I’ve taken up polishing skulls.
Not trophies,
just my kin—
their sockets still
echoing
what they aren't
ready to hear.
Though it's only
what they've said
themselves.
I never knew
what reckoning meant
however,
in terms of preparation,
that is,
my training
for the abrasing escalation
of the manner
in which they've behaved?
That's easy,
I crack pebbles now,
knuckles before a fight,
teeth on a dare—testing
hollow sentiments.
It's kept me protected,
but I will say this:
it hasn't attracted many fans.
Categories:
jawbones, family,
Form: Free verse
He work day and night
Labor food through its jawbones
Share love for his queen.
Categories:
jawbones, love, power, work,
Form: Haiku
The field is given a name.
Battles are about where they disappear,
the ones that walk away
don't know where the hell they are.
There’s a cannon ball under that Yew tree,
there’s a skull under that Ash.
There’s a hank of dried up hair
over there, woven into stone and moss.
After the blood, peace continues destroying barns,
insignia and belt buckles fished out and sold.
Excavated jawbones order and counter-order.
The officers that staggered away
go quietly mad, or marry well.
Surviving hell takes
a lot of stump-footed foraging.
The maimed tell their jerrybuilt tales,
cracked rockers creek along
the slipways of generations.
Hounds bayed at coons.
in the hot afternoons;
that was before the earth gaped open,
before the gore seeped sideways
into the earths wounds.
Good Generals and bad
have had their deadly play,
this scattering and salvage
of the blue and grey that day.
Categories:
jawbones, poetry,
Form: Blank verse
In the night, in the darkness
That is when it happens
My thoughts turn dark, heavy
Sodden
Tasting like wet soot
Trying to fight off
The familiar melancholy
Forcing ruminations of contentment
Into spaces where
There is no room for them
A psychic neon “No Vacancy”
Glows obscenely
In my restless head
Its “c” burned out
Mocking
All stupid attempts
To change the channel
My mouth forgets
The wide pull of a smile
Teeth weary of the nocturnal clenching
That turns my jawbones into a vise
The dental guard not meant
To prevent
Such crippling anxiety
Jaw slow to forgive this nightly angst
I manage to unlock it
We play this game each morning
As I sit on the edge of the bed
Massaging the sides of my aching face
Wondering
If today will be the day
That I might feel happy
Categories:
jawbones, angst, animal, depression, freedom,
Form: Prose
O to stand upon an emerald place
A see the rage on Samson's face
That handome Goliath on Israel's side
Wielding a jawbone for stolen bride
What a picture of the rasta dread
What an elation over wicked dead
Littering like fallen leaves the fallowed
Land, shaken down to earth by hallowed
Hand. For here today where asses bray
There own jawbones could put them away.
Categories:
jawbones, imagination
Form: Verse