Wrestle the Sun

The most skilled of cashiers

Couldn’t make change of this noise

For some quiet.

I’d wrestle the sun

To keep the night from coming

With its sinister grin

And loud taunts

That daylight may never return.

These thoughts drowned out

With songs sung in every tongue

Of good hope and love.

If your belief

Grants no reprieve

From the devil on your sleeve

Your anchor set in ground

That avoids its touch.

Leave now!

Run fast!

Take your coat

And a boat

And row right out to sea!

Rivers flow to oceans

And oceans feel the union

Deep inside themselves.

This is the answer

The remedy from cancer,

All roads don’t lead home

But all homes do have a road

Leading to them.

If you’re found with a heart

Eager for sanctuary

Having fainted exhausted in the ditch

It’s still better than having never set out.

The guide may come correct

Misguided steps but beginning is a must.

You are worth your weight in gold

Let timid souls grow bold.

– Vagabond Prophet

Hot Pipes

I’m young now but won’t always be

One day this strong back will go slack

And sag under weight of time

Will no longer bear any burden

That comes its way.

These arms like branches in winter

Will wither and stop growing fruit

As my legs like roots stop toiling

For more ground to inhabit.

My voice will no longer rush

Like church organs

Burning urgency through hot pipes

With hope for all who may listen.

My mind may writhe

And scratch at doors

Its long held keys to

Having forgotten the purpose of each.

Though it may shrivel

And lose some of it’s shine

Though I may forget even your name

I will never forget you completely.

For this poorest of memories

Must still walk down halls you tiled.

– Vagabond Prophet

@delightfulharmonypoetry

Remission

Firewood stacked in the cellar of my heart

Waiting for some rogue spark,

To make the whole thing catch,

The inferno lying in wait.

Everything takes its turn in the sky

Like the sun

Like the moon

Like my own judgement of myself.

One of those confused souls

Living vicariously through the toilet

Taking everyones shit

Except my own.

To end this marching

I just might have to

Euthanize my own legs.

Sometimes I feel like an electromagnet

With no current running through,

Having lost all of its virtue.

Unless you wanted something cold

Something hard

Something that will never

Grip you tightly.

At this particular juncture I realize

Something strange even to me,

Reality never contradicts itself

Except in the presence of hurricanes.

That the most tranquil of eyes would beget

Such a tempestuous halo dancing round it,

For cows give milk and sadness gives tears

How is it that peace births terror so strong

As to peel roofs from homes.

The typhoon that stops its spinning

To focus its efforts inwards

Inducting some insanity and rage

To that placid and torporial center,

Introduce some apocalyptic worry

To the serene eye.

This would make far more sense.

How do these coexist?

How do they share a bed

Without one taking the blanket

To let the other shiver and die?

How do black and white dance

And in their twirls and pirouettes

Not ever turn to grey?

Yet that’s what has occured in me

A rotten center amidst alien goodness

That eventually makes itself back to the center

Until it all dissipates, leaving not but calm.

Skin stretched taut over

A rib cage mast to make a sail,

Blood fills it like a gale

To push me ever onwards.

On my way one foot

In front of the other,

Trudging the road

Of happy destiny.

Though I don’t quite emit light

The disease is in remission

I’m casting a lighter shadow.

– Vagabond Prophet

– Hey @josy57 ! Thanks for the great prompt

“Casting a Lighter Shadow”.

Gold Stickers

On the eve of higher learning

Keep your bright heart burning

That amongst red apples and gold stickers

You’d be the only flame that never flickers.

With hair as curly

As the shapes

You first drew on paper,

Eyes as brown

As the coffee I drink

Each and every morning.

If I could pluck your brightness

I’ve little doubt I’d live forever,

To be a father

Is to never die.

But rather have my blood

Pump through better veins,

To have the apprentice take the tool

Carving the block in ways

I never could with hands

I helped form.

One day I’ll be humbled by age

And you a shining knight

Will have your own page

To raise up with wisdom I will give thee.

Tonight just rest your lovely head

Before this new journey,

When the sun rises

On your keen brow

Know that it never sets

On your father’s prayers for you.

– Vagabond Prophet

– Son starting kindergarten. I’m not crying you’re crying!

@delightfulharmonypoetry

Little Green Book

Love does not sit still

Love is always in motion

Love turns tables

Love will cut your bonds free.

It keeps me warm when

Frost kisses the grass

And keeps me cool when

The grass wilts in summer heat.

Love carves canyons

With its tender restless ease,

Love filled this green book

By pouring from this pen.

– Vagabond Prophet

vagabondprophet:

Big Dipper

One bright and starry night

Just a lad with teary eyes

Lost the bout in the fight

When you pulled back the disguise.

Crashing through partition

I was fully completely, undone

Unraveled my tradition

My top no longer spun.

You broke through all other choices

When you addressed my need

I’d been listening to cunning voices

Devise a cunning deed.

Now that path I have forsaken

Thankful I’ve found another

After all the lies I’d taken

And their attempts to smother.

Now these ideas inverted

With tools forged in heaven

From the river of grave you diverted

To raise me like bread leavened.

All it took was looking up

The big dipper your spoon

Serving the love on which I sup

So much grander than the moon.

How did I ever think

Your grace was not enough

When you fill the sky, fill the rink

To refine this diamond in the rough.

– Vagabond Prophet

– Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with ‘the path I have forsaken.’

Big Dipper

One bright and starry night

Just a lad with teary eyes

Lost the bout in the fight

When you pulled back the disguise.

Crashing through partition

I was fully completely, undone

Unraveled my tradition

My top no longer spun.

You broke through all other choices

When you addressed my need

I’d been listening to cunning voices

Devise a cunning deed.

Now that path I have forsaken

Thankful I’ve found another

After all the lies I’d taken

And their attempts to smother.

Now these ideas inverted

With tools forged in heaven

From the river of grace you diverted

To raise me like bread leavened.

All it took was looking up

The big dipper your spoon

Serving the love on which I sup

So much grander than the moon.

How did I ever think

Your grace was not enough

When you fill the sky, fill the rink

To refine this diamond in the rough.

– Vagabond Prophet

– Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with ‘the path I have forsaken.’

Pounds Per Week

I am awake when I should be asleep

I am awake when I should be awake,

I save resting for the space between stanzas.

For I read these thoughts aloud

To a vast and dusty crowd

That claps and cheers me on

From the PM to the AM and back again.

I should close these eyes right now

But with stalwart rhythm this mind churns on

And the quill moves more eloquently

If I keep this blue gaze fixed

On a white page inked black.

Perpetual sleeplessness is my vocation,

Though no references save the coffee vendor

That weighs me out in pounds per week,

You should know I am a professional

And I will not burnout, for this backlog of dreams

Demands vigilance of this exact kind.

– Vagabond Prophet

Overflowing

That time of year where rains come

And will for the next seven months,

The gutters an empty summer trough

With not but a sparse dried leaf

Are now full to overflowing

By the weeping of the sky.

The unused ladder

Squeaks under my weight

Boots that feel buttered

Slip on rusted rungs.

This task like that of Atlas

That never ends so you never begin,

Just like the clogged eaves of this heart.

– Vagabond Prophet

Two Bent Knees

I am the third son of a third son

Of a man with just one eye,

He’d have a hundred years now

Tucked under his belt.

Lessons he taught

From battles he fought.

Not the one across the sea

For his vision compromised

The childhood accident

The tragedy despised.

Running with scissors

And tripping with scissors

Not just a cautionary tale.

His war included no bullets

His attrition risked no shrapnel

Just the simple devotion of a simple man

To put bread upon the table.

Raising cattle in a frigid land

Where even water retains no flexibility

And gives up its crown for a time unchallenged.

Years later raising young by the seaside

His tidepool kingdom crashed down

When the water came in high.

One wife down and one to go

The missing mother divided

An already divided clan.

Trudging onwards to surest of horizons

His compass unflinching in its convictions,

His health faded but his faith did not

And the proof was in a vacant body

Found on two bent knees.

– Vagabond Prophet

@mildreflections I think you may like this, I was inspired by your poem about your grandfather.