Caked Poems | Examples

Beauty Rituals

I pity thy facade.
Caked layers of makeup.
Two faces, twice the work.
Masking. Hiding. Deceit.
     Outward lie.
     Apply. Shroud.
     Cloak. Comply.
     Deny tears.
     Features die.

* 'The Pirouette Poetry Contest'
* Sponsored by: Suzette Richards
* Entered on: 09/05/2025

I Am Rose

I am rose, although a dusty rose;
my journey forward has been long and hard 
along this narrow well-worn path I chose
that’s left me old and grey with dust-caked clothes
and dreams dismissed, emotions slightly scarred.

And yet the hopes that ever lead me on
are optimistic dreams with colored bows;
I’m always chasing my tomorrow’s dawn
and reaching for the dreams to which I’m drawn;
my lifetime color is a dusty rose.


August 16, 2025

Music Produced by Jerry Curtis

A Porch Swing's Tale

A Porch Swing's Tale
The sun hangs low, a bruised peach in the sky
my old boots are caked with the red dust of a journey I never started
three

This here porch swing rocks on, steady and slow
but my soul feels like it's caught between the back porch and the front gate
somewhere between a hello and a goodbye, a solid six

And the cricket's song ain't a happy one, it's a lonesome, weary sigh
I'm stuck in the middle, still waiting for the rain to wash the road clean
This ain't a home, but it's not the open road either. It's just a place.

Misty clouded heart

Misty clouds fill my eyes,
After you stabbed my heart,
With a blade forged in hate.
Pain oozes out like blood,
But neither red nor caked –
Yet it outlives all thought.

Jigsaw Soul

Each passing day puts on display 
a puzzle piece of jigsaw soul.
Providing parts to add to hearts, 
from halfway done to fully whole. 

The bygone years are souvenirs, 
the trinkets of a time gone by; 
though caked with rust, dried blood, and dust, 
they stain, then fade, but never die. 

The decades roll and ring a toll 
for lessons taught but slowly learned. 
Experience, with common sense, 
shall grow, rebuilding bridges burned. 

The wisdom found on weathered ground 
repays, with interest, youthful debt. 
Each piece a shred, profusely bled, 
but, joined as one, a finished set.

Time Etched in Flesh

The rustling of leaves interplays with the ocean breeze,
as traces of moonlight escape through blackout curtains hanging from steel rods.
Bolts of illumination highlight stacks of books caked in dust,
while a man, decrepit with age, sits on a worn auburn-coloured leather chair.
His balding hair is grey from years of turmoil.
Wrinkles lay heavy, nestled deep within his face,
exposing the fragility in his demeanor.
Placed before him: stark white paper and a singular obsidian pen.
Removing his wire-thin spectacles, he wipes them gingerly with his nightshirt
and returns them safely to perch on his sunken cheeks.
Ruminating words flood through his mind
as he picks up the pen with his slender fingers.
The grandfather clock approaches three in the morning to the left of him,
reminding him that time is not on his side.
Scribbling fragments of what he can remember on the paper,
his last will and testament begins to unfold—
final wishes interwoven with untold life stories.
Loneliness weighs heavy in his heart
as the wavering flames of his existence extinguish
with his concluding pen strokes.

Sleeping Beauty

I remember the days when I'd fall
asleep before hitting the pillow.
Ah, the joy of a sound sleep.

I might not have been at my best
in the morning all things considered.
Day-old makeup very much past its prime.

My eyelashes were caked and looking scraggly,
my lipstick smeared across my cheek and pillow,
eyeshadow streaked clear across my forehead.

Thankfully one good shower made me whole again!



AP: 2nd place 2025

Ravens and Lilies

‘When you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives.’ - Lauren Eden


lilies and ravens
dance together making mud puddles
thick as salve caked on deep wounds
stemming not the ooze

tinctures from droppers
bitter herbs labeled for survival
use only as directed
replenish nothing

rancid birthday cakes
gleeful candles form dancing shadows
glassy story-telling eyes
yearn desperately

gleaming steel knives slice
neat little rows across the table
the sacrificial altar
where naked I lay

ignorant children
don't see the bullies in their own homes
doling birthrights like feed for
ravens and lilies

Written 8 April 2025
For the contest Light or Shadows hosted by Suzette Richards

Purify

I’ll scrape this mud off of my heels -
That’s caked from years of trudging.
And soak these wounds in orange peels -
To persuade scabs into budging.

This bar of soap, my sword of choice -
Will slay bruises that have haunted.
Replacing aches with citrus’ voice -
Who soothingly tunes the daunted.

This plunge of water, warm and welled -
Will calm my anxious weather.
And put to rest thoughts that rebelled -
As I bathe in crystal summer.

Break Through

Who knows 
how many 
layers
over
generations 
have been 
used. 
 
Sprayed on, 
and caked on, 
and smeared on
thick
for the purpose 
of covering
the truth. 
 
Oh ye who
through the ages 
have done this,
though 
your layers
be deep,
know this -
 
that the truth 
will break though. 
Not a thing
you can do. 
For all
of the truth
is his.

Bloody valentine

On the base of a flower vase,
that's where you left her last blood trace:
A reminder of your fresh kill;
your Valentine's day gruesome chill.

Caked blood now covers the deep wound,
her flesh still looks fresh on the ground.
But her spirit roams far away,
graveyards too small for her to stay.

Her lips still wear your last cold kiss.
Her warm hugs, you'll forever miss.
Her soft hands, you can't again grab;
a gone soul, you can't again stab.

From cemeteries, vengeance screams;
her vengeful spirit haunts your dreams.
Her ghost won't rest till your soul flees
and the breezes from your nose freeze.

Christmas Trees at Smithfield Central Doctors

"...in spring, the most delicate feathery yellow of plumes and plumes and plumes and trees and bushes of wattle, as if angels had flown right down out of the softest gold regions of heaven to settle here, in the Australian bush."

— D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo

Paraboloid totems of evergreen hope, upside down,
Sparkling white trinkets, sparkling white dears;
‘What do we need to do now?’
You ask;
I got my husband’s winged blue stone gift around my neck, a dragonfly,
Isn’t my green dress an ornamental kingly shroud?


Both stormy and luminous, the cuts on my arms are still caked in dried blood,
You are sad: your heart bleeds into mine with a bit of emerald dust and ruby red sunrises;
The Doctor is the Rose; I am the Flame
You are all marble, Plato, self-contained,
I am grotesque, decaying, Lilith-born,
My scars are trim poodles


Whose slightly wolfish eyes
Will bleed a blazing cornucopia of yellow wattle sprigs;
Doctor, your heart is a gold mine and joyous as Spring

To Frost: Regarding The Diverging Paths

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood….”

Robert,
You let the split remain unresolved,
and while we stand in awe,
staring at your crossroads
etched in gold and shadow,
do you ever wonder
what lay beyond the path
you did not take?
Even though you say,
“I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

Did the road arch upward,
an unfamiliar melody on the wind?
Or did it tumble into brambles,
a half-forgotten warning?
Even now I see your boots----
Mud-caked, maple-tinged-----
pausing at the edge.

Here’s my advice, if you allow it:
Don’t linger too long
in the pondering.
Step once more
into the thicket, the gravel,
the unknown blaze of paths.

And when your pen hesitates,
push it further
to sketch the forest where both trails end-----
or perhaps where they entwine,
branches brushing like old friends.

Some questions don’t need answers,
but oh, how they crave
a different kind of wandering.

Regarding Robert Frost’s famous poem, ‘The Road Not Taken’.

HAUNTED WOODS

Walking through the woods one night
I came across a gruesome scene.
A sight that made me flee in fright.
I had forgotten Halloween.

A ghost appeared in flowing shroud,
Then Dracula demanding blood.
A zombie army moaning loud,
Shreds of clothing caked in mud.

A werewolf stood in front of me,
His howling echoed far and wide.
I was encircled, no way free.
Surrounded, I was terrified.

And then I reckoned I’d been caught.
It’s only trick or treat I thought.
But I was wrong, it all was true.
And now I am a zombie too.

Fading Photographs

Fading photographs collecting dust,
   the images of moments from my past
like ancient aging metals caked with rust
   from torrid tear-soaked dreams that didn’t last
      and cast aside as hopes became aghast.

Stowed away behind my closet door
   these boxed up fading photos you will find,
though hidden out of sight, I can’t ignore
   these dreams now buried deep within my mind;
      the ancient aging dreams I left behind.

These memories still haunt me late at night
   while sitting all alone in my dark room
without a single dream that brings me light
   to brighten up this ever-growing gloom;
      all caused by fading photographs entombed.

September 19, 2024

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