he holds me down
he says, wider
he says, deeper
he says, you shall have no other before me
he says, you shall learn to love me for this
he fills me up, it hurts every time
he waits in the morning for me
he stands in the doorway
i turn my face away
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Whether Creation is thought of as the act of God evoked in Genesis or as the great singularity that has yielded, for our purposes, everything, the moment of Creation never ended. Fiat is always as good a metaphor as any for this stupendous, ongoing burst of energy that sustains itself as it changes, lending charm and strangeness to quarks, giving ingenuity to minds and hands, turning the heads of sunflowers. Anomalous as we seem, we are in the thick of it, together with all being.” – Marilynne Robinson, “Glories Stream from Heaven Afar” (interviewed by Daniel Drake and Lauren Kane)
trim my fingernails
wash my dirty clothes
press my wrinkled shirt
shine my dusty shoes
buy some groceries
clean my living room
burn my memories
mend my broken heart
hug my only child
close my tired eyes
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“It is not to be believed how innocent people are when no one is eavesdropping.” – Elias Canetti, The Earwitness: 50 Characters (trans. Joachim Neugroschel)
dear lord,
if i take this cup of bitter dregs you’ve given me to drink
and dash it against your rock,
will sweet, cool water flow, washing away the knifing shards?
will there be enough to quench my thirst and cleanse myself?
or will i simply find myself still stuck in your immense desert,
with only my cupped, supplicating hands, and no water—
merely clods of damp soil i’ve clawed from deep beneath
the foot of your burning bush?
then you can watch me place your dirt in my mouth,
and suck until it’s dry.
lord, you are so easily amused.
(Published in gutter eloquence magazine, Issue #20, March 2012; copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
i thought it was because they were poor that they didn’t have
sliding glass doors in vietnam during the war
my father walked right into ours after he came back
knocked his glasses off
left a smudge
he said he wasn’t used to sliding glass doors
the dog had run into the door, too
once, in a hurry, before my father came back
left a dog-nose smudge lower down
my mother kept everything very clean
all smudges were soon gone
that door was clean to nonexistence
clean enough to eat off, in a weightless world
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“We’re now in a situation where the greatest Ukrainian warlord in history is a Jew, which proves that God is Jewish and has a sense of humor.” – Timothy Snyder, “The Making of Modern Ukraine: Ukrainian Ideas in the 21st Century” (emphasis in original)
there is something inside myself
soft and sweet as fresh marshmallow
but somewhat more alive—
there it is
over in the corner
scuttering away by the baseboards
not in its persistence to be underestimated
it can in its reshaping shape itself from animal to plant
like a weed grown out of the spot where a cockroach was crushed underfoot
such a mess—there!
wth this strap-cutter and its single-edged blade,
i can excise this thing
it will take only a few deft strokes to remove
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
someone has been in my back yard
from my kitchen window i can see where the razor wire
has been pulled from off the rickety fence
there is no protection
no way of staying safe
not even if i posted signs that read
there is nothing here but fear and empty husks
anyway
that would be a lie
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Truly my own body being sickly, brought me easily into a capacity, to know that health was the greatest of all earthly blessings, and truly he was never sick that doth not believe it.” – Nicholas Culpeper, The Complete Herbal
where am i in a world that goes only round and round
where am i under night-time helicopters
and every next-door dog at bark
where am i under hand claps just outside the bathroom window
and sounds of pistol fire from two-three blocks away
another helicopter flies over
september’s nights are too warm
spiders climb the walls
neighbor-boys play basketball and laugh is where they are
laughing and playing in a world that goes only round and round
(Published in High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico (2012, Outpost 19); copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
i turn on the television while i roll my first joint.
markets are rising and falling.
the japanese are calling for calm.
the spa i summered in seasons ago has been destroyed by intelligent bombs.
the chinese are demanding revenge.
the vengeful are demanding chinese.
there’s cold carry-out in the refrigerator, on the bottom shelf.
i roll my second joint.
it’s another working day. anything could happen.
(Published in High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico (2012, Outpost 19); copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“The First World War was the moment when basically the countries which governed the planet—ruled the planet—decided to have a terrible war on the tiny bit of territory they were from, kill each other on the scale of millions and then tens of millions, and then see what would happen.” – Timothy Snyder, “The Making of Modern Ukraine: Republics and Revolutions”
“If you want to lose a war, there’s a trick, which is, start one.” – Timothy Snyder, “The Making of Modern Ukraine: Republics and Revolutions”
“You can’t make sense of yourself without other people. And you can’t make sense of yourself without listening. And you can’t make sense of who you really are without understanding what influences are coming in from where and what circumstances.” – Timothy Snyder, “The Making of Modern Ukraine: Polish Power and Cossack Revolution”
“Are you speaking the language, or is it speaking you?” – Timothy Snyder, “The Making of Modern Ukraine: Before Europe”
“I had made plans to attend a family reunion in California in about a month. I dreamed I saw my grandmother who had died the year before. She was glad to see me and she hugged me and we talked. Then she said, ‘Well, I’ll see you in California.’ I was very taken aback and decided she must not realize she was dead and couldn’t be at the reunion. After a long, awkward pause I said hesitantly, because it seemed rude to point it out, ‘But Grandma, you’re dead.’ She said cheerfully, ‘I know that. You’ll be dead too when you get to California.’ At least partly because of this dream, I cancelled my plans and never went to that reunion.” – Unidentified dreamer, quoted by Deirdre Barrett in “Through a Glass Darkly: Images of the Dead in Dreams”
“What is the point in battering oneself against the bars of one’s cage? To suffer less from the smallness of the gaol, one should stay in the center of it.” – André Gide (as quoted by Julian Jackson in France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944)
“Totalitarian regimes are hard to resist because their control of society is so all-encompassing. But by trying to influence behaviour that more liberal states ignore, or leave in the domain of private life, they politicize what had previously been unpolitical and private, and thereby increase the surface of possible opposition. If, say, listening to jazz is prohibited, a previously innocent activity becomes a sort of resistance, or at least pushes civil society into an opposition that is the precondition of organized resistance. This makes it necessary to extend the notion of resistance beyond politics. The extent to which individuals retain autonomy defines the limits of a totalitarian regime’s success in transforming civil society.” – Julian Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944