Long Skull Poems
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In a shoebox of old family photos
sits one of my father at 21, standing like Goliath
holding two oars across his chest like a giant X
canoe at his feet
before the diving accident
before the lake rocks sliced his skull
before the steel plate planted his anger
erasing his beer-laced charm.
His recovery confused by what's comfortably familiar
having to cut away the bandages of dark.
His restoration floating on an axis of rotation
in a new dimension of self
My father's turbulent reality, fitful form
like someone drowning in waves
disfigured
a broken swell
Poem revised May 5, 2021
For Brian Strand: You Choose Poetry Contest
August 17, 2021
I want you to feed me my only fear,
to make a ritual of the ruddy rain I hear
deluge my dreams with Love's broken mirror,
our inspiration fragmented into faithless drear,
to deliver the division of two hearts once near
on a cutting board of Venu's neurotic nightmare,
take me to where yearning is taunted by stoic stare
to the edges of erotic emotion wounded from passion threadbare,
lead me to fear's chasm split warm and wide on a Goddes's tongue of despair,
I need that soul spasm hyperextending the phantasm of my boyish beliefs unfair,
If I could fall in love with you again
a star hunter I'd be, feigning capture in your solar reign
equiped with erogenous eon, violating your violet virtue from within,
I would be your fuel of fury and flirtation, speedily skipping across a galaxy dim,
an unstoppable windfall of cosmic conquest bursting from our indefatigable union,
If I could see you one more time in truth
you'd be a Queen, lean like love keen, sexy as sabotage with no proof,
intuiting when to kiss, and when to kill, dressed to thrill in vermillion fox,
a King me be, knowing how to war, and how to water the woman that gives me shocks,
would throw roses and lava into a world desperate for heros gone mad on Creativity's roof,
I don't know how Love says goodbye,
I don't know how it sounds, how it moves
or know when the Death Dance begins or ends,
how deeply does Love get buried in the pits of private agony,
how will I remember the anniversary of our Dia de Muertos,
will you paint your face like a sugar skull and grin from misery made merry,
a grave robber I will be, rubbing fragrant memory on the lips of our love gone by,
feeding you the fear you've taught me -
J.A.B.
The Fortress Within
The walls I built so no one could ever touch or wound me again,
grew perfect, straight, and cold, like winters carved from flint by frozen men,
stone upon stone I raised them with hands of terror and of sleepless guard,
a fortress with no gates, no windows, and no law within its yard.
Now I am safe at last — no spear can ever break me anymore,
no foreign word can split my chest and make it bleed down to the core,
but in the darkness between walls, where not a whisper finds its way,
I'm locked in with the architect of fear, who taught me how to build my grave.
He is the shadow that dictated every slab in silence grim,
the gentle executioner who whispered every soul hides sin,
I built a fortress against enemies — and stayed inside with him,
with the jailer from within, more hungry, crueler, and more faithful still.
My fortress is a basalt skull in which the echo kneels to pray,
every thought returns to me like a crippled bird that lost its way,
through the single crack there falls a yellow ray like a torch of old,
showing me my pallid face — a prisoner in my own rope's hold.
For so many years I took the armor for a second, newer skin,
I never saw the wall that stops the hail also stops the dew from coming in,
that the fortress which no longer lets the evil cross its floor,
no longer lets love catch its flame, nor light stretch out across the door.
So I begin to pull one stone away, then another, with nails worn through,
not to surrender to the storm, but to let back into my marrow's room
the sun unseen for far too long, the wind, and one warm reaching hand,
for better wounded in the world than king above a grave of sand.
You're writing on pieces of paper
Your left arm, not your right
You were right-handed
But sadly, not tonight
Your hair shivers and itches
Every moment you breathe
You shake and you wrangle
Trying hard to see.
But your bubbling vision fades
With great pain, and haste
Slowly they tumble out
Free from your wake
But you push them aside
And they fall just like pleasure
The game isn’t fun
And you have to take measures
Then there’s itching,
Again,
You grimace painfully
Your hollow skull is now itching manically
But your hand can’t stop writing
The last thing that you lost
You’ve seen a slice of heaven
Now witnessing its cost
Trembling pain rips through your body
It heats,
and you shake enough,
to leave scratches on your page
But you have to continue,
Cold bone slices through gummy meat
Every crevice from brain to soul
Is warming up, and growing teeth
Molars, wisdom, sharp and dull
Are ripping teething as they grow
And pain is taking root and hold
Words escape your hollow mouth
Your skull, its jaws are hollow, shut
And your right hand
Makes a ripping sound
And blood pours on your neck
As it raises,
Your toothy smile looks at you
With humming eyes
That clatter with pain
And you can’t open your eyes in fright
For your last thought is fear
Fear you didn’t write enough
Fear what's left is teeth and blood
Not paper,
Or pen,
Or a name,
Or memory,
Of what was written.
But a broken pile of teeth and mud
Watched by eyes from heaven above
Laying on the floor,
Rotting like pleasure.
(alternately titled...
whoops rites of spring
prematurely ejaculated).
This livingsocial mortal opposes
rigor mortis deadened waiver!
Great slabs of ice thrust
from Perkiomen River
competing forces did deliver
contraction and expansion
giving yours truly,
a frightened shiver
hurled with heft of Goliath
smashed into a bajillion pieces,
akin to alms giver
momentarily, sans freeze-
frame (courtesy J. Geils ghost)
suspended, hallucinated
me accursed and destined,
grim fate akin to drunk Mini driver
city, viz frozen blocks buzz
feeding frigid air, a sliver
of Ice Age dam axed
face of Paul R. Vortex
as he launched a
thousand shrieking banshees,
an narrow escape as I did quiver,
hence explaining thunderous crash heavily
argh...no time to mull
battering (ramming analogous to
more'n one angry red bull)
Highland Manor Apartments
little imagination needed
to envision skull
and crossbones harkened full
Nelson deathly hallowed
grip inescapable pull
aghast and petrified to brimfull
(of mine non hull
king manlihood down
to the last drop),
nonetheless didst cull
atavistic adrenaline
laden fight flight, never a dull
moment whirling as
a "FAKE" undercover agent
with an off humorous bent
(what, that might earn me ten cent),
plus considering myself civil gent
(yea, really no time asper hero to invent,
such as the unassuming Clark Kent),
ah...wishful thinking misspent
mere seconds to spare sought
shelter in makeshift tent
deep sea diving into blanketed warmth
this whimpering poet went!
A chorus of cravings murmured beneath each breath.
A hunger-chatter humming me halfway to early death.
Like static in the wires, like tinnitus in the bone,
it called from every cupboard when I stood there alone.
“There’s cake in the kitchen,” came the relentless cry—
“Chocolate in the pantry—don’t ask yourself why not—just comply.”
You don’t want the carrots; you don’t want a leafy green—
you want the sweet white thunder, of sugar pristine.
I'm below my set-point horizon, where my body sounds an alarm,
my ears are ringing with its echoes, my hunger coaxing with its charm.
My metabolism slowed when I dieted, its tricks now on show,
so losing weight became like walking through fresh snow.
Then, suddenly the food noise was silenced—
the hunger's ringing went still.
No phantom bell in the skull to keep playing.
No cravings on the hill.
The mouth’s old echo faded,
as I took the jab, or powered up the will
to stand in an empty kitchen
the cake uncut, all there still.
It was a tinnitus of hunger, pitched high inside the mind.
A private shrill insistence, I could neither leave, nor unwind.
The appetite’s phantom ringing, loudest in the calm,
absence becoming resonance, desire becoming a sung psalm.
The body’s restless asking will not soften, nor be outdone.
It tugged me back to excess, like a planet to its sun.
Each diet was a ladder a slippery slope in the rain,
each rung greased with longing; each slip returned its gain.
For the body has its set point, its gravity, its law,
a weight it keeps returning to, with hunger in its maw.
And when I slip beneath it, some ancient siren knew,
it could tempt me back with sweetness, to collect its due.
Then, suddenly the food noise was silenced—
the hunger's ringing went still.
No phantom bell in the skull to keep playing.
No cravings on the hill.
The mouth’s old echo faded,
as I took the jab, or powered up the will.
To stand in an empty kitchen,
the cake uncut, all there still.
Pain weighs me down
As painful as it seems,
I am below the surface,
Drowning in wretched dreams
A furnace of hate
Burns on, churns on
Oceans, so ominous,
Haunt me so humongous
I’m not human anymore
Unless your precious compassion
Understands me entirely
I see the world, an evil, sinister distraction
I am attracted to the dark
I’m sorry, I’m in this childlike park
Called afraid and vulnerable,
Curiosity so inescapable
Insecurities fly like fleas in my scalp
I yelp
I yell
I can tell
You can’t hear me
I scream
I am disquieted
I am under the spell
Of insidious loneliness
I am unfree possibly
Unfreeze me,
That’s my only plea as if you’ll ever help
Help me heal
Heal me cope
As I wrap myself around myself
Like a serpent-like rope
I am a menace
So I’m in my furnace
I am a vicious…
Precious little helpless…
Victim,
You predator of the deep
Seeping the energy out of me
Burn the bridges in my mindset
Don’t get me upset with regret
It’s a little steep…
How much I weep
Beep, beep, beep me out of my dream
Reality is funking me real good right now
In a funk
Inside your junk
***** skunk swells in my heart
Ripped apart
Cross the rivers in my friend ship that departs
From the death cart
Casket baskets flip me out
Freaked out by drastic, romantic, dramatic, traumatic everything
Manic in a panic
Maniac like a prick
Pick your wars of unpeace
Stick your sick fingers in my face again
I dare you
Tick tock
Corrupting me, penetrating me
Tock tick
Plucking throbs of thorns from knobbed, knitted kites…
Bug bites bleed through
Bud, bloody toothpaste due to the red dyes in my snacks
I need God’s compassion
His pensive, pure precision on my precious soul
I weed out unredemption
Hoes be surrounding me now…then, bursting like fireworks in my youthful skull
Then an old soul grows inside me
This is an urgency
I am in a crisis times an infinity
You’re screwing my energy
It’s an emergency
Apparently, nothing else matters
Apparently, you and I are no more
Fervently, I don’t care anymore
Your words, they flattered me, then it scatters
In my meandering mind of misery
Bidding You a Farewell
Written by D. W. Breidenthal
Let's see this scene unfold:
Oh! Have mercy on my soul
And release the tension in my
skull
I bid you a farewell
Where do your heart dwell? In
heaven or hell?
Are you a fallen angel?
Are you unstable?
You transported high on cloud 7
Like an escalating elevator,
since I had no where to roam
You were my pleasant haven I
called my home
You lift me high above the
soiled ground
You and I had pure brotherly
love...
There's hidden treasure that's
dying to be found
Oh! Have mercy on my soul
And release the tension in my
skull
I bid you a farewell
Where do your heart dwell? In
heaven or hell?
Are you a fallen angel?
Are you unstable?
Spread your velvet wings...
And see what hope and faith
brings...
Reach to the vibrant universe
Though the roof's above our
head...break that barrier and
sift away that midnight curse...
Oh! Have mercy on my soul
And release the tension in my
skull
I bid you a farewell
Where do your heart dwell? In
heaven or hell?
Are you a fallen angel?
Are you unstable?
Release the anxiety, banging at
my cracked, rotting skull
You're killing me with your
pain, bud
Don't make me draw blood...
Oh! Have mercy on my soul
And release the tension in my
skull
I bid you a farewell
Where do your heart dwell? In
heaven or hell?
Are you a fallen angel?
Are you unstable?
Sometimes, I have the urge to
fly away from all my earthly
problems
And cherish you like gorgeous,
radiant gems
Oh! Have mercy on my soul
And release the tension in my
skull
I bid you a farewell
Where do your heart dwell? In
heaven or hell?
Are you a fallen angel?
Are you unstable?
You are burnt down like a wooden table
ON FIRE
But, yet my heart burns on with desire
A blood-dipped letter lies before me,
Wrapped in moth-ridden silk,
Written by your ghastly fingers.
The cold of another bleak fortnight settles in,
While crimson-eyed ravens rest upon creaking window sills.
Stoking the fire, umbers rise and dissipate before me,
Painting prophetic warnings in the air,
As the distorted ticking of clocks chimes tensely,
Repeating the same hour—two a.m.
A crisp chill shoots up my spine,
I wrap myself tighter in your charcoal shawl,
Reaching for the last of the firewood you chopped.
Placing it in the hearth, I now know it's time.
Removing the silk, I cast it into the flames,
Peeling back three wax skull seals.
I open the fateful envelope,
The curse you unknowingly wrote into existence.
Placed upon me, it rests in my weeping hands—
One cataclysmic night was all it took,
For our destruction,
Your soul claimed by the nether,
And mine bound within a perpetual loop of despair forevermore.
Khandahar is where all began IED ignited
my skull in the blink of an eye Kabul came
into view as the smoke clears my body was
being rushed through tunnels the hot sun burning
my flesh sand gravel stuck in my pores I remember
tears on my cheeks that burned like acid rain DOA
DOA medic screamed I thought are they talking about me
while my eye ball hung out the eye socket my nasal arch
was crushed my eye socket crushed my brain hurt
voices muffled as my body lay there stay with me
stay with me I was rushed off again through another
tunnel my brain hurt lights were shining in my eye
I could not speak where am I my mouth opened
nothing came out my vision could not focus am I alive
panic set in I need to know can I be I losing my sight
medic passes me notepad and pen here dear just write