Layer Poems | Examples

Scrape: To remove an unwanted covering or a top layer from something, usually with something sharp

Scrape away, at a life. You just weren’t given any real instructions –
so, you scrape like a carpenter
at grey washed walls, wanting
to peel off old paint – old memories,
in your head you scrap away
the talk back – that little
squirrel inside the trunk of your head
it scrapes.

You scrape and scream, you scrape and
feel the muscle of your right hand
figure the page into
something. You scrape
days and trash them. Who
will find them? Who cares that you scrape
while in labor? scrape every morning you wake –
scrape on body, scrape on heart, scrape on this
bloody life
until you just can’t scrape –

An Ultraviolet Sky

                as long as I see the sky ~ all life’s protected by an ozone ply

Be Amongst Few

Mediocrity, Excellence two shores
Waves of Efforts connecting shores 

Surf on tide, swim against flow of ocean
Be ashore leveraging art of propulsion

Mediocrity, a reality, almost repulsive
Excellence, a rarity, almost elusive 

Race of Excellence, making man a rat
Each gnawing at other to breast the tape 

Peaks exist because of bottom layers 
Underneath layers vital for peak to be there 

Peak below feet, mark of Excellence pursuit
Feet dragging at layers, a mediocre feat

Peak and layer, complementary pair
Live with conviction, dash of dare 

Peak accommodates just few
If at layer, gear up, stir up, be amongst few 
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© Dr Hitendra Mehta

A Little Layer of Happiness

A LITTLE LAYER  
OF HAPPINESS  
IT'S SOMETIMES LIKE  
A CAKE WITHIN  
IT ALWAYS BEARS  
A MOLD  
WITHOUT IT LEAVES  
YOU QUIET  
WITH WISHES  
FROM CARES  
YOU HOLD  
A LAYER  
OF FROSTING  
OF LIFE  
A SLICE OF LOVE  
AND CHEER  
A HEART THAT KNOWS  
EACH DAY TO TRUST  
AWAY FROM THE  
KNIVES OF FEAR  
A LITTLE LAYER  
OF HAPPINESS  
IT'S LIKE A MOUTH  
THAT FEEDS  
AND WITH EACH  
OPENING  
A TRUE REPOSE  
IT MEETS US  
IN OUR NEEDS 
A LITTLE LAYER  
OF HAPPINESS  
OF A HEART  
THAT HOLDS  
IT'S OWN  
SO LIKE A CAKE  
THAT WE CAN  
TAKE  
IT NEEDS A HEART  
A HAPPY HOME 
A LITTLE LAYER  
OF HAPPINESS  
LIKE A CAKE  
FROM THE MOLD  I
IT STANDS  
NOT TO BE MISSED  
IT CAN BE KISSED  
WITH HEARTS  
AND HELPING  
HANDs  
SO BE A  
HEALTHY EATER  
OF DREAMS  
OF HOPES  
WITH PLANS  
LET A LITTLE LAYER  
OF HAPPINESS 
BE THE RECIPE  
OF 'HOWS' AND  
'CANS'  
AND SET ASIDE  
THE MYSTERY  
OF MIXES  
THE MAKERS  
CHOOSE  
JUST TAKE  
A BITE OF  
HAPPINESS  
THAT YOU  
NEVER  
COULD  
OR  
SHOULD  
REFUSE  
 


ALEX E. NELSON  
FOR B-    
JANUARY 
2015

This Extra Layer

the skin says it all
it's disorder
white sheet - dirty spot
irritation of inconvenient tissues
discomfort from peeling off rough things
the sweet scent that drives away
or icy sound of unwanted voices
what overlaps everything
this extra layer
another mountain to climb
I preferred the blindness of phones
just your beta voice for my alpha voice
I don't expect the resurrection of smiles
I don't think I'll ever hear these verbs again
now my scapular is made of bones
and if everyone is packing their bags
it's because paradise comes one day

Glass

Beautiful things encapture me,
As though I am within glass,
Ice blue eyes,
A weakness of mine,
The way he smiles,
Another layer of glass,
I should not feel such things,
Blurred behind so many layers,
Isolated by such a man,
Taken so abruptly,
Only to be cast away just as fast,
Another layer of glass between us,
A beautiful thing I must lay to rest,
My heart was yours,
But never would yours be mine,
Cast away such a fruitless venture,
Enraptured by your beauty,
Yet ultimately rejected by your hideousness,
Things that lie beneath that glass,
The ugly truth of love and lust,
Lust is what you feel strongest,
Love is what I aspire for,
Glass it blurs, confines,
Ultimately I was blinded by you,
Your beauty ending just below your skin,
Such a marvelous disaster we were,
Now, we must part ways,
Glass walls surrounding us both,
To blur such things once again

Give Me Back the Ozone Layer

The poet begins the reading

'I'm sentimental if you know what I mean.'
'Oh, that's good!'

I thought about this cuckoo hissing
At the Botanical Gardens 

He'd also mediated on the stratosphere
That sponge up above 

Accordingly, so did I too
Footslogging around the museum

I took a sufti at my phone by the toilets
A headline caught my attention

Liverpool to sack Jürgen Koop
Kooped up in this nightmare exhibition

We came across a giant redwood
The trunk constructed out of metal

To enlighten the children
To prepare them for the future

My son explains his steam engine 
A whole troupe of burly men

Black soot and freezing cold snow
Three layers of woollen jumpers

Sod the blast pipe carbon dioxide 
Your Austrian Giesl burp  

There are bigger concerns
Than soil degradation 

Yes, the fireman is wearing clothes
The shoveller is wearing clothes

But the driver is naked

Big Job

Big Job 

There's a big job breaking out
Time for smelling salts and focus
There is no magic wand this time
No top-hat hocus pocus 

Time to wheel out heavy gear
Flex our muscles and get busy 
Pick ourselves a loyal team
With dreams so high they're dizzy 

There's a big job breaking out
And it's clear we need to fix this
Sticking plasters just won't do
For this world defining crisis 

Labourers to garden, 
Experts in their field
Anyone who cares enough
To bring this crop to yield 

Shoulder to the grindstone
Knuckles cracked and ready
Wrestle with the challenges
And climb to heights so heady 

Engineers and carpenters 
Housewives,  teachers, leaders
No time to waste. No shirking off.
Ask everyone to heed us 

There's a big job breaking out
Blue lights are flashing by 
Too much plastic in the ocean
No more ozone in the sky..

We need healers for creation
For neglecting all our duty
The reflection may be ugly
So it's time to bring back beauty 


Jinjagoliath
10th February 2021

The Layer Cake

The Layer Cake

We are a skewed birthday cake,
generations of lopsided layers
baked badly by ancestors
of fervent but defective intent,
teetering atop the stale and dried out.

The layers descend into the past,
inedible and mostly forgotten
while we the temporary top deny
bad ingredients and tiltings 
and frosting with crème cruel.

We concoct the next tier
with hope and even love
but use a cookbook specifying
flour of custom and bias
and spices of mistakes.

It is a mighty wonder
that the cake still stacks
and those just set in place
don’t slide off to extinction
on the icing of our failings.

Haiku 7 - 2020

north-west wind bitter
fresh layer of snow on ground
seeking warm shelter

Beneath Subconscious Layer

Embedded beneath the subconscious layer,
when the nascent eyes open to the first light
as mortal journey begins with nothing in sight,
the call waits with ordained words, ‘come here’.

The call lies dormant and unheard deep within,
as the murmuring stream of life flows slowly by,
the cacophony of time mounts on the pitch high,
the words lurk behind the music of mind serene.

The inescapable echo of the call would articulate,
when at timed appointment with destiny fearsome
the clock is coded to stop, would finally come
with the call ‘come’ that would silently resonate.

When all sounds would dissolve in silence at sunset,
the toiled eyes would close on the seraphic light,
turning into the lighthouse beacon shining bright,
the caller would finally beckon at the end of wait.

Another ethereal journey would then begin forlorn
for the soul to merge with the entity, the ultimate,
to be transformed into the eternal blissful state
in the sublime realm of euphoria, yet unknown.

Written : August 17, 2019
May 25, 2020
Contest : Brian's Choice T
Sponsor : Brian Strand

Apocalypse

"APOCALYPSE!"

We are slowly but surely leaning towards the final hour
though it feels more like a hoax,
It is upon us.

The subliminal signs in the sky heralding the days,
lurking stealthily for its prey...
we wont see it, we wont heart it and 
it will strike whilst we slumber or is it?

All will run for cover ,
But it will be too late!

Another Layer of Flesh

another layer of flesh



another
layer
of
flesh
just keep
looking into
the greenery
part ing my eyes
you will see past
another layer
of
flesh
tested
?

Bottom Layer of Love

Father’s love is overflowing
in this land of forgotten sorrow
He offers bottom layer of love
Top layer he says are infectious
Markets can suffer with them

For his offspring he prepares
A layer of grits, soot and dirt
At bottom of saucepan he gives
To him they fatten his children
Healthy shining children he wants

He’s amused with balloon cheeks
Happy with hanging bellies
Celebrates malnourished limbs
And clothes colonized by lice
Its colony signifies future riches

But when one shouts complains
He prepares homily to preach
To convert them to his head

The Metaphorical Layer

I am a spirit
I shatter the dis-ambience of the country
with a flick of my fingers
a stone dashes for a ridge
with a tender tickle
trees rattle their drum branches
with the tip of my pinkie
I raise a rainbow to its potential
with the grasp of my hand
a tornado chews up cows
the length of my limbs
hurls waves towards their certain demise
my breath gives a sigh
to the wearied sheep dog
luxuriating atop a fenced-in hill
I was human once.
Do I perpetuate nature 
out of resentment
or from kindness 
It’s sure I’m invisible
but you’ll feel me
as hail strikes your bare neck

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