Incised Poems | Examples

WAITING IN LIMBO

WAITING IN LIMBO

Sitting on the muddy banks
Of faded realities,
Lingering in the spaces of time,
Lost souls struggle:
Seeking another Dreamer.

Powering pawn brokers,
Tighten their mogering grasp
Beyond the setting sun; 
Leaving frailed victories festering
And waning in winds of change:-

White opiates coagulate,
Flowing black dreams
Of mesmerized minds;
Oblivious to fading freedoms
Chained and rotting away:-

As time and life sag on,
Let’s not be as a drooping bosom
Sagging due to incised-bleeding;
Rather, let’s be as pregnant wombs
Breaking waters of liberating justice:-

Indeed, let’s scream renewed life,
Nourished keloid-ancestral-navels,
Waxed and hardened by sarcasm
Against the trumping-musky rhetoric 
Streaming against democratic equity:-

Waste In The Fire

Trimming fat
off his soul
he searched
for the bone

With every 
new slicing
his consciousness
honed

All waste in
the fire
to sizzle
and fry

Excesses
like smoke
rise forgotten 
— incised

(Dreamsleep: May, 2025)

Pagliacci

Of course, a clown
is always clowning
as poets paint their write -- 
before with pen and ink

dip we nibs wells of performance

transforming dark ink
to colorful spectacle in showtime
spot of light -- like the pancake 

our many harlequins, 

like Arora, a rainbow
after cloudburst
real tears or daisy squirt?

we apply our big-top makeup

to cover-up and hide

otherwise unmanageable crowds

of deeply incised hurt --

Light

‘I was born with the meaning of home running through my veins.’ - Lauren Eden


the road to travel is long 
wheels of time turn in last lap 
on the path turning to subterranean river 
incised within heart 
i set sail sanguine  
take the route to love   
don’t ask the journey’s purpose 
for i know from birth 
someone will take me to the goldilocks zone 
travel contented 
in new walkway i pave on hailing terrain 
in intimate twilight zone       
swathes sky with longing spectrum        
nostalgic gleam on the path 
shines to take me home
i hear its close call in the whisper of blood 
in my veins

cutting edge of the pencil

plans incised on plain paper
careful calligraphy of a plane
sailing high above the clouds

shrouded in anticipation
veiled in smudges and tears
slowly running out of ink 

resolute fears fuel the fire
earthquakes resurface nebulous horizons
and I have not the foggiest idea

uncertainty shapes a landscape
full of thunder and lightening
a sinkhole for rainbows

handing over completely
to what to whom to when
a seeming distraction

at the foot of the rainbow
gold mingles with cold
and heaven freezes over

Who I Am

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

—Psalm 91:1 NIV

              I’m loved by God
        safe under his wings and secure
      though the world is on its tilted axis
        often I’m off balance
  pillows are thoughts not as grounded as puffy clouds
  I travel over and under arms - memories
    of past steps, foretelling future
  fluidity of feeling but gently tethered

              I read scripture
        pray, obey, love my fellow man
      in the Spirit, the best I can, perfect
        though not in my power
  the ethereal takes over and changes lives
  lies exposed, incised; friction sharpens, bonds kinship
    I touch eyeballs, expose the light
  the touch of God felt between us - a first-rate hope

The Bio-Wars: A Son Lost

A tumour abated alters and waits.
Pathway incised, a new one it makes.
Spreading and forming, roots growing down.
The moment’s now here, a mighty rebound.

Battle exhausted, the bones ache and crack.
The units expended; yield to the plaque. 
Inquiry, anger, negotiations above.
But the body is weakened, aching and done. 

“I’m sorry - I’ve tired - but failed in my plight.”
“Nonsense, my son, no fighting tonight.
No orders, no mission, nor failure to bare.
Just love from your father, of that I do swear.”

Dead now, but living. Eyes open, but grey.
Pallid and wasted, a ghost in but name.
A horror unyielding, a memory maligned.
Of which we endure, for moments of time.

Wabi-sabi

For me you’re designed, mesmeric scarred moon, 
grace gleams in the convolute cradle of cyan night, 
slithers in the silken sky I create for you,
a turquoise trail you trace in my heart incised.

Thunder cloud surges from the edge of stained night, 
the debris of the splintered sky swathes me.
You retreat in the glare of anguish lightning, 
searing the slivers of my fissured essence.

I travel in the tempest of strife,
serenade the broken notes of an unsung song,
in sync with the symphony of flawed passion,
making untuned melody in the snapped string of memory.

In the blemished visage of the veiled sun, 
I paint on the scraped sensual canvas 
your frail face with fragmentary fervor,
sedately smiling eyes sparkle my deranged dream.

On the charismatic canvas cracked,
my failing longing lingers in your effervescent eyes.
Etched in the invented lattice of patterned splendor, 
your unsplit smile shimmers unspoilt.

My Dream Vacation

Last summer after a long while I enjoyed a dream vacation,
when I was wonderfully filled to the brim with satisfaction.
It was truly worth the hard earned money
to be away from the city life’s cacophony.

I went to an idyllic village in the high Sikkim Himalaya,
where I got what I searched for, the feeling of euphoria.
Perched on the cradle of a deeply incised verdant valley,
from the bungalow the lofty Kanchanjhangha I could see.

At sunrise the snow-laden peak was covered with gold,
the magnificent sight was so mesmerizing to behold.
As silver was smeared on the slopes in moonlit night,
my dormant rapture I felt surging to a new height.

In enchanting loneliness the few days I spent,
I reckoned as the precious gift God had sent.
I returned saturated with the essence of nature’s pure glory,
a piece of art permanently created on the canvas of memory.

___________________

Written : March 30, 2022
Contest : My Dream Vacation
Sponsored by : L Milton Hankins

Molten Heart In Eyes

My heavy heart placed a stone on my eyes of sorrow
Unshed tears collected in the cauldron of deep sorrow. 

Your demise had shattered my heart, it silently wept in woe
Words formed out of pain, remained unsaid in deep sorrow.

The deluge of grief drowned the memory shards sinking slow
The anchor disappeared within the shadow of deep sorrow.

In incised vale of agony as silent stream tears began to flow
It was lost in the searing sand of dismal desert of deep sorrow.

The touch of sympathy and words of calm kindness though
Soothed the splintered mind, lifted the shroud of deep sorrow.

Flood surge came, swept my composure away, why I didn't know
I couldn’t hold my heart melting in the eyes in deep sorrow.

______________

February 28, 2022
For A Brian Strand Formed Poetry Contest

Mondrian

MONDRIAN
Fluid interaction
   of poise & rhythm
    spirals float
linear lines
      circular shapes
  small scale
fascination of freshness
    perception personified
 touches the eye
     of the beholder

A floating tension
   between weight&
        lightness
reflections &
       symbolic sensations
abstract &realism
combine
    in  tactile  relief
long incised lines
    of beauty
        where enigma lies

THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE without grammatical symbols the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and respond thus making the form a two way interplay and often a unique interpretation by the enigma so derived

Kintsugi

when her shadow cracked

fragments entered her mind

shards of false gold

pierced façade and persona

left her in pieces

splintered images and illusions


the mask had been held tight

a rope strangled the puppet

clown’s grimace incised

by strings of attachment

and forced assimilation


a mirage in the making

projection of fake courage

pied piper tune on the march

dissonant shrieking contour

silhouette of crushed empty words


with no choice left

she picked up the pieces

and timid surface tension

adhered to the task

of reconstructing a narrative

without othering

gendering

ab-normalising all rupture


when she looked at the mosaic

the patchwork montage

appeared more sustainable

self-sufficient and rewarding

as the sum of all parts

had been hidden in a whole

where the light needed to fill

crevices and fissures


and she began to accept

time lines and gaps

which assembled 

the shape of outlines 

of necessary change 


12th August 2021

A Study By Excerpts

She(she in her looking) looks in romantic light at jewels under gemstones in silver bone-plates and such and such and now she turns to midnight city in roaring by cars outside windows and the claims and conjectures of these one-day nuclear think tank professors prof yes and prof no, and so and so. The state might be, they say, it may, but the individual, the belief in Christ, the salvation of the one, they say, it may be nihilo ex nihilo ex. 

Poised in the most feline and learned manner does her silken engine turn to looking, looking and looking and something within this nothing-all, is being as looking at her in. To midnight is owed a sincere apology. I have blasphemed against my ignorance, says such and such, as swords are incised into the most loving of flesh by profs yes and no, who scream out in perfect unison, 'I have turned in on my looking, and here we are looking-forever towards the love of love!'. So be so, aliquid ex nihilo, et non placet.

Tonight I Write of Squares of Cloud

That line there was the convincer
the second to reassure
now is that clouds that form a square
or has someone incised a cloud so delicately
or laser shapes as an alternate thinking this ones better
breaks the sky
or a cubist painting of Van Gogh's
Night so starry
is this a view from mountains forgotten spot
go go tell them what you saw
my idea for a mortal combat character
that pixelates the screen

just a few ideas in what my title was about

Sharp Response

Cupid thought she was rather blunt

when he surveyed her bottom and front

she defiled with a razor

after wielding a taser

incised his stupid macho affront


27th February 2021

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