaw.

Here where you only qualify

To be here if you’re dying

And only leave when you’re dead.

The doctors skill is in diagnosis,

Never treating the disease.

It’s true that given the choice

Between sugar and truth

I’ll choose truth still

The gasoline aftertaste reminding

The importance of tact,

But not in honestys stead.

But look, examine where

These trenches have led me,

The tracks my train

Of thought has traveled

Have brought me here.

I am reminded that

There are yet things that grow

In the darkest hour of night,

And even things that require

That severity of bleakness to thrive.

Though I only bring them toothbrushes,

Gloves, and bandages

That sitting on the sideline

I may help sow some seeds

For some nocturnal haunting growth

In this place so full of death.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for the prompt “Sitting on the side line.” I hope you like it.