#skulls
The fog rolled in, it hid the ground,
It swallowed street and muffled sound.
A knocking came, a door of dread,
It waited where no foot had tread.
I crossed the threshold, heart aflame,
The orchard groaned as if in shame.
Its trees bore skulls where apples hung,
Their mouths like shadows, silently sung.
A crown of roots encircled me,
And whispered what the price would be.
Crows circled slow, with patient eyes,
Their wings eclipsing pale gray skies.
For every step, a soul to pay,
The orchard feasts, none walk away.
I staggered back, yet could not flee,
Each row became a path to me.
The fog returned, it pressed me tight,
And whispered, “Welcome… to the endless night.”
But somewhere deep, a flicker burned,
A single step, a path discerned.
I staggered forth, my breath a prayer,
And left the orchard’s hollow lair.
The door is gone, yet still it waits,
Beyond the fog, behind the gates.
And if you hear a knocking near,
Beware the orchard drawing near.
Sep 10, 2025
Sep 10, 2025 at 6:46 PM UTC
I want to draw
what is in my heart
cathartic pictures
screaming the pain I feel
but I have neither the talent
nor the ink to express
all the skulls I see
dancing in the subset
Aug 14, 2025
Aug 14, 2025 at 3:36 PM UTC
I want to die out here with you
I want to decompose in your arms
our flesh slowly growing softer, and softer as our skin rots and our organs decay
our bones slowly growing closer, and closer
until our leg bones are not separated by leg flesh and our hip bones are not separated by hip flesh and our hearts seep together over our rib cages and our skulls press together, chin to forehead
dry leaves tickle our feet and the cool wind soothes our hot bones and the earth covers our clasped hands
until they can no longer tell who was me and who was you
Oct 22, 2020
Oct 22, 2020 at 7:13 PM UTC
What's wrong with me?
Even the hounds won't bite.
The ones you fed me to.
And your fangs break my sticks
Dash me against the stone
To be a ****** carpet for your eyes.
A forest for your lies
Just another skull for your mantle.
May 16, 2020
May 16, 2020 at 11:10 PM UTC
Green night in the middle of the day…
Fire rising to ****** the moon,
Uncle Sam’s praying in my room
And the 8-ball will not say
Why a woman holds a gun
To her husband’s sleeping head;
Does she play or just wish him dead?
An armadillo’s included for fun.
Uncle Sam’s lost his hat in the fire
Maybe that’s why he’s praying.
Not for the country he should be saving
While we are conquered by liars.
I’ve tried to make sense of this before:
Masked fiddlers strum in the conflagration,
Dead books, butterflies and chimps run the nation,
…there is luggage on the floor.
Should I run from the scene,
Or stay and try to fight?
I can’t read my books in the deepening night
And there’s a skull waiting just to scream.
The man sleeps on with a gun at his head
And I see another skull by his side.
It must be a sign saying: “run and hide”.
But why can’t I do it?
There’s no way to get through it,
But I must wake up and fight or I’m dead.
June 1, 2006
Aug 27, 2018
Aug 27, 2018 at 8:00 AM UTC
***meandering thoughts
a central, vicious star writes
whilst watching the skulls***
Jan 26, 2018
Jan 26, 2018 at 10:39 AM UTC
Cobwebs
in the eyes of the skull
long forgotten
left behind
in time
cobwebs
in the eyes of the skull
like an empty hour glass
bottom heavy with sand
as the hands chip away
as time passes by
as the spiders legs
weave its web
creating a symbol of death
but also... life
a pretty mirror
in which sits the grim reaper
his reflection
hidden in the strands
strands from which beads of life
do glisten
clinging dearly
and just like the web
reliant on a thread
life hangs delicately in the wind
like a basket full of flowers
in an abandoned back garden
the owners no longer exist...
*hanging
and waiting
hanging
and waiting*
awaiting its own destruction
a fleeting work of art
soon lost in the winds of time
and the forgotten skulls
sit laughing in the sand
a silent kind of laughter
only they understand
*so laugh
while you can*
says the sand
says the sand
*laugh
while you can
while you can
while you can*
Dec 10, 2017
Dec 10, 2017 at 1:07 PM UTC
dried up skulls
with motionless eyes
pulled out of their sockets
lie about on forgotten land
as more are placed in
the jars, already filled with other
dusty, dirt covered eyeballs.
the strangely clean glass containers
in which the eyes are placed
stand on wood shelves,
calling,
b e g g i n g,
to be set free
from the trap of the elderly,
blind man's clutches.
Apr 11, 2017
Apr 11, 2017 at 4:07 PM UTC
it used to be daisies
under shining droplets of sun
transparent sadness
trapped in spiderwebs
now he's left on the
bleak balcony
with only his snapdragons
shaped like flower skulls
living for a tomorrow
no one believes in
Jun 19, 2016
Jun 19, 2016 at 12:20 AM UTC
Not easy to walk through a
meadow full of flowers
when they look dead
and it's as if you can see the
bones of the dead
reaching for the sunshine
that the daises aren't sharing
as I collapse towards the graves
part of me wishing to be a flower
and the other wishing I was
colds stone with some skull and bones
with my smile washed away
but roots of nature growing in me
my tears becoming lost in
the ground
because the flowers need it
but I need to stop feeling like
a dull piece of grass
I need to be a flower
but I'm just going to be
another sad story
lost in the dirt
that the flowers need to thrive
and another lost soul
will kick me around
but we all end the same
and we'll all breathe the same
dirt one day
and it won't be easy to walk through
a meadow full of flowers
when they look dead
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 10:44 AM UTC
I am simply a rough caretaker of my
Temple, vessle, canvas, corpse..
Whatever it may be
There is so much more than you can see
Too much if we were able to we'd be overwhelmed
Our eyes would probably burn out of our skulls
Because among the deamons we manage to see
Angels
Oct 18, 2015
Oct 18, 2015 at 5:05 PM UTC
Maybe men labored under a yellow sky
bent under barley sheaves they’d cut,
returned behind limestone walls and leaned
to splash water on each other at the well.
You can see its crumbling curve today, in one
city as old when Cheops' pyramid was built
as pyramids are to us right now.
Jericho, not so far away from Egypt and,
our archaeologists tell us, likely really didn’t hear
the blare of Joshua’s trumpets shuddering down
old Canaan-cursed by-Noah, coaxing walls
to shudder, teeter, list from Israelite raids.
You see one barley-bearer shaking dry,
descend stair-tunnels to his flat to kneel
before his hungry daughter, hungry wife,
waiting for evening’s barley bread to cool.
He joins as they resume their business of the day
to gently set the cowrie eyes in Grandma’s face,
two priests removed the rest of her last year,
but left the precious head to decompose at home
scented in the wall with sweet Netufian herbs,
And now the family gathers near small fire,
desert nightbreeze filtering through the cracks
tenderly to soften Mother’s bony head
with daubs of plaster re-create her nose,
and gaping eye sockets, softening too
those black orbits with white plaster.
Slowly her death’s head touched tenderly
by younger finger tips becomes
something like a human head again,
If not quite living, cowrie shells complete
this vision of a vacant queenly stare
befits a family shrine. When things are done,
small granddaughter now squeals with delight
her own dark eyes reflect the fire-light.
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 6:51 AM UTC
The crooked tooth was just a tooth
Which sat like a worn-down moth
It dreamed for a free-hug booth
Though it never managed to go on forth
The crooked tooth was just a tooth
Which waited like a crippled witch
And always wished for its tiptoe path
While it knew that was just myth
The crooked tooth was just a tooth
Yet it kept a daydream to breathe
And to have a sparkle bath
Drenched between life and death
The crooked tooth was just a tooth, though
Which cared only about its growth
And shall only be a single tooth
Which then stood still at the end of birth
The crooked tooth was just a tooth
And it stood alone among the row
Of skull preserved by merciful death
Unaware of the dreams it had dreamed
But,
Ah,
Yes,
Never mind that.
For the crooked tooth
Was just a tooth
A worn-down moth
A selfish tooth.
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 6:18 AM UTC
Solely roaming,
Solely flowing,
Slowly transcending,
Slowly ascending.
Where do those pretty wings belong?
On the sides of skulls.
Lifting our mind state,
Leading us
To the land of winged skulls.
There's a brain in a bowl who says so.
Only drifting
Behind gates with thee,
Receiving symbols.
Your eyes dilate,
Someone's head is hung over,
Bludgeoned by stones.
There's a brain in a bowl that says so.
Where do those pretty wings belong?
On the sides of skulls,
Lifting your mind state,
Leading you
To the land of winged skulls.
There's a brain in a bowl that says so.
(c) 2014 Brandon Antonio Smith
(Originally written 10/27/10
Revised 9/27/14)
Oct 2, 2014
Oct 2, 2014 at 3:02 PM UTC
I’m choking on a fistfull of bones. There’s a skull
hidden deep in the back of my closet,
maybe in the abyss beneath my mattress,
maybe lodged somewhere behind my bookshelf,
that reads aloud all my past regrets
like bedtime stories.
I found the dried up teeth of my grandmother
on my vanity and used them like dice.
There’s a rib from my great aunt that I use
as a clothes hanger dangling on a hook in my bathroom.
When I was little the playset in my backyard
looked like tomorrow,
but weathered down and rusted, it looks
like a mausoleum.
There is a lock of hair on my bedside table that
is not mine, but hers, and I can’t help but
wonder if she wants it back. Does she want it back?
There’s nine-year-old smoke in my lungs and
five-year-old iron around my heart.
There’s a wishbone branded to my liver
to signify the what if? and a
skull branded onto my chest to
signify the what is.
I learned not to trust so fully the first time I
nearly drown and how to be independent the
first time I learned to swim.
I used to want to be a “daddy’s girl” until I
realized what that meant. The roses he gave me
for graduation went headfirst into the trash.
I have many things left unsaid.
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 1:20 AM UTC