Scalpels Poems | Examples

Lies I never told, but never clarified

They with masks and scalpels
rewatch 
the seconds I was given without consent.
My breath      hitches
as warnings stillborn in my throat.

At this moment,
I am but
a body
opened 
for overdue answers no one asked for.

A poet’s gift lies in the voice of Truth.
No—
A poet's gift is to lie, 
constantly,
in lavender-gray syllables
threaded through with near-Truth—
The answer to unvoiced questions,
clipped out with tweezers,
a scorched coil—
my vocal cord.

I, a third-party haze—
rewatch
the moments I lived through like 
faint      breaths 
fogging an oxygen mask.

My lies will be forgiven,
when they split open my sternum,
and find Truth still beating—

They’ll know,
late Truth cuts deeper than scalpel.

WE'RE KNIT TOGETHER

You, my life and my girl 
In these together 
If we have to burn 
In the embers they fan 
We're dying together 

I abort her never 
She has to deliver 
And the world of her dad 
Rule over forever. 

You, my life and my love 
In eyes yours I see my girl 
So closely knit together 
That if we have to burn 
The three of us 
Are dying together. 

The pregnancy for nine months 
So well for it cared allover 
That the time to deliver 
It will abort never 
Not in my love. 

In these red embers 
With scalpels of doctors 
We're so knit together 
That in these embers 
We're burning together

His Right Leg

A ticket pinned to the thigh reserves it,
the whole cadaver is parceled off - of course.
Legs are a late harvest, these often-indigent parts
carry a visual poverty long after the body is plucked.

Under watchful eyes the young medics
separate muscle groups, filter large blood vessels
from fibrous runnels, hesitant scalpels
seek out fascial planes.

The leg is devolving to scraps,
yet, ingrained in the tissue
I sense residual shades of a former life,
seaside postcards, old photographs,
perhaps campaign ribbons, odd tokens
amongst yellowed newspaper clippings,
all briefly surface as conjectured images
beneath a probing knife.

The gray flesh retains its personal history,
I imagine that behind the knee
there is a wife, children, and a separation
all spectrally etched between femur and tibia.
Much of the ensuing bone-whittling years
are demonstratively scored
across a formaldehyde and jelled narration.

The students suppose they dissect a limb,
while I notion that I turn over bloodless pages,
of an unwritten story,
and now the last few attached ligaments
remain as threads that speak at last
of a long journey’s end.

The Mentoring of Tumors

Lately, I've cut away hectares of tumors
that engulfed confidence, happiness
self-worth and wellbeing.
With surgery a bit of the good stuff was sacrificed:
A few shallow laughs, some adventure and mostly harmless mischief.

The mirror is filled with scars of the heart
excoriations of spirit
along with other yet to be discovered damage.
Though somewhat deformed, I like my new look.
I feel tiredly- refreshed.

The scalpels are dull and quiet for now

There's much more work to be done
as some of the newly homeless tumors 
are mentoring new ones.

I'm no fool and fully aware that I'm also a tumor to others.

Birthday Wishes

Birthday Wishes: Horatian Ode

Sweet sixteen with no happy birthday cake.
Oh, Mother, you're missed but I am bitter.
How many hundreds did your calloused hands make?
So steady, so sure, why do they quiver?
A Mother who has no thought for herself, 
A daughter too immature to think to help. 
A lovely, womanly form, but only Momma to me..
Oh Momma, she has your eyes so you can watch over me. 

Abducted suddenly from youth, captive in haggardly age, 
Your battle with scalpels left their jagged marks…
Just as your ancestral Natives wore paint when war raged,
It was your way to push back at the dark. 
If time were a river, I'd gladly jump right in…
To dark, freezing waters, no matter, I'd swim…
To try to give back a portion of your goodness and light, 
Stand with my back to yours and together we'd fight.

Journey

They tell me to put one foot in front of the other
But why should I do that when I don’t know where I’m going?
Maybe they want me to wander forever
Alone, starving, a hollow-eyed husk of a girl

I tremble as brisk wind gusts my brittle frame
They take my heart apart carefully with surgical gloves and scalpels
Prodding poking pulling shredding
They collect my blood in vials and store them in neat rows on dusty shelves

I have always been too loud, too big, too much
I have always wanted to be nothing.
I whittle away at my body, carving off pieces of my sense of self
I was made from a broken mold but I’m trying so hard to smooth over the cracks

I press crescents into my palms with ragged nails
My knuckles are bruised the same violet as the circles under my eyes
I dig under my skin and rip it up in sheets, hanging them from a laundry line
This journey feels more like a nightmare

Heaven's Grace

Heaven's grace 
By Michelle Morris
04/11/2022

Count back from 10
Leave your body behind
Get the surgery done
Out of sight, out of mind

If only we could heal
Our problems the same way
Cut them out with scalpels
Disposed of in medical waste

But life is complicated
More often than we realise
We can try to simplify it
But it's difficult with emotional ties

Being human takes its toll
That's why we die at the end
No one should live forever
The lessons are part of our journey

Everyone has their problems
No one is exempt from the tests
We only choose different paths
To learn and grow to be our best

Everyone has choices to make
No one else can do it for our souls 
The triumphs and the losses
Are ultimately ours to hold

Maybe if we count back from 10
Breathe slowly and meditate
We'll find solutions in the ethers
And raise ourselves to Heaven's grace 

© Michelle Morris, 2022

Death Is a Blood Red Sunset

A red sunset kindles icicle’s
into bright dripping scalpels.

Light decamps and flares,
impressions drift.
Shadows mime shadows.
The flicker of melting flames.

A hanging man;
his silhouette flex’s,
head lolling, arms stretching
in the long reach of evening.

Death twists
flames smolder then set.
Heels keep turning.
A tree sleeps.

Word Tools For So Much Writing

We write so much...
           So many cutting words,
           so many surgical verses,
           So much poetry of carnage!
           Writings that look equal to
           scalpels...they cut us
           with millimeter precision... 
           Bloodletting untied.
           You write so much...
           so many pudding words
           so many are delicacies
           so many are ambrosia...
           These we ate with nutrient
           pleasure...
           So many other words
           are liqueur,
            distilled,
            aged...
            these we drink with
            almost lust...!

Consequence

Consequence
by Michael R. Burch

They are fresh-faced,
not innocent, but perhaps not yet jaded,
oblivious to time and death,
of each counted breath
in the pendulum’s sway
falling unheeded.

They are bright, undissuaded
by foreign tongues,
by sepulchers empty and waiting,
by sarcophagi of ancient kings,
by proclamations,
by rituals of scalpels and rings.

They are sworn, they are fated
to misadventure and grief;
but they revel in life
till the sun falls, receding
into silent halls
to torrents of inconsequential tears . . .

. . . to brief tragedies of tears
when they consider this: No one else sees.
But I know.
We all know.
We all know the consequence
of being so young.

Keywords/Tags: youth, youths, youth day, innocence, innocent, time, life and death, young, childhood, child, children

Diy Surgery

rotten molars unnerved her moribund hunger for living on

she extracted the pain with blunt scalpels pliers and hammer

damaged her smile as well but with the cornerstones removed

in the aftermath of destruction nothing was left but a stammer


loops of denial and self-incrimination established more pain

she tore her heart out under the shelter of drugs and booze

abuse self-incrimination and injustice festered in her mind

emoted a cardiac bypass for feelings leaving nothing to lose


a spiritual minefield exploded and she gathered rapid speed

performed a lobotomy with a manual and surgical precision 

hysterical psychedelia and amphetamines furthered the cause

reached complete numbness from the screwdriver’s incision


only after all operations uppers downers and morphine failed

she realized that life was to seize no matter how it panned out

checked into rehab and abandoned jigsaw super glue and fear

took up painting and poetry and excised her vile needless doubt



25th September 2020

Fire and Ice

A blood red sunset kindles icicle’s
into dripping scalpels.
As the light decamps and flares,
flickering impressions drift.
Shadows mime shadows.

There is a shape, a hanging man
imprinted on a tree trunk.

The silhouette flex’s,
head lolling, arms stretching 
in the long reach of evening.

Ice crystals flame
only to die 
under the heels of darkness. 

I shudder, 
as my noose twists in a night wind.

A Poem of Indifference

What does it matter to me?
 If plastic clogs the roaring seas. 
All I want is convenience, 
A life of ease. 
Do you think I give a damn? 
If they poison our wells. 
And chainsaw scalpels,
 Erases nature's tender hand. 
I'm busy!
 To busy silver plating my existence, 
To worry about fallen trees
 And dust bowl graveyards .
 Where man's innocence comes to die.
 Oh I will shed crocodile tears, 
And reassure you everything will be fine. 
It's good for business,
 even better for the bottom line.

The Turkey Surgeon

I get this job every year
I have never been to medical school and I am just a lowly nurse
Yet it seems that every year my family hands me the electric scalpels and puts me to work
I surgically slice and dice ole Turkey Lurkey
Once he comes out of the oven he begins to get that nervous look upon his face

"I wonder how she will approach me this year?
Will it be the prone presentation or supine? 
One year we ordered Cornish hens and it was sublime!
No carving required!"

This year I have a new blade and it is revved up and rearing to go
First I delicately removed his thighs and cut perpendicular through his breast
His gizzards were harvested at the beginning of the surgery all neatly tucked away in a nice little baggy
After Turkey Lurkey’s flesh was neatly arranged on the tray 
I took the remaining juices and basted him one more time
Lean and tender and just on time
He arrived to the table straight from the O.R.
Happy Thanksgiving from my surgical suite to yours!

Sincerely,
The Turkey Surgeon,
Gwendolen Rix

This is my official Thanksgiving Day poem!
11-27-14

Last Thoughts

Minding your own business,
In the sea. 
Along came a ship,
To kill me.
They’ve chased my father and my mum,
They’ve killed my grandparents,
And their son.
These little people,
Who carry a gun.
Are totally committed to killing my son.
They don’t seem to fear, 
Or care.
No matter how fast I Run,
I can’t get away from that gun.
I should go lower into the sea,
2 miles deep ,out of their reach..
But I don’t Dive Dive Dive, 
I’m not a sub, in the sea,
I’m an animal life and should be left be.
I don’t have missles upon my back,
Or torpedos , to shoot back.
I can’t defend and I can’t attack,
I don’t even want to fight back.
I may as well wait here,  to  get shot in the head.
And my flesh stripped, from my body in strips.
I don’t know why I have to die,
My son and my, sister and my mum, all died under this same gun. 
 In to breach goes a round now just darkness and no sound.  
Now I’m on their ship,
 Knives and scalpels take me to bits.
Now theres nothing left of me
Just this poem I leave for thee.

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