Tag: spilled words

Peek-A-Boo

Formed me from clay

And left me here to stay

My lungs drew their inaugural breath

Signaling I was my own

I am a force

I have a voice.

Now the lengths I have gone

To use that power, to use this voice

In ways never intended.

How does this make sense of you?

When everything I’ve said untrue

How can I climb my way to truth

With feet that have only been uncouth,

Kicking thorns into your skull

Until the stone rolled away

And you brought a brand new day.

What act of devotion

Could I do to prove,

What pilgrimage could I take

And die along the path,

What trophy could I earn

To prove how much I love you

To prove how much I thank you

For making this blind man see.

As I sit here and ponder

My thoughts begin to wander

To when you gripped my hand

And pulled me from the muck.

Maybe it was the Midas touch

That had made the boat finally sink,

The rapacious attempts to better myself

With the pleasures and leisures of the world.

I had begun to think of myself as dead

As a blackened heart whose rosy cheeks

Had not yet realized that the blood

Pumped into them was damned

Polluted and meant for the grave.

I actually believed my transgression

Was too great, outweighing your grace!

How foolish was I?

Did you laugh?

Did you snicker at my childishness?

Before you pulled back the veil

In this high stakes peek-a-boo

To whisper to my soul “Here I am.”

You lovely source of true delight

You safest place amidst the plight

How fully you dismantled my delusions,

How quickly I became aware

It was never your grace that was small

But rather my faith.

A single thought of yours so spacious

I could occupy it for a century

And never find its borders,

I could spend summer after summer

Diving into those waters

And never plumb their depths.

I needed to see myself for what I was

For the monster I was becoming

Before you could save me,

For what man thinking himself complete

Would take a helping hand?

It wasn’t until the storms outside

Mirrored the ones within

And you calmed them with a word,

That I thought to come to you.

Now I pray for others

The ones I would call brothers,

That if they ever leave the zoo

And find all the beasts

That don’t live in cages

The beasts that pound and scratch

Their way through the echoing halls

Of each and every soul,

That they would call for help

Against those deadly baffling foes

And you always faithful to answer

Would smother all their woes.

– Vagabond Prophet

Peace?

When my own mind works against me

What peace can there be?

My right hand throwing rocks

Through my window and

My left hand hurling it back.

In the wild, the ensnaring

Searching tangled roots

I find my fallen mangled boots

And having donned them

March in circles.

Though I spiral endlessly

On the opaque and indiscernible

Ramblings of this nomad mind,

They never churn themselves into butter.

Wasting my time on mundane nothings

I practice braiding water,

I pick my own bones clean

And though Bob Marley said it right

And all three birds are here

I still worry about everything.

The sun’s ray

That brings decay

To the cloth long in the sun,

The shortened days

Where days dismay

Is crushed by weight of night.

I given options often choose destruction

The addictive nightmare

Where at least I’m alive,

I the froward soul

In need of constant reminding

That air is for breathing

Was always meant to fill me

Rather than something to exorcise.

My heart lacquered with

So much bitterness and trauma

It is marinated for disaster,

Like Icarus I collide and burn

With my expectations of myself.

If to you this sounds tiring

To fling oneself into the chasm of chaos,

Then congratulations are in order

For your sound mind and stout heart

And though there is always help out there

So many miles from home

Not all minds and hearts are equal.

When my own mind works against me

What peace can there be?

– Vagabond Prophet

@josy57 prompted me with “A rock through my window.” Thanks for that it is always such a joy writing your prompts.

Hidden Wings

Let your blue eyes shine

Let our hands entwine

For I delight in you

And everything you do.

You who came from heaven

With hidden wings,

You better things

With the vigor of your stance

When you roar when you prance.

Though you give me trouble

You’ll shake the earth to rubble,

You’ll end things abrupt

That you see corrupt.

With every glittering smile

My heart jumps a mile

Jump and travel

The length of my stride

My girl you’ve embodied

All of my pride.

– Vagabond Prophet

@delightfulharmonypoetry

For our girl on her birthday.

Reflections

Does the sea reflect the sky

Or the sky the sea?

For the water cool and still

They placid extract a pure blue.

Yet if they swell and spit

Should they whirlpool

I see black clouds enraged

Above my splitting gunnels.

If I survive my storm

And you weather yours

Should our eyes meet again

I’ll find love reflected in yours

On distant sandy shores.

– Vagabond Prophet

Shaken awake by sun rays

Piercing curtains piercing dreams

As the balloon pops to remind me

Life is on its way.

Rushing without sirens

Some emergencies announce themselves

When your stomach enters the room

Before your tongue.

Now in the recycled air

Of the bloodless lair

Where the sterile everything

Instructed my body

How to be itself.

All the faces went blank

When the pushing yielded little

And the little one turned.

Drapes pulled up

So I couldn’t see

Them cut into me,

Poorly upholstered tragedy.

I heard no cry for my breast

I saw no quivering lip,

Now screaming in his stead

I grabbed the knife and threatened

Them to uphold the life

I’d so carefully procured.

Code white bled into pink

And tiny black blankets

Wheel away my dreams.

Thoughts of different futures

Feel like pulling out sutures

From the scar that I still bare.

– Vagabond Prophet

– I heard over the intercom system a code white in the OR, and then right afterwards a code pink in the OR. There are only so many procedures with a conscious patient. This is what my brain did to fill in the gaps of my knowledge.

Televise

Gone are the days

Where groping in the dark

You’d find a dangling root

To pull yourself out

Of those churning waters.

You’ll find no part

Of me to cling to

You can choke and sputter

You can shriek and utter

Those desperate last gasps.

All the while arms crossed

Just waiting for that

Last bubble of life

To disturb the surface.

You were a natural predator

Already plucking the best parts of me

While I was yet lacing up my boots.

Things we’ll never agree on

What is good what is evil

What could bring me joy

What could leave me in ruins.

You brought the thinnest of smiles

To cover the broadest of lies,

The cataracts in my eyes

You put there I despise.

Knowing the power of words

I know yours mean nothing,

We once were close

And would walk towards disaster

Holding hands intertwined.

Now the hatred

The righteous rage

The resolution

To burn and cut your roots,

Now I’d televise my secrets

To get you just a little

Further away from me.

Though I have adorned 

Your treachery with poetry

Don’t mistake it for forgiveness.

– Vagabond Prophet

“What we’ll never agree on”, the wonderful prompt given me by @josy57. Thanks pal!

Open Maws

With the urgency of

A green light turning red

I steal away to this desk.

This pen a knife

Carves into my sleep,

A peculiar creature is me

That my ideal starting point is this.

All the classic tales

Of girls in cloaks

Of wolves in night gowns

Taught me nothing,

I had to learn for myself.

If I couldn’t write

I’d be plunged into night.

I have to sharpen my own claws

And cut my own teeth

It is the hour I face my wolf

And we both have open maws.

– Vagabond Prophet

Gasoline

The yawning chasm

The muscle spasm

The heavy eyelids

That cry for more unrest.

There aren’t enough hours

For me to complete towers

I began many moons ago

Though I work the mortar daily.

I’m a stardust child clean

Now laced with gasoline

Strike a match

Watch chemicals react

See me explode

This heart barely intact.

– Vagabond Prophet