you are still here
a root grown tight around a stone
a persistent dream of dark-eyed women
you are still here
in this chair you used to sit
in this plush and tattered chair where years after you were gone
i found a long strand of what could only have been your hair
i did not keep it
you are right here
you are here the way a parent is present in the face of a child
i hear my child’s footfall in the kitchen
he is pouring cereal into a bowl
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
writing by starlight
sloppily
has this page already been used?
orion and his dog overhead
satellites and red-eye liners passing seven sisters
chased as ever by the bull
this morning he has saturn on one horn
dawn breeze coming now
venus and a thin crescent rising
my girlfriend sleeps in our tent
last night we made love during a thunderstorm
rain pelted our tent while flashing lightning showed us ourselves
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“The personnel security system appeared to be a solid, workable solution to the need to keep classified information out of untrustworthy hands. However, on closer inspection, the system was far less comprehensive than it seemed. The process for investigating personnel for Secret-level clearances was extremely cursory—it was incapable of uncovering the great majority of criminal convictions, and it made no effort whatsoever to check any other security-relevant areas, such as finances. Even such a minimal vetting process was routinely undermined by people with vested interests in concealing information. Granting Top Secret clearances involved a more elaborate series of checks; however, the results were still highly untrustworthy. DIS [Defense Investigative Service] and the adjudication system were chronically underfunded and undermanned, there was virtually no reliable scientific information on which to base decisions, and the Navy allowed commanding officers to override the adjudicators’ decisions anyway. Periodic reinvestigations were almost always backlogged by several years and could, in any event, be easily avoided by tampering with personnel records. Policy existed that required supervisors and coworkers to report suspicious behavior to the authorities, yet almost no one did; however, the policy makers apparently made no effort to find out whether their policies were being followed, or even if sailors knew the policy existed. Even if sailors had reported suspicious behavior, the law enforcement agencies charged with investigating and prosecuting espionage were divided, distracted by political meddling, and had few good legal methods available to them for collecting and presenting evidence in court. The official government policy towards espionage made covering up the crime more important than punishing criminals; the result was a climate of minimal deterrence for potential spies. All of these facts should have been known to decision makers who were designing FBS [Fleet Broadcasting System] in the mid-1960s, if they had looked into the matter.” – Major Laura J. Heath, USA, “An Analysis of the Systemic Security Weaknesses of the U.S. Navy Fleet Broadcasting System, 1967-1974, as Exploited by CWO John Walker”