I,

petulant by doleful disposition,
succumbing to catacombs of pity
unto this serrated image of self,
refusing to pardon or attest to
this innate aberration of the mind
malformed by relapse and grind,

testify to

the body as a boiled blood cauldron
of malarial composites and feces,
the body as a brattish burden cavity
of involuntary and derisory feats,

and revolt,

alternating as servant or concubine,
molested most by such indifference,
the barriers pillaged through trauma,
aware of anxiety’s almighty ubiquity,

as carrier to

obsessive-convulsive fits of irreality:
phantasmagorias fatuous yet freeing,
the only mutiny available to exercise,
faculties exploited confound trepidity,

despondency;

an imperishable mold cultivating
secret spores of profane insight
that garner along the roots of defeat,
unknown to host and foreign to many,
incorporeal from semblance to marrow,

urging catharsis.


–Cooper Callinan  

“I found poetry
for you
I found it in biology
for you”

for you
as if the y was capitalized
as if you searched through
the insides of every
body
to find something
beautiful
for little
capital em me.

“Do you know the difference
between a
pleasure
receptor and a
painreceptor?”

People knew of
pleasure and pain
long before they started calling it love.

“They are the same
aren’t they?”

“They are the same.”

Duality is a thing
you and I
will talk about a lot.

“You and words, miss
You and words”
You said later
as if you knew I was
reading you as a poem
stroking the thin
wrist bone
of my pen

talking of me as if
I were the sea
as if you could sail across me
if the winds were right
as if I could pour you out through
this wrist bone pen
as if it were your marrow
on my page today.

People knew of
pleasure and pain
long before
they assigned it a name.

Intensity
is all the same inside

and
Tautology is a luxury
only those who are
(at least slightly)
enamored by each other
can get away with.

Intensity
is all the same inside

And thinking makes it so.