Tag: spilled poetry

Vintage

Hold me up to the light

Inspect me under looking glass

With delicate brushes

Comb me over

To prove I am authentic.

This is borrowed strength

I am festooned with the strands

With the ribbons of blood

Strewn within me

From those that went before.

The stewards of memory

May know and verify

That I am the proud owner

Of vintage skin and antique blood.

These are legs

That have been leant

A tongue only for a term,

And a heart

I still make payments on.

It’s a rent to own program

You bleed yourself dry

For long enough

You might just get to be yourself.

Dying every day

And living every death

With your blood in my veins

That you died to provide.

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 yeah you! Thanks for prompting me with “Borrowed Antiques.”

Gravitas

All sound is born from silence

All art is born from fractured beauty

Trying to graft some goodness to some pain.

Now I dare to unlock my voice

I’ve carried this whole time.

The knot in my stomach

Turns to words on my lips

And though I am afraid

I know that half of fear is wonder.

I wonder

I wonder will my voice

Find a pleasing place

Amongst the octaves

To sing my story gone untold.

With baritone gravitas

And soprano urgency

My song will soar above the madness.

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 gave me the prompt “I’ve carried it all this time.” Thanks for that. I hope folks enjoy.

Printing Press


I’d believed the lie

I conjured nigh

The hour of my undoing.

That I am unforgivable

That I am my mistakes,

Thinking some fears

Can’t be assuaged

Those depths too deep

To ever plumb fully.

Now disregarding my grief

For your magnitude,

Your tongue the printing press

That published the good news

With words inked

In your blood

That should be mine.

– Vagabond Prophet

Open Heart Surgery

The surgical blade

The drape that was laid

Upon skin built up for years.

Flat on your back

Ragged breath gone slack

Clamp down the mask

Begin the task.

The harm always starts

Before the healing can,

The cracking of ribs

The loss of blood.

If this is you

Going under the knife,

Remember some go a lifetime

With nobody seeing their heart,

For the struggling pump that it is

Trying to bale out a boat

Under constant downpour.

– Vagabond Prophet

Stitch

The coffee bitter

May lend vigor

As your need beckons

With cast iron eyelids.

The aching blistered feet

May still travel

As your destination croons

“Come hither.”

The convoluted spine

May still bare some burden

As I trudge the road

Trodden by many before me.

I can see their faith rewarded

In the footprints on the path,

So many that I follow

But none that do return.

Now this knotted mind

Will journey on and surrender,

The rebels in my heart

Will lay down arms

And all past harms

Working backwards

Will stitch themselves.

– Vagabond Prophet

Hear, See, Do.

Stop up my ears

With drunkards used corks

So I may hear no evil.

Gouge my hungry eyes

That I may see no evil.

Bind my hands together

With the lashings of my acts

That I may do no evil.

This is what I deserve

And much worse

But to curse

Was never your intent.

You open my ears

And sing with wind as your accordion

Play the branches as your harp

That I may hear hope.

You open my eyes

You hold my gaze

When I stare into clear skies

That I may see beauty.

Cut my binds free

And tie them to yourself

That this man of clay

Who ought to decay

May know freedom.

I am but the dribble of paint

Animated into something that can smile.

– Vagabond Prophet