Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
G  May 2013
Callus
G May 2013
As crazy as it might be
This callus is a beautiful thing to me
What's an ego to go unbruised?
What's a heart left unabused?

I didn't get this hardened shell
From concrete, glass, or fires of Hell
Why dwell on the knell you gave my cerebral gel.
I'm under someone else's spell

My palace with this Alice
Unshared with such malice
As what gave me this callus
It should be just now, us

I can say with a sense of pride
I needn't abide by a bride
Whos the great divide on each side
Without intention, will break my stride

I won't be denied
This emotional high tide
This woman which I confide
My side, a guide astride this distance ride

This callus thick of scorned love
Glad you're not what I'm thinking of.
Mads
JJ Hutton Aug 2010
Anna,
the young lions won't want you
forever.

Eventually you are going to
get tired
of keeping it tight,
of batting your eyes,
of applying the gloss just right.

Anna,
what will you do when the invitation beds
come to an end?

Eventually the lions will settle,
while you gather cobweb and callus,
while you smoke cancer and wallow in cellulite.

Anna,
find a boy who makes you feel like the sun.

Ultimately,
he's the only one who can save your soul
from all the crimes you've done.
Copyright 2010 by Joshua J. Hutton
Open my palms you see callus hands
I work hard to eat..
Refuse to earn off the streets..
In my darkest and deepest hole God had a plan..
The walking dead the living sleep..
I wish you could understand..
Listen be silent..
Consciousness we all can here him speak..
Honestly we're all on our death beds..
Can you see this flesh is dead...
Well I will say extra weight..
Cause it slows us down in this battle..
The world is Satan's slaughterhouse the lost is its cattle.
A second and a minute
Earthly life less than infinite..
Maybe I should keep it simple cause we all understand dollars and cents..
Ever jump over or get off the fence..
I can just pray this makes sense..
Open your mind stop being so dense..
You claim to be hard body but if I buck you flinch..
And if your back against the wall you fold and snitch..
This loyalty to a game doesn't makes sense..
Truth be told  loyalty doesn't exist..
For example when my pops life got a eclipsed..
Not one so called friend came to check on his kid..
Countless stories that sound just like this
Slightly ****** as a reminisce
Kelli  Feb 2018
Callus
Kelli Feb 2018
You remind me of the callus on my ankle.
The rough patch of skin
where the tongue of my running shoe
rubs against my skin
every mile
of every day.

You are there.
I can still see you.
I can definitely still feel you.
Where i once was soft,
I now am hard.
Others can still see you too.
They just have to really look.
But your pain isnt as sharp anymore.
Sure, you dont feel good
and if you really pick at it,
the pain returns
and I bleed.
But the daily motion
of every step
over
and over
and over again
no longer completely demands my full attention with its agony.
Where once each breath was a knife through my heart,
there is now only a a dull pain.
Only a slight hitch in my breathing
reminds me of the hole
you punctured in my lungs.

But this callus strengthens me-
protects me-
guards me.
Strengthens me against future pain.
Protects me from the one thing
that has weakened my body the most.
Guards me
by reminding me
to never be too vulnerable
to the grinding of my shoe against my ankle
or the grating of your leaving words
against my soul.
There sandy seems the golden sky
And golden seems the sandy plain.
No habitation meets the eye
Unless in the horizon rim,
Some halfway up the limestone wall,
That spot of black is not a stain
Or shadow, but a cavern hole,
Where someone used to climb and crawl
To rest from his besetting fears.
I see the callus on his soul
The disappearing last of him
And of his race starvation slim,
Oh years ago—ten thousand years.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2017
no number of opinions will alleviate this apathy, promised, paradoxically: a pandora's box of pathology, which is why attempting dialectics is a farce, a cheap magic trick for a talk-show host in being "understanding", to attempt in mediating, and then scoffing it off, like some under baked crumpet / scone, and yes, it makes sense, pivoting on the possession of a conscience... it's not that some people appear to now possess it, but that they are comical in possessing, and comedy is always nuanced, an ambiguity surrounds their conscience... the binary opposite of comedy? the birth of the tragedy, a succumbing to madness, a suicide... every person possesses a conscience, as the universal law of unit, but comedy hides a person with a grieving conscience, making the person so callus as to make them donkeys, laughing stocks, spaghetti entangled liars... it's only a conscience triggered into a tragedy that reeks with redemptive qualities ascribed to a person, cf. the already mentioned carl sergeant and 'arvey 'ard on weinstein... in the spirit of the film split: rejoice! for those who have suffered are redeemed! rejoice! said the beast. the comedy is near impossible to avoid in post-script idiocy beaming the letters FAIL; the tragedy of conscience, at least we know some evil doers in death are redeemed with the only puritanical act to redeem conscience: the bride of honour.*

can an intelligent person make a slapstick
joke?
  or is it that,
   a dumb person cannot make an original
joke?

besides the point,
  a question is a question -
  and as most questions go -
it's not whether there's a correct
or wrong answer,
rather, whether there actually is
an answer to accomplish
that stated question.

i've noticed a resurgence of dialectical
inquiry, but i have decided to
avoid perfecting the art,
   other than in person,
on a park bench, rather than on
a page in pixel white...

  oh sure, i have a life beyond this
outlet,
and i rarely write a platonic dialogue
to reinforce my experiences,
i once enforced a question
upon a child in a supermarket:
do you think animals are unable
to see 3-dimensional objects
     in / on a 2-dimensional canvas?
he didn't answer, because his guardian
thought i was weird in my
presumption...
which was, however you imagine it:
casual, cordial, orientated
within the adequate use of time and space
for the question to be asked.

personally i find myself if a binary
realm of,
   which isn't exactly a left right divide -
as a "schizophrenic" i am marching
down the middle, and asking myself:
   there's only the middle to mind,
and the mind is the only thing worth
juggling, sure, but juggling
a thesis hemisphere and an antithesis
hemisphere becomes lost in
the schizophrenic-quadratic -
      right down the middle.

which is why i find modern attempts
at dialectics so odd...
i prescribed myself dialectical escapism,
simply because there are too
many opinions i'm simply not interested in.

people seem to have stored these opinions
for so long, they are choking at not
having talked about them...
  it's apparent in comedy...
among comics...
                    they simply say:
if we can't bypass the comedy and sit down
with a cold beer, we can't actually
take the opinion seriously,
  if we can't, at first, make a joke of it...
that's hard...
              that's near impossible to stage...
you can realise the complexity of
enabling a seriousness with a comic precursor
antics to "soften" the blow of
approach...
that is why i await the awaited for
dialectical artist, who must be much
older than i, frankly the age of socrates,
i can only fathom dialectical escapism,
    in that i can fathom an opinion,
but i can't fathom being endearing to it,
keeping it, nurturing it,
       maturing it,
                     making the animate
water into inanimate ice...
                       which leaves steam
   a categorical conundrum of categorisation...

in terms of the human mind,
i can only find comparison with Alcatraz...
i am forever attempting escape,
i know i will be aided by the snitch,
judas, death...
     but i have to be lodged into
a vocab that may aid me,
  or hinder me.

                   the human experience is
an Alcatraz because of the a priori principle -
what came before me: set the rules,
the winding corridors where
i'm not the Minotaur,
but the scared victim,
   or just the dumb-enough brick of
the labyrinth's wall.
or? the a posteriori principle -
           i impose my own graffiti on
the walls, and be the Minotaur of the long
wait of life, with death:
my morphine angel.
                              
         but i see no desire to engage in
dialectical endeavours,
            hence my choice in attempting
a purification of poetry,
against technique of schooling,
  in making poetry less and less
musically orientated, and returned to
its primordial genesis: of narrative.

  hence my dialectical escapism,
i really have not stable opinion,
or opinion i'd like to adhere to, to subsequently
hug a pillar of a Parthenon.
                
- believe me when i say that the english
language has no inclination of
orthography, since it uses no diacritical
distinctions...
  and yes... russian diacritics is ugly as
your waning babushka of "secrets"...
  - the beauty of existentialism?
            avoidance of the thesaurus,
mismatching words, ambiguity -
the phraseology of: for lack of a better word...
     fiddly parts, you know,
            **** it, you can't exactly
interrupt a waterfall, so why bother
   attempting to boil some water in a saucepan?

  the world once believed in the enterprise
of dialectics, but since the emergence
of a third party mediator,
       what sort of "dialogue's" worth of
the dialectical endeavour is there left?
once upon a time, in ancient,
the mediator of a dialogue was a park
bench, after that a stage for actors...
who asked these third party ponces,
  more to the point: who invited these
plebs into our private debate so they can
mere awe and sigh their saturday nights off?!
who the **** let these plebs in?!

       i'm a pleb, i can call them plebs,
do i ******* look like i work at 10 downing st.?!
plebs only understand pleb talk,
  rude, incoherent, mildly orientated
in journalism, and ever wishing for some
marquis de sade hard-ons.

i encourage dialectical escapism, frankly,
because,
          i 've found that i have a bare
minimum, laurel leaf worth of covering my
genitals aspiration to keep opinions...
    opinions have become spare change,
you loose them almost all the time,
they're the pennies from heaven,
some other lucky ****** might find them,
and then the resourcefulness of that poor
****** is imminent: spend it,
what's there to debate?

                    the only truth of opinion is
that one man keeps them,
and by keeping them, idealises them,
thus becoming an idealist,
  or that another man discards them
as easily as a ***** peacock,
and by doing the ***** peacock strut,
discarding them,
          becomes a chameleon,
a "non-conformist" (**** me that's
stretching the idealist antonym);
  
   if there's a truth: it's a bunch of lies -
and if there's a lie: it's the only truth -
because the rule of pluralism (borrowed from
heidegger states):

          one truth = many lies
           one lie = only one truth

(there is no pluralism of a truth,
       but there is a pluralism of a lie -
the genesis of a lie is?
             a continuum beginning
with the original temptation -
truth is "plural" but it is not
a continuum of precipitation,
but even if it is dismembered
it is a whole, already apparent,
           or rather: to be made apparent,
it does not require a preceding step
to provide a pro-ceding step...
   lies are obstructive,
truth never obstructs; truth rapes,
while lies groom)...

   unum verum = falsum multis
   falsum unum = solum verum unum selem.
vircapio gale Jul 2012
she is my nihilistic god;

i am a stag leap.
the fainter wind-caress
felt deep in trunks and boulder bed.
i am delight for loosened thorns
that piercing underfoot will spur to run
my naked body's open-air embrace
atop the callus of my seasoned fun,
skirring flora shadow-dancing bright
descending mountainside of noon
in blurrs refracting sightful bones.
i am the sense of
transtemporal glacial moans,

the heartbeat of the soil breath
to puff from feasted log a mycophile's awe
or want for all placental webs in view
for naming earth a seeping sorrows tithe:
my consciousness of things alive.

the stinging lungs atop the path
are emblems of a winging truth
to overcome her nearing death.
i am the lingham of creations' race.
i am the sensate reeling blow by empty blow.
the gravity of light and dark;
gray theopolis of fists and falls.
envelopment of massive meanings filled
in nether-branchings' net
and mediatrix scorn: the wider world absorbs my self as ~ all~
~. .all. . ~
prating some nepenthean law
to sour our poetic hate
and deeply bury seismic seeds she wants to sow, like
ancient clues of metagender fact:
hermaphroditic **** to 'normal' eyes.
icecaps to resize and singing moralize;
a dolphin midwife toning yoni love
for labor certain nuns call "gift"
as crown of pleasure heights
on par with mysteries;
regrowing infant fingertips,
to pi recited over days,
to vaster mindscapes drawn in ways
'beyond the genius of the sea'

why wait for ease of shame?
thin veils of culture lift
and family bonds anew to tow
the peace from out irratic weight of nation rifts;
instantiations burst beyond the tunnel course~
rhythmic doomsday yearnings line the halls of humantime:
prophetic visions of a sea to come,
Utnapishtim keeps himself alive
to garden with his wife a thriving mortal line.
Quetzalcohuatl finds himself *****
to bloodlet savior sexuality,
his heart a morning star, a Mayan Venus shine.

i see the standing trees
entwine slow-love to sky
so i can swing and heave
my universe above the words,
to carry thorns as well as petals, doves.
the vision ends. the new begins
to filter dyad lies through
inter-
corporeal lens.
embodied ivy climbs the tree of death
to rewind love and deepen love,
to bound the loss with goddess wisdom ends and other ends
of ouroboros shedding clear
of limits insight thrives to near.
sunglance peeking is the hovering of me,
steady comfort crosses floating lotus feet.
the softest rock has melded under thee
to join a forest pausing here.
a berry soaks itself of all i am
while nutty chipmunks chirp in whirls;
the clouds are girls you've been,
Nephelae to tease in quenching gowns
the verdant book of men we've known, who leaf
the air to taste another form of fairness lent.
silver is the sun in times of stillness overached.
sifted tensions drift to lie awake, but
drowning in a stream of glowing calm,
i am the woody balm.
the scent of bark unnestled dry
and leaves remembrance when
the breathing stops, the final
fleshing in of nowhere, never then.
you are transcendent of transcending
pure. end, endure and lucid ending live again
in empty worship ringing plenum om.
The love that a son has for his father..
The love that a father has for his son
A trust in another man to lead you and get it done
Showed me things gave me knowledge That on my own
I wouldn't have known
Something that can't be taught in college
Met you when I was in 7th grade  I have grown
Can you see the seed you have sewed
Can you see where my work ethic comes from
Blood, sweat, and tears
Callus thumbs
Your the reason why I know that I can be a homeowner
Cause I seen you do it first
Held me up when times got rough
Fatherhood
When I wasn't ready you assisted like a crunch
When my heart was crushed
You open your doors help with my direction
When we kick it,  manly admiration and  love is what's reflected
Just want to let you know you are respected
My father died then God blessed me with you to prove I wasn't neglected
Fatherhood
Helped me stand when I couldn't
david jm  Aug 2014
Callus
david jm Aug 2014
At times,
Cold departures leave
A stain of faith.
You're departure,
However hellish,
Remains immaculate,
Even as you turn
With a blizzard on your heel,
Kicking Winter in
My eye.

You replace him up there.
Not in piety but
In hierarchy,
Of the royal void breed.
I tailor the nails to your palm
And broken foot.
Drying like slaughterhouse
Meat on my clothesline.

I found our nature
Profoundly meaningless.
Was it transcendence?
Algor Mortis?
Or did my new eyes
Survive incubation?
I await the birth pangs
Of sight,
Callousing the whole,
From lid to lash.
My brother asked if this was about Jesus so I thought I should clarify that it is not, and I'm not Christian. This is about making something/someone (lover,parent,friend,addiction) into something almighty and overpowering,
but seeing them differently by the end (the departure) and not knowing if it's them who is different or your perspective (new eyes).
Jackie Nunez  Dec 2017
Callus
Jackie Nunez Dec 2017
I am awake, living
I can hear the birds outside my rusted window,
I open my eye, cheek squished against my pillow
I catch a glance of the world outside these 4 walls that hold the fluctuation of emotions inside of me
" Another day ", I think to myself.
The smell of coffee brewing gives me the will to crawl out of bed,
The element of living, how rare for the average human being
The warmth of my home reminds me of the small blessings life has given me,
As the days pass me, I peel off the callus that has surrounded my heart,
I have been given another chance. A new opportunity.
I sip my coffee,
Ah, the warmth on my lips,
I feel it seap down my throat burning just enough for me to enjoy it,
" I am whole again".
Terry O'Leary Oct 2013
The Bishops bathe in Babylon
while Princes, prancing on the lawn,
watch Queen deflowered, pale and wan.
            The King dares not defend her.

The Horsemen, holding broken reins
the Morning of the Hurricanes,
sigh “it’s no use, it’s all in vain,
            the Saints will soon surrender”.

They wonder why they ever came,
they have No One whom they can blame,
they have no face, they have no name,
            and even less, a gender.


The empty-handed Vagabonds
smoke stale cigars, stroke faded Blondes
while waiting at the walls beyond,
            but kneel as Chaos enters.

They’re gazing through the window panes
in hopes that distant Hurricanes
will twist and break their iron chains
            defying life’s tormentors.

The Fantom of the Opera frowns
as feeble minded Cleric-clowns
mouth hollow hurdy-gurdy sounds
           when blessing doomed dissenters.


The Pirate wields a wooden leg,
with pupils dull and visage vague,
and if by chance he spreads the plague,
            it really doesn’t matter.

His Princess, pale, no longer feigns,
foresees instead (down ancient lanes)
the coming of the Hurricanes -
            the Stones stir, staring at her.

And Jackals scrape the river bed
as Savants soothe the underfed
and Crows, collecting scattered bread,
            adorn, with crumbs, the platter.


The Jokers Wild and One Eyed Janes
weep, winding up in rundown trains
mid whispers of the Hurricanes,
            and Priests refuse to christen.

They’re fleeing from the Leprechauns,
the cuckoo birds, the dying swans;
while pitching pennies into ponds
            their eyes opaquely glisten.

The spectral Clocks with spindled spokes
remind the Mimes to tell the  Folks
the time of day and other jokes,
            yet No One looks to listen.


The Hunchbacks with contorted canes
galumph before the Hurricanes,
in melted sleet, in frozen rains,
            in bruised and battered sandals.

Their Groans engulf the land of gulls,
the land of stones, the land of nulls,
and lurk between the blackened lulls,
            for Nighttime brooks no candles.

Their prayers to Dogs and Nuns and Dukes,
(and other long forgotten Spooks)
are more than random crazed rebukes,
            though taunting to the Vandals.


The Beggars ’neath the balustrades,
and broken Children, Chambermaids,
are running wild from wraiths, afraid
            of dreams where death redoubles.

They fritter time with tattered threads
(from ragged clothes they’ve left in shreds),
crocheting hoods to hide their heads
            and faces, full of rubble.

But many things will not remain
the Morning of the Hurricanes,
when goblets filled with cool champagne
           evaporate in bubbles.


The White-Robed Maid adorns the trash
with charnel urns awash in ash,
then fumbles with an untied sash
            while pacing in the Palace.

Her hopes congeal in coffee spoons
with memories adrift in dunes;
yet, still she smiles with teeth like prunes
            and lips of painted callus.

And long before the midnight drains,
the Saviour wakes, the Loser gains,
the waters of the Hurricanes
            will fill her empty chalice.


The storm (behind the clarinets,
the silver flutes, the castanets,
the foghorns belching in quartets,
            the bagpipes, puffed and swollen)

is keeping time to tambourines
while Tom Thumb and the Four-Inch Queen,
pick up the shards and smithereens
            of moments lost or stolen.

They’re trekking through the Dim Domains
(where fountains weep, the mountain wanes),
yet can’t escape the Hurricanes
            with trundling eyes patrollin’.


The Crowds (arrayed in jewels) in jails,
stoop, peering through a fence of nails
while light behind their eyeballs pales
            with plastic flame that sputters.

They huddle there because they must
(with eyelids hung like peeling rust,
their tears, palled pellets in the dust),
            behind the bolted shutters.

They’ll reawake without their pains
the Morning of the Hurricanes,
without their sores, without their stains,
their agonies will fill the drains
            and overflow the gutters.
MC Hammered  Jun 2014
Barefoot
MC Hammered Jun 2014
Walking barefoot down rocky dirt paths.
Kicking up clouds of dust with each step,
testing the thickness of my soles soul,
I found comfort in the pain of each sharp stone,
digging deep. Comfort in pessimistic understanding.
Knowing, the next wouldn't hurt as bad.
Wounds turn to callus. Hardened skin, hardens within.
Each weathered scar, reminder of hard earned strength.
Ritual of self inflicted mutilation by choice, rocky dirt path
by fate. Walking, walking, still. Still barefoot
down rocky, dirt paths.
Tyler Castro Apr 2017
Will a Phoenix doused in water reignite?
Should the Sun ever disturb the night?
As my eyes take their rest my mind takes flight
Then quickly plummets straight into blight
Straight into sorrow; reigniting my rage
And keeps me awake as if it were day
Awake to write my story/Awake to dwell on the last page
How dare I wallow over someone engaged?
Great Leviathan, Demon God of water and life
Lend me your strength as I overcome this strife
Baptize me in your waters and revitalize my sight
Clear away all the salt and callus to turn my scleras white
Drown the anger in my heart; cease its return!
**** the Phoenix, for its presence burns!
Drown the Sun so that the moon may take its turn
Allow my brain to rest so that I may have the capacity learn
How to fully move on…
The demonology was borrowed from Anton Szandor LaVey

— The End —