My name is ‘Prophet’ but they call me, ‘Hey, you!’ I am a penniless drifter shod poorly. I’m
diseased & despised. I sing for a seat near the hall down the path to the shed used by
swine. I’m gleeful with joy for any place to dine. Crafty by circumstance, I am blessed with
a spark of divine mind. I trade hope for shelter. I barter truth for a comfortable lie.
I feel privileged, indeed, honored to share my most cherished possession with whatever
lurking beast or saint there may come a knocking on the door of my rice paper heart.
The possession I speak of is my inner light, my love; the most powerful force in the
universe. More often than not I possess neither food nor shelter but light never lets me
down. My huckster mind tries to convince me otherwise, but to the joker inside my skull I
say, “Shyster thoughts be damned!” Belief does not make an invidious fantasy real.

Those evenings I am cold, angry, lonely, rejected & filled with remorse for coming to this
place in the first place, are the very same evenings I forget to be grateful.
On these occasions nights crawl painfully slow to that trickster I call dawn.
What I lack in essentials I make up in in wisdom. Vagabond wisdom is priceless so I give it
away for free. I must. Like my father before me I stand hunchbacked, just as his father
before him. My deformed stoop is the result of incalculable weight I carry upon my
shoulders. My mother was born & raised in New York City’s west side shanty town; Hell’s
Kitchen. My father was orphaned at the age of two under crushing dank Mississippi Delta
poverty which knows no equal. Perilous & foreboding omens for both of them, yet they
overcame their twisted fate of birth with passion, ideals & love.They had to dig deep to
survive. Of this I am certain. I had to dig even deeper but I have learnt to love
getting my face dirty. It was either do that or die.

Yet, I wonder if being born deformed & senseless is easier to bear than this weight,
this soul numbing weight? I fear the worst should I stumble or fall. I fear for the
innocents striding between land & cobalt blue seas. When I fear it is because I've
abandoned gratitude. Sometimes my unbridled dejection paralyzes my connection to God.
It is easiest then to dismiss divine light as a dreamer’s hallucinations run amok.
And I do. Yes, I do. I dismiss like a diva.

12/18/2014

Posted on 12/18/2014
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