Tag: spilled prose

Rockets and Lullabies

vagabondprophet:

Rockets and lullabies,

Things that light the skies.

One to bring sweet dreams,

One to bring on screams.

One source of light

Has enough might

To light up the sky

Can we just try?

Can we try it once?

I’m not asking months.

In twenty four hours

We can ask the powers.

Which did you prefer?

When it did occur.

Fire and death,

Or a steady sleeping breath?

We tell children lullabies

Before we say goodbyes.

Aren’t we fighting for them?

Those green and budding stems.

Let’s preserve those thoughts,

The ones about lemons and apricots.

Not nightmares and bombs

That flatten pulses found in palms.

– Vagabond Prophet

Gesticulation Tower

vagabondprophet:

Pinstriped in the front standing

Just a little higher than everybody,

Our attention you’re demanding.

I’ve got to say you look smug,

Do you really believe

This’ll fit beneath a rug?

You’ll come falling down I say

Can’t say when,

But there’ll come a day.

Like Genghis Khan

Realizing defeat

Woebegone.

You’ll lose all your power

That you’ve clung to

In your gesticulation tower.

– Vagabond Prophet

Time You Genius You

vagabondprophet:


Give credit where credit is due

Time you genius you.

None carve as masterfully as you.

And she, she fears time ahead.

How it promises to tug, pull, and crease

Slowly unfolding her youth.

She doesn’t know my eagerness,

To see those same effects

See the whole canvas stretched.

I long to see the way

That she unfurls

Day after day.

As water smooths out stone

So time erodes her face,

A slowly chiseled beauty.

As the ax must blow by blow

Slowly strip away,

The fibers from one another.

So I anxiously await

The sands of time

Etching her away.

Crows feet will appear

The years will dig trenches

In the softness of her face.

I don’t believe in evolution

But her beauty does evolve,

A process of natural seduction.

She enchants me without trying,

As time goes marching by

I’ll orbit her still.

The more that’s scuffed away

Cut or split right off

To make way for something better.

Time you genius you

Master of shape

And all things exquisite.

You will scrub away her youth

Unravel her naivete

Leaving wisdom engraved.

Her body swelled and stretched

With babes not once but twice,

Lasting marks of conquest.

She fought to create,

To be the river’s mouth

For life itself to dawn.

Strip it all away,

This current face of hers,

What are you hiding?

A gift with one million layers,

That unwrap day by day,

No shortcuts.

The crescendo of her beauty

Will take many moons to reach,

I await that goddess truly.

Excess must be shed

To reach the final gem

I’ll hold her against the blows.

If time should bring her pain,

It’s no surprise but all the same

I will crouch down beside her.

With creaky knees and hazy eyes

A foggy mind and weakening spine,

I’ll crouch down to kiss it better.

If time should bring her grief

As part of this descaling,

I’ll be there.

Soak me through with tears

So they eat through me too,

We’ll ferment together.

I only wish to love her

Half as well as time,

Every fold and curve

Marked by its caress.

– Vagabond Prophet

Little Knots

Does your faith evaporate

Like water

On a hot sidewalk?

And children trample

On the remnant of your hopes.

What then?

Do you still believe?

When your heart

Undoes its rivets,

To let itself topple

Like a rookie jenga match.

Does your faith endure

The torrent of survival,

The steady drip of living.

Can it survive a head wound?

Or being trapped in a storm

With no way home?

It could be different you know,

You could let him carry you,

And work out the little knots in your soul.

Just know when your faith

In him is shaken,

His in you is not.

– Vagabond Prophet

Pocket of Tears

If you’re crying

And you can’t stop,

Follow these simple steps.

Don and button

Your least favourite coat,

Just trust me.

Catch every tear

Into a single pocket

Until it’s brimming.

Then take that pocket

Sew it shut,

If just so you can shed it.

We must unclothe

Our deepest sadness,

No one is warmed by grief.

Now burn it all

Yes the coat too,

For no one is warmed by grief.

– Vagabond Prophet

Solitary Refinement Chapter 20

Dear Diary                                    January 11th 2017

Okay, peanut butter mystery solved holy shit. This guy named Phil who I’ve never spoken to before but the word is he said something about Trevor to somebody, something he ought not have. I don’t know how but Trevor has dirt on everybody, I wonder what he knows about me. Anyways Phil was eating his oatmeal at breakfast and got up to use the washroom, while he was gone one of Trevor’s pals stirred that peanut butter into the oatmeal quickly.

    Phil came back, had three quick spoonfuls and then was on the ground gasping for air, trying to scream for help but no sound came. His face went red, and then blue and nobody did a thing. After several minutes a guard, a new face, came and called for first aid and now I think he’s getting care in the hospital wing. He was without air for several minutes, I wonder if he has brain damage, and I wonder what he said about Trevor to deserve this. That guy worries me more and more, and I’m taking orders from him. Wonderful, just wonderful. I’m the guy who supplied that damn peanut butter. I’m an accomplice to this, will there be an investigation? I could have my sentence extended if I aided in this crime, he could have died, he may have brain damage. Yet if I don’t do what Trevor says who knows what he’ll do to me.

    This is the only place where I don’t have to hide feelings anymore. Where I can talk about how I’ve been feeling. It’s like I’m in the part of a movie where nothing could get worse, the enemy is closing in and the sky is dark. Right at the darkest moment the sun breaks through the clouds and somebody comes to the rescue, riding over the hill and cutting through the enemies army straight towards me. As if the hero were a compass finally finding true north. Right now I feel like I’m at that part of the story, but nobody comes. They just close in ever closer, I can see the flecks of black in their irises, the sweat dripping of the ends of noses, trickling in time with their steps.

    Is there a way out of this, can I be the hero? Do I have what it takes to save myself? I used to make up stories for Alister with brave and noble heroes, they could get out of any situation. They were as nimble with their tongues as they were with their swords, half the time stopping a conflict before it arose, winning enemies over to the cause of justice. Yet when they did fight boy could they fight, every blow finding home, not a stroke wasted and never was being outnumbered a cause to be distressed. I wonder now if Alister thought his daddy could be such a hero, that if he was stuck I might be able to save him in such a splendid display of courage and skill. I certainly know now that that’s not me, it feels like it’s all I know sometimes. I’m not enough, not enough muscle, not enough charm, not enough intelligence, not enough courage. Too much anxiety, too much idiocy, too much fear.

Still I wonder, with nobody to save me,

Can I save myself?

Solitary Refinement Chapter 19

Medical Report                                   December 11th 2017

Inmate #: 34653

Sex: Male

Age: 30

Affliction: Split lip, bruising around the eye and eyebrow.

Cause: Tripped down a flight of stairs.

Treatment: Disinfect cut in the lip. Swelling should go down in a few days.

vagabondprophet:

Solitary Refinement Chapter 18

Dearest Elizabeth                                January 2nd 2018

    Return to sender. Why are you doing this? You realize you’re not just hurting me but the kids too right? What am I supposed to with colouring books in prison? People already think I’m weird. I’m going to have to throw this stuff in the trash. The stuff I worked to get Alister and Nina for Christmas, in the garbage… This sucks, I’m trying my best from in here to still contribute in some way to their lives, I can’t do much but try to send things if you won’t bring them to visit me. Can’t you see that? Do the kids ask about me? What do they say about me? What does Alister tell his friends at school about why his dad never comes to pick him up at school?

    I got really mad at Joshua recently for suggesting that you would use the opportunity of my absence to cheat on me. Can you believe that? I got so mad at him, I know you wouldn’t do that. I’m pretty mad at him right now, I don’t really want to talk to him for a while and you don’t want to talk to me so I guess nobody will hear from me for a while then.

    I’m going to get a journal, writing words down onto paper is the only thing I come even close to enjoying here. Talking through a pen onto the blank paper, it feels like these pages are the only things listening to me and receptive to my thoughts and feelings and willing to hold them for me. The blank canvas of white paper as it holds onto black ink doesn’t judge me or look for weakness the way the people here do.

    Sorry, I kind of rambled on there, like I said I’ll get a journal for my random thoughts so I won’t have to bother anybody for a while since you’re not talking to me and I don’t want to talk to Josh right now.

Sincerely,

Your husband.