Original Poetry about anything and everything.
I procrastinate everything,
Like going to the dentist.
Especially going to the dentist,
It’s been twelve long years
Since I sat in that sterile throne.
Now I’m left tonguing nothing
Where teeth used to be.
Better false teeth
Than a false smile.
– Vagabond Prophet
That word ‘aftermath’
Conjuring images of bombs
And rubble and fallout
Of a nuclear kind.
Could it be different?
Let’s make it different
Must act now
There is no rewind.
Aftermath of kindness,
Fallout of justice
Desperately needed
In a land dying to unwind.
– Vagabond Prophet
Poetry: Writing what you feel,
Erasing half the words
And praying the page itself
May read between the lines.
Vagabond Prophet
I lilt and sway
Just like Gord’s voice
When he sang Fiddlers Green,
Soundtrack for my life.
Sinclair drops the bass,
Fay crashes cymbals,
Paul and Robby plucking strings,
Like wizards to make waves
For the words to dance all over,
Like the wind in a storm,
A real nautical disaster.
Yer not the Ocean but the surface is green
And the dark interweaves
In a lonely iridescence,
It’s terribly deep and the cold is complete.
Just like the ocean.
Loving your country, playing songs of small town news,
I can teach my children about the nation
With rock and roll.
Canada divided into thirteen parts,
A discography of thirteen albums,
No coincidence.
The most honourable thing yet,
That you evolved to challenge a nation
Unknowingly flawed, abusive.
Adoring your home, but not calling it perfect
True patriotism, true love always seeks to improve.
That’s just what you did
You are ahead by a century.
Now Downie gone,
But his voice will ring out forever,
As he walks among the stars.
I still lilt and sway
Just like Gord’s voice
When he sang anything,
Soundtrack for my life.
– Vagabond Prophet
– for ‘ The Tragically Hip’, quotes throughout this poem from their songs: Nautical Disaster, Yer not the Ocean, Fiddlers Green, Ahead by a Century, The Drop Off.
– If you don’t know this band you should, He rhymes Catharsis with ‘My arse is’. If that’s not a clever lyricist I don’t know what is.
Hot or cold
Mild or bold
Wet or dry
Make a decision already!
You circle around the globe
Trying to ‘find’ yourself,
What you should be
When you come to fruition.
Circumlocution embodied,
You try on every outfit
And voice every thought
Over and over
For thirty whole days.
It’s like this every year,
You can’t make up your mind
To stay in the past
Or leap to the summer.
Yet May always comes
To usher April out of the room.
– Vagabond Prophet
Daddy’s home yay!
They cry from the top of the stairs
Wearing dresses and suits
From dancing with each other.
“Daddy, want to watch us dance?”
They spin and spin
Just like the vinyl on the turntable.
“Daddy want to see my super jump?”
“Daddy you need to shave,
Your cheeks are all scratchy.”
These are the things I live for,
Not praise but simply speech
From sweetest voices
Wanting nothing but my attention.
So I’ll watch them orbit the living room,
I’ll keep my cheeks all smooth,
For I am their daddy, and they my children
And they love me, it’s terrifying but it’s true.
They really love me.
– Vagabond Prophet
Through tempest spurned
And fury turned
On a meadow swathed in white.
Lightning rods attracting
The wrath of heaven acting
Shot forth onto dry grass.
Kindlings always destined
To burn up, never questioned
No dreams of an unscorched future.
To smoulder away
Paving the way
For those that will burn brighter.
– Vagabond Prophet
If ink onto paper isn’t enough
If your black blood onto the sheet
Won’t suffice
You ink your skin.
I did, family crest
For a family spread the world over.
Related by blood
Black to crimson and back again.
Families change
Families grow
Families explode into a hundred pieces.
Brothers and I stitched a picture
Had it fixed upon our skin
A reminder of a past together
Where everything was safer
And we could explore forests in the dark.
The only fires worried about
Was the one that burnt our camp food,
Not the one that started in the shadows
To render home into ashes.
So no matter how we scatter
To make home for ourselves,
We’ll always find a safe place
In each other, in arms
In eyes commonly blue
And in backs commonly emblazoned
With lions and spears and shields.
And grace, most important of all.
Grace for ourselves and each other,
For how we’ve hurt one another,
And for our dad, gone under the pen now too.
Grace for him especially.
He’s hurt us all so deeply
But he still gave us our ink,
And ink is thicker than water.
– Vagabond Prophet
Fragile blossoms fall
Give way to leaves.
Colour of deep red wine.
Oh you don’t have to be
So obvious,
I’m already drunk
With wonder at
Your creative power.
Vagabond Prophet
Warmer weather
Thinner leather
Winds touch becomes
More bearable.
As I shed my coat
I’m surrounded by a moat
Daytimes gaze
Embrace from every side.
Vagabond Prophet
Vagabond Prophet 