Tag: Work Stories

Potential

I am simple and strong

I am neither good or evil

For I do not choose my burden

Or even how I will carry it

That is done by the stranger’s hand.

I will with treasure tarry

Across plane, train, and ferry

To bring my payload

To expectant signatures.

Sometimes I am rushed

Sometimes I am empty or full

To the point my corrugated spine

Bursts and holds no more.

I am not good or evil

I am only potential.

If all this and more is true

Of me a cardboard box

What does that say of you?

– Vagabond Prophet

Open Heart Surgery

The surgical blade

The drape that was laid

Upon skin built up for years.

Flat on your back

Ragged breath gone slack

Clamp down the mask

Begin the task.

The harm always starts

Before the healing can,

The cracking of ribs

The loss of blood.

If this is you

Going under the knife,

Remember some go a lifetime

With nobody seeing their heart,

For the struggling pump that it is

Trying to bale out a boat

Under constant downpour.

– Vagabond Prophet

By Rote

This is exhaustion

This is where my mind hibernates

And my arms and legs

By rote accomplish much.

No path less traveled

Was ever tread by rote

No trails blazed by bravery

Ever made half aware.

Shock me with lightning

Make my smile frightening

Scatter the bones of the strong

Into the soil of the weak,

Inferior they rise

With nobody paying any mind.

With banners high

And sharpened spears

Remembering the pain

Throughout all the years.

Though these thoughts may abate

My soul I prostrate

Riddle me with tumors

Spread vicious rumors

Leave me torn asunder

From every past blunder.

– Vagabond Prophet

Armed Guards

Shipwrecked on a shore

Of feral condemnation

From every corner of the nation,

Combing every grain of sand

To find some remnant

Of your past life.

They think you’re unconscious

But you hear the whispers,

“Why are we bothering,

Can’t we let him slip

Through the cracks of our care?

Should we slip some

Intravenous fear to finish him off?”

I know not why you fill that bed

Or why your breach of protocol

Has the hallway outside

Filled with more armed guards

Then I can count on one hand.

The endlessness

Of your listlessness

And your breathlessness

That keeps draughting

Maskful after maskful

Of precious oxygen.

The threat of whip and lash

If you manage to leave

In cuffs rather than a bag.

There is value in sweat

And valour in tears,

Do you know these things?

Or only preyed upon that fact?

I don’t know

I can’t know.

I know that

The words tied to your name

Are not yet set in stone

Not carved into your bone.

The consequence

Of confidence

Is responsibility,

Is it a mantle

You’re prepared for?

Is this even your fault?

Are you one of those sad ones

Born with a convoluted tubule

Connecting ear to brain

Always twisting the truth,

Like a game of telephone

The message constantly misshapen.

Were lies only passed through your hands,

But licking all those envelopes

Your tongue stuck

To the roof of your mouth

Making truthful speech impossible?

Now having cried so many tears

The sea mistakes you

For part of itself

And heeds not your cries for help.

Though what they say could be true

That you released quivering bullets

From a quaking hand,

Don’t let the ticking of the clock

Be the author of your days.

Remember when good news

Wears camouflage

And bad news wears neon

That I’d still lend an ear.

After this one simple question,

If you could relive your life

Would you ruin it

In a brand new way?

These are questions we share

For ourselves, for our souls.

What else do we share?

Do we share a blood type?

Could your A+’s

Meet my O-’s

And make a different alphabet,

Where the words tied to your name

Don’t anchor you the same?

– Vagabond Prophet

Thank you so much @josy57 for prompting me with “The words tied to your name.” 

More hospital related poetry for everybody, or as I like to call it…

Antiseptic verse

Enjoy.

Sanguine


Hundreds of different bandages,

For hundreds of different wounds.

Some with silver, some with glue,

Some that cover most of you.

These ones in my hand

To contain maggots

While they eat

The dead flesh around a wound.

Insect like vultures

Subsisting off decay.

If blight should red or green or blue,

Antiseptic solutions for that too.

Every answer to every question

Understood by spinning blood

And squinting at urine.

What I’ve learnt from this place,

Sanguine in both definitions

Can be present in one body

That’s clinging to a bed

In a crowded hallway.

Medicine is a nice way of saying

A poison that we trust.

“This is going to hurt a little bit”

Means this will be torture.

That the suffering of those

That wail like feral beasts

Are beyond dignity

Looking only to survival.

“Decreasing quality of life” means that

This person isn’t worth many more dollars.

Mostly I’ve learned that hope

Is the ultimate trump card,

Hope covers all bad news,

Is a treatment for any diagnosis.

Peace can’t be prescribed

But can be spread by gentle hands

And kind words.

I only put gloves on a shelf,

Yet I now know the fingers

That will know them so well

Need my diligence

To impart some resilience.

– Vagabond Prophet

Thanks @josy57 for prompting me with “What I have learned from you.” Hope this is okay.

Minstrel

Days in a row now

You’ve got your stool in the foyer,

Gnarled fingernails

Classical guitar.

Strumming and plucking,

Most beautifully

Did somebody hire you?

Or did you just see a need?

For those with cancer

You play in C minor,

Important work you’re doing.

You minstrel of meningitis,

Troubadour of tuberculosis

Don’t give up we need you so.

– Vagabond Prophet

A Day in the Life

5:30 A.M.

Beep Beep Beep,

Snooze.

6:00 A.M.

Beep Beep Beep,

I should really get up

Snooze.

6:30 A.M.

Beep Beep Beep.

Okay now I really need to get up,

Those dollars aren’t going to milk themselves.

Coffee, driving, walking, lifting, dreaming.

Coffee, driving, dinner,

People I love, people I work to provide for.

Coffee, writing, more dreaming.

…

…

…

5:30 A.M.

Beep beep beep

Snooze.

– Vagabond Prophet

Chin Whiskers

White hair and pale eyes to match,

Deep lines in your loose skin

Marking many winters of the body

And many more of the heart.

Mam can I ask about your chin whiskers?

Were you of such a beauty in youth

That in age it requires new roads to travel?

Now that you’re eyes are unclear

And your legs unsteady,

Majesty comes pouring off your face

Now that your words make no sense.

Don’t worry mam I understand now,

You were somebody’s queen

In a kingdom long fallen.

– Vagabond Prophet