Best Calluses Poems
"Mine all Mine!"
A thief I long to be
Your eyes original like the moon and sea
A lover in the world............
An Anthology, you walk and talk like the word "AMOR."
The words you send, I nicely tuck under my pillow
Every note every line you left behind
I memorized till they became all mine
Word-for-word,
Unauthorized I scrape the concrete calluses off the tongue
Pirating the perfect dramatic monolog look,
Basking through the passage around your Bio,
Lost in the musky scent -around the sonnet of your aura light
Epic enough, I reach inside to feel every idyllic rhyme
A strong iambic meter curse, conjuring up the perfect verse
In you I lift a copy paste from your lips,
No need to credit the sources in your bliss
The sweetest undamaged sensual memorandum book
A moment I stole and sealed without copyright proof
My dearest Poet,
When you move across the room
I see a thousand arrows that follow from behind,
Indulged when you speak and point out a verse per verse
I am a victim pampered by your words,
Sponging every line, adding them to my crib notes
Improved wordplay that infringed my everyday diary
A haiku so tangible, it sets the perfect images in my dream,
Hypnotize after I read your first love poem
A printed feeling--
Borrowed from the sun
pd
We met in Valletta city on a fine November day
Introductions...hugs and kisses; we got talking straight away.
All agreed to go sight-seeing – architecture , harbour view
Made a stop to buy an ice-cream where there is a constant queue .
We strolled on and at Cordina’s chose al fresco to sit down
Next to regal Queen Victoria, a stone lady with a crown.
Drinks were ordered and pastizzi, which were followed by some cakes
Freshly baked and appetizing, all adorned with chocolate flakes.
We were served by cherub Fabio busy running out and in
Second time the badge said Mario, then we found that he’s his twin.
Jan and hubby soaked the sunshine, the Calluses hugged the shade
Those around spoke multilingual, a musician plied his trade.
We stayed there and spoke for ages, watched the tourists walking by.
Valentina took our photos; she is young and sweet as pie.
Jan and Bob will be returning in two years on Malta’s shore
Although Maurice has predicted it will be a year before!
They will then be celebrating married bliss with silver ware
All on Soup will be invited; this occasion is to share.
That’s a promise made for keeping – friends will meet for sure once more
We shall have some cake and snickers; sweet surprises lie in store!
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Fun poem ~ co-written by Paul-Jan-Valentina on 2/11/2014
Senseless
What is it inside the heart of man
That cannot appreciate another’s suffering
Were we born with this senseless implacability
Is it from life itself we grow these calluses of the soul
Are we created not to care
Is the face of nature so coldly ruthless
That we must come to be so
For what belief in anything in which to believe
Should we maim and destroy and kill
What is it that we know so well
That the idea of difference can cause such conceited violence
How do we become so voluntarily indoctrinated
Is it some desperate need to have sense amidst the senseless
To have at least the illusion of a purpose
When then do we celebrate the diversity of our sense to make sense of the senseless
Should every woman and man dream and aspire
And have every man and woman dream and aspire to the same
Or say this love is stronger or this way is better
This truth more truthful than anything anyone else can know
Who’s despicable spirit can live with out some measure of guilt in overfed luxury
While others starve and die in poverty
Are we not as one with this the global identity we call humanity
Are we not basically and essentially all the same
If right there is to pass on righteous judgment
For cultural and social and political and religious difference
Such conviction and contempt is that all we see in our own reflection
When then do we celebrate our diversity of sense to make sense of the senseless
.........................................
He climbs up rhythmically
keeping his legs
within a ring of rope
like his life.
Intuition assures
the ripeness;
life-nut falls down
from the tree top.
Just a slip
will end in all end,
but practice
rarely slips.
Though the ways are hackneyed,
he’s honeyed and free
under his calluses.
Morrows and yesterdays,
he never climbs upon.
He hugs today, green and yellow
like the coconut tree leaves.
In this castle
Created in my mind
A tree,
This tree
A scar
A jagged one
Still healing
Blood dripping
Forms a path
Two watchmen
Chipping away
Away at it's skin
Creating holes
To suck out blood
Warning others
To follow the path
The path
A constant path
Almost invisible
Leaves an endless highway
That will not be seen
From
Far away
it forms a thin
Long and Knotted trail
Small black dots
On this pathway
Twisting and turning
Around the tree
In this castle
Created in my mind
None have wondered
Where this path goes
They follow the crowd
The sounds
Constant sounds
Almost silent
Leave prints
That will be heard
Far away
Calluses, Sores, and scabs
Created
From the non-stop endless migration
The rhythmic pecks
The perpetual stomps
Of these creatures
in my mind
Forever
Endless
As it seems
When will one
break through it's sea
The truth
An unknown truth
Can be turned into
Lies
The destination unknown
Cannot be reached
As it is
So
Far away
From sagging huts up in the hills,
We watched the tourists flash their bills.
They piled our harvest on their plates,
While soup and scraps were all we ate.
The flames lick up from garbage cans,
Burnt brown like every working man,
Who shouts or sings or mutters low
Of the calluses that come and go.
They toss in straw, more flames shoot up
To light the faces, hewn and rough,
that need a creed, some faith to hold;
to make their insides proud and bold.
Right then and there, I stand to speak.
I will not play the lamb so meek.
The time has come to take back ours
from the wealthy dogs with fat cigars.
First cans, then cars, we overturn.
Now the boulevard begins to burn..
The fools shoot back, forget the cost,
The naked rage must not be lost.
We win ourselves some new recruits,
Some young; some old; some simply brutes;
I do not care where they heard the call.
The revolution now will need them all.
Our cause will die if all stays calm,
So I send out Juan with sweaty palms.
He won't come back, farewell, my friend.
Your blood will flow for greater ends.
Worn out, weary, our morale grows thin.
The feeling grows that we can not win.
We need more guns than we can steal,
But we do have one crop we can deal.
The rifles have arrived now. Good!
Excited now, they crack the wood.
My loathing of red, white and blue,
is spreading like the jungle flu.
Their army scatters, their leaders flee.
We've brought the country to it's knees.
With the capitol dead in our sights,
We'll soon assert the people's rights.
The grainy film does not portray
That it was a picture perfect day.
My second stands there, smart and trim.
It might pay to keep an eye on him.
We march them out in single file.
No need to bother with a trial.
Their baggy shirts and peasant lies
Betray them all as filthy spies.
Yes, the people had decreed this so,
I speak for them so I should know.
Your crimes have brought you here to die.
The people speak through me. Goodbye!
Their bodies jump in crimson leaps,
then tumble down in tangled heaps.
Scarlet skulls and splintered chests,
They'll surely air this in the West.
Bulldoze the bones and spread the lime,
For we all are on the side of time.
And tonight, we gather in the square.
Their blood has paid my ruling fare.
Through lickings, like a Timex, my husband’s hard-core.
Evermore, heart ticking, he goes on.
They don’t make his model any more.
Not cut out for college, he gathered lore
in his craft; he learned it all, hands-on.
Through lickings, like a Timex, my husband’s hard core.
Into night he’d often work, his body sore,
developing both calluses and brawn.
They don’t make his model any more.
Once a fall from two floors up he bore!
Days later he was at his work by dawn.
Through lickings, like a Timex,my husband's hard-core.
Robbed and scammed; so much to abhor!
This self-made man felt like a woebegone.
They don’t make his model any more.
New trials that he never knew before
now face him, but he’s still a hanger-on.
Through lickings, like a Timex, my husband’s hard core.
They don’t make his model any more.
For the Anne's Favorite Poetry Form: Villanelle! (Any Subject)Poetry Contest
They tell a story,
these imperfections.
Every wrinkle's
an emotion sealed
by routine feedback.
Indents and scars
were carved with care.
Mistakes were made,
but you were spared.
Calluses
show your strength
through tough times.
Each crease
defines
you.
1-3-2021
A Diminished Hexaverse Contest
Sponsor: Caren Krutsinger
I seize time when funky drummer songs break
into my body robbing feeling of nerves making me fly
off floors with hips bouncing and shoes sweeping soot on concrete
I leave my history on any ground wherever I scuff my hands
and greet earth beneath me made of cement and sand
roughening calluses in
my upper palm and never do I feel more alive in
doing anything other than breaking
dancing on the floor that my fingers sand
with blood thrashing through my veins till I push and fly
legs flailing toward the moon; only my hands
feel this field of concrete
within the hour, ridges of concrete
rub against my knuckles as I guzzle in
air gasping for breaths that hit my hands
feeling this warmth pat me does nothing more than break
any possibility that I might be dreaming, flying
somewhere or dead drifting with sand
dirt smears its calligraphy in an ink of sand
when my shoes scrape concrete
markings on the floor inscribe stories and time flies
I see scratches my palms and shoes make in
a canvas of floors where I dance till the break
of dawn meditating with music, the bandage of my hands
I read life through my hands
brush rubble or throw sand
dancing off feelings of being lonely breaking
nostalgia of home because I can find that in concrete
the ground teaches me of pain on my skin or inside
my mind as I wander into a song flying
and falling over pebbles that gash my flesh blood flying
all directions and while wiping blood from my hands
I feel my age seeping the years I keep anxiety in
on a path of exhaustion counting thuds of my heart with sandpaper
hands I forge on concrete
I will slide-spin-tap the floor in harmony breaking
my life into stories of me dancing in all worlds I touch, showing the world my broken
rhythm in handling pain with hands pressed on floors people walk on in concrete
cities where I fly into freedom, puffing out, dying breaths, and taking all, breaths of life, in
Pull up the anchor one last time
Then thrust my oar into the foamy brine
Often have I churned
with arms that burned
My home became a darkened speck
Resting upon the horizon's deck
I'll cast my net no more
For the far away shore
And I'll no longer dwell
Within Poseidon's swell
My calluses I've earned
For Siren's graces I've yearned
My eyes still watered and burned
The oars quicken as I churned
But I'll no longer cast my nets
To fill with inky regrets
I bid farewell to my family first
A salty sea to quench my thirst
Life's adventures have passed me by
Now in my funerary vessel I lie
And I'll cast my net no more
For the far away shore
Look at my father’s hands and you will see HIS heart.
You will see what he stands for and what sets him apart:
His CHARACTER is traced through the lines of his leathery palms.
His perseverance IS REVEALED in every scar that brought him pain.
His faithfulness, it beams THROUGH those rugged calluses’.
His honesty, it reflects off of HIS battered knuckles.
His LABORS, you can feel them in his strong and steady grip.
On his hands you will see a beautiful and virtuous soul.
Look at my father’s hands and you will see his heart.
His character is revealed through his labors.
Patient clasps of hands, a master’s apprentice fumbling
slimy worms in swirling streams,
brook trout laughing at my folly.
Atop of your back, sun soothing heavy eyelids stuffed like cottonballs,
while the slow steady cadence of slumbering trails burst colors
of orange, yellow, red explosions of fall.
You taught me how to wrestle with foxtails, exhaling wishes from dandelions:
"pay careful attention to the paintbrush"
Nature’s way of flaming the death of summer’s call.
My heart racing as we watched mother doe,
gentle, nibble the tear-soaked tips of grass.
Your inner compass never forgetting home,
dizziness as we gazed heavenward at the ancient crowns
reaching the pearlescent skies.
You taught me mossy beards, north slope, fir,
shelter from the cold, the best branch for a fire, instructions for a son.
Silence forging sacred breath, your hands crackled like autumn leaves,
draped in mine, melting the embedded calluses of fragility,
eyes turned grey calling the paint brush of fall.
Still just a child secured upon your back,
peanut butter fingerprints pressing in time,
"daddy, what if I cannot find home"
looking down with saucer-wide eyes,
I can still hear your voice:
"be still, wait, I will always find you."
Down under
Asunder
There's worlds of wonder
Where etiquette
Meets surrogate
And the dress code's
Downright Confederate
Slithering among creepy crawlers
That descend from the
Heavenly puke-encrusted abyss above
Known as Hollywood Blvd
I lower myself
Literally
Metaphorically
Into puddles of
Absentee-orchestrated nausea
I wear the badge
Singed onto calluses
Coated with despair
Flavored with bacteria's black-dead cousins
There's more honor to own
When you don in early light
Here ye, shall this journey commence
This rue-faced, Taliban-tingling tale of whoa
Give birth to the frenzy of the many
Here the ride shall be
Realized
Commoditized
Ostracized
By mere plaintiffs
Who sue themselves
Because the stakes are higher
And the risks cease to be true
Together we forge ahead
Teamwork knows no bounds or prescriptions
When it's one-on-one-on-everyone
Then the voice of gawd scats
His incoherent mix of
Lazy blues and blatant misinformation
Notifying the hungry denizens
It's time to get out
It's time to get on
Its time to get off
And off again
If necessary
It's always necessary
And so we flee
For better lives
For better days
For nothing happens until
You decide to rise above
And get jiggy with the sun.
(3/5/15)
Lines broken and crossed,
Weathered skin,
Sun baked,
Fissured knuckles,
Short nails,
Old breaks
Crooked finger
Worn tips,
Scars,
Wrinkles,
Big surface veins,
Hair,
Blood blister,
Hard calluses,
Softened calluses,
Fresh scratches,
Small slivers,
Stained,
but ...
Awesome.
My hands.
Thank you, Lord.
with your permission my lady
i will take my leave
has your heart spoken it all
do not tarry here
do not let quiet pervade
it will destroy the silence of love
where galaxies meld
a thorn in the side
hidden burr in the saddle
if you do not let your heart sing
love is where dreams are shared
where the labor in the vineyard
is hand in hand
where the souls merge
into a quest for one
let your heart sing
give me your dreams
let me be a part of you
love harbors no fear
wine's grapes are crushed
in a gentleness, together
one must not hurt the seeds
it sours the wine
with your permission my lady
i will take my leave
let me depart knowing you
in all of its wonder
may the dreams that fill our vineyard
live in the calluses of our shared labors
OKC 8/04
"My friend, it was but a song of love out of a poet's heart, sung by every man to every woman" Khalil Gibran
Youtube: The Love Song by Khalil Gibran
quite the lesson within this video