Tag: spilled words

Rigid

Some people just want to get along

With everybody at all costs,

Insisting everybody can be right.

They cut off the branch they sit on

As a shelter for themselves.

Afraid to offend people

By disagreeing with anything.

All that proves though,

Is a refusal to stand for anything.

No land to defend

A nomad belonging neither

To truth or lies.

You can’t swap gravy for hummus

And tell me it’s the same,

And if you try you’ll always feel anchored

By the weight of your own name.

I’m not inflexible

I don’t refuse to listen

But some truths really are that rigid.

And just for saying that

You gawk in shock and disbelief,

That I would dare to say

That the definition of North

Can’t be stretched

To also mean south.

– Vagabond Prophet

True North

Like a ship graveyard

Where we sort through the rotten planks

To find the few good ones.

Together we may salvage

One seaworthy vessel

From the thousand capsized.

We all push off from shore

Without giving the land a last glance

We go past the breakers,

No map, just a promise.

A common faith

Of a country far away,

Something I’ve always known of.

It’s like the way the moon

Chases a Sun it’s never seen

Except for in dreams.

We all work the ropes

And steer the rudder

For the compass is etched

On all of our hearts.

– Vagabond Prophet

Ice Machine


He’d painstakingly inched along

From his room, in a wheelchair

So slowly that with each rotation

The world made a rotation on its axis,

He made glaciers look swift.

He was so very old

That time had made knots in his mind,

And knit wrinkles in his spine.

He sat in front

Of that silver machine

And asked me

“How do I get ice out of here?”

Honesty is the best policy,

Or so I’ve been told

So I plainly told him,

“Sir, that’s a blanket warmer.”

– Vagabond Prophet

Malcontent


I haven’t been honest

Since the womb.

Lying about

Why I’m crying.

Not crying about being torn

From my home,

I cried for the world I was born into.

I heard her heartbeat,

Beating in time with her malcontent,

She didn’t even have to say it

I felt it in the blood she gave me.

The world is unsafe

And we’re made for the next one,

Just help some people get there

That’s what she told me.

– Vagabond Prophet

Good Day

I woke up next to her again

To that blooming goddess

Of warmth and beauty.

I woke up to the joyful squeals

Of two healthy children

Just happy for another day.

My hearing degrades

With each new frequency

My daughters voice discovers,

Fearlessly trailblazing

The uncharted waters of sound.

My mind is blown by the fact

That my son of five

Is imagining stories far beyond me,

A natural storyteller.

I have everything I need.

Some days I’m plagued with worry

Doubt and cynicism.

But today,

Today is good.

– Vagabond Prophet

Solitary Refinement Chapter 1

vagabondprophet:

Dearest Elizabeth                   June 18 2017

I hope you and the children are well. I miss you guys so much it’s painful. I still cannot believe I’m in prison. Convict, inmate, incarcerated, prisoner, criminal. I never ever thought that these words could be used to describe me.

It all sounds so fruitless to tell you now but it’s just like I said in court. I had been laid off from my job, more workers than they could afford once some of the investors pulled out of the contract. I didn’t want to come home from work early to tell you I had to look for work again, not again.

It was raining that day so I took the bus. When I was at the bus stop I was talking to a guy about how he hasn’t seen me at this time of day before because I just got fired. He was a big guy, broad shoulders, shaved head. He told me he owned a business and was actually looking for able bodied men who take directions well.

“I can do it! I’m your man, let me see it’s Friday today so I’ll get you a resume and references and meet you on Monday? Does that work for you?” I said to him.

“ That won’t be necessary, I trust your word. If you tell me you’re solid I’ll believe you. Just don’t let me down.” He replied.

That bastard! He was so friendly, so kind. You always said I was too trusting of people and I should have listened to you. What was I thinking! Getting hired at a bus stop without any kind of interview or anything. I should have smelled the bull shit right away but I couldn’t, all I could think was how I wouldn’t have to tell you I’d lost my job.

I was so happy. I’d been saved. After one day “working” with this man I find myself slammed in jail, the court, and now here. All so fast.

Day one he just told me that we were just picking up some cash from somebody who owed him on the way to the work site. So we pulled up to the back of this building and he told me to wait by the door with a bag. I just stood there waiting, totally oblivious they were robbing the place until alarms started ringing and cops showed up to cuff me. The bag I was holding had a gun in it I didn’t know about, the other guys had bolted out a different exit.

Now I have to listen to the people here drone on and on about things I really can’t care about. They keep talking about programs that they offer here. Education, skills training, that sort of thing. So many guys here haven’t even finished high school. For me though it all sounds so pointless. They keep reminding us to take our programs seriously as they prepare us for rehabilitation into society. I know how to live in society! I was real good at it too. I had a job, I paid taxes, I got educated. I was a construction worker for goodness sake I was the damn poster boy for responsible citizen. Working hard to support a family, rain or shine. Exercise in the evenings, cycling to work to reduce my carbon footprint. All the stuff these programs are supposed to prepare me for. Now I’m stuck here for five long years.

I can’t even pretend to care about how any of that matters. Right now all I can think of is how today is Father’s Day and I’m in prison. I’m going to end this letter now and go to the visiting area in case you guys decide to surprise me with a visit. It’s the only thought that’s gotten me through the day.

Sincerely,

Your Husband

Anonymous


In a world where there’s no such thing as anonymous

Someone is always watching,

Where can we go to have a private conversation.

Where our words can wrestle each other

And when you come out on top

I’ll have a stupid grin

Because all I ever wanted

Was for you to pin me.

My back on the ground

With nothing left to give

But my devotion.

– Vagabond Prophet