Tag: spilled poetry

Waxless Candles

The wind half sighs half moans

The struggle that is

Its passage through the night.

The calm before the storm

Never came for them

Only the wind

Only the waves

Only the rain.

Like waxless candles

They burn bright

And getting hotter

Through the darkling night.

Until the night is over

And their wick is all turned to ash

Hoping the deeds that they’ll forget

Will be rekindled at next dusk.

They end up forgotten

They end up refused

Forsaken and misused.

Knowing only the hard pavement

For a pillow in this November,

Nothing as bright or as chilling

As the winter sun

Shining boldly yet coldly

In a brilliant and frigid embrace.

The windows frost

And their breath exhausts

Caught, taken it is

By the unforgiving cold.

Like Icarus they collide and burn

With their hopes for themselves.

Meanwhile they all wonder,

“How can I be healthy,

When every doctors definition differs.”

– Vagabond Prophet

Dad Jeans

I was unprepared to have

My heart ensnared

By clutches oh so small.

I was born of summer

But you were born of heaven

With joy in your smile

And sunlight in your eyes.

Born in November the trees

Shade giving virtue had fallen

Honeybee long gone

No longer searched for pollen.

But your young and tender body

So needy and so small

We both got the warmth we needed

In the embrace of one another.

Now every pair of pants I own

Has holes in the knees

They are all worn and torn

From being a train or horse

For you to explore the universe,

From crawling to find you

I the monster in your tale.

I get to see the world anew

From the eyes of a child

Who knows not what borders are

Only what kindness is.

– Vagabond Prophet

@delightfulharmonypoetry

thanks @josy57 for the prompt “Worn and Torn.”

Eleventh of Everything

Sky dimly lit by crescent moon

That itself clothed mostly in shadow

Yields little light

On those battlefields which

One hundred years ago

Run red with bloody rivers.

War is not deserving of poetry

But the lives of young heroes are,

Death ought not have its praises sung

But the courageous acts

Of fearful boys should be told

In tomes with gilded edges.

Today at the eleventh of everything

When no more bullets sang

I will still this heart that beats

In a nation still free

To thank those who found strength

To leave their home

To defend its definition.

– Vagabond Prophet

For Remembrance Day

Strongholds


Haven’t I strayed, hurt and betrayed?

Has not curiosity and the exciting risk there of

Driven me to my favourite car wrecks?

Again and again and again…

I do that which I despise

And don’t understand

Your truth comes in the door

Ready for a long stay

Yet I evict it so quickly

That it gets no chance to decorate.

This is what happens when

I let my blood flow through

These corridors I call arteries,

Instead of letting the blood you spilled

Run through my heart

And with joy so loud it crumbles the walls

Of wicked strongholds so fortified

I had begun to grow around them.

– Vagabond Prophet

Brace Myself

Rubbing fiberglass on my chest

Scuff the skin, make it more thin

That air may avoid my lips

And enter my lungs directly.

Avoid the middleman

Dad always said

He’s only there for your money

Standing with vitriolic smile

And outstretched hand.

I am a master of depravity

I put my face into the furrows

I find it makes me grounded

If I plant my dreams in soil.

When flowers grew no more

In the arid plains of my heart

I asked you to hold my hand

And walk me to greener land.

Though you’ve burned my sorrow

In flames of your love

I still feel sometimes tarnished

Like a pencil erased

The page retains impressions.

My blood I’d taught

To tell just backward riddles

Still sometimes pumps a lie.

When I wake from dreams

And cry out to you

And am deafened by the silence,

Sometimes silence is the answer.

For sometimes beauty

In obscurity

Greater than in clarity.

How tenaciously I’ve fought

For my right to rot,

Only to have you grip me tighter.

You borrowed my burden

Yet refused to give it back,

Now I ride this river

Mile after mile.

The water it transforms

From the muddy browns

To the salty blues

Until the heights above

Are as vast as

The depths below.

Now even if I fall

It’s only deeper in to you

And the only preparation

I now make

Is to brace myself for grace.

– Vagabond Prophet

Hey @josy57 thank you for the prompt “Borrowed Burden,” as always it’s been a joy.

Pavement Pillow

The edges bleed on everything

When it rains this hard,

It seems the world is weeping.

To staunch the flow

We have to work together

To pray for warmer weather

For those who get their lullabies

Whispered from whatever

The cracked pavement pillow

Speaks to them tonight.

– Vagabond Prophet

Redundancy

I’ve been little else but lawless

Little else but wayward,

In the redundancy

Of my delinquency

How do you not grow tired?

When you’ve been little else but lovely

Little else but gracious

In the insistency

Of your consistency,

Please don’t end or waiver

For I need you so.

– Vagabond Prophet