when the sun shines
i can finish my cheese sandwich
step outside in my heavy coat
gather up fat brown sparrows
and pitch them across the street
throwing them hard at the neighbor’s spiny yucca
soft feathers ruffling as the sparrows zip through the air
i tally up the points
so many for bull’s-eyes
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
i’m reading about kosovo
its unmiks and kayfors
its pee-ohs and various constitutions
and i truly want to care about all this
—i am an educated, liberal man—
but i dreamed last night of a girl i had sex with
twenty-five years ago
(i will spare you the details i will not spare myself
or maybe i’m just being selfish)
then there was the girl i saw yesterday walking slowly away from me
she had a tattooed hip showing above the low waistband
of her pull-me-down pants
sex fractures my fragile concentration
leaving me just another of the world’s lost causes
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“An object has energy from its sheer existence.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I (emphasis in original)
coffee (with cream)
creamed corn (from the deli)
cherries (with cream)
fresh cherries fresh-washed
hot cherry pie
hot cherry pie with ice cream ice cream ice cream!
cream
cheese
cream cheese
cheddar cheese
chile verde
chips
cheddar cheese chips dipped in chile verde
chicken
chocolate (all types) cappuccino cannabis coitus
ice cream ice cream ice cream!
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
here is a rock
size of a small fist
a child’s fist
on the rock
size of a birthmark on a child’s hand
is a fossil
the fossil is of a sea creature
a shelled animal
it is exquisite
hold it up to your eye
you can peer into the small dark chambers of the fossil
time has been kind to the creature this once was
it looks pretty good for being two hundred million years old
give or take
i scratch these words on paper
seeking immortality
(Published in High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico (2012, Outpost 19); copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“A poet once said, ‘The whole universe is in a glass of wine.’ We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I
the housefly is what you want.
gnats, they’re just morsels. starvation rations.
you can eat all the gnats you can catch,
and they’ll never be enough.
at night, you can go down and see if you
can catch yourself a baby roach or something.
there’s earwigs. but they don’t come around often,
and they’re a lot of trouble. those big pincers
on their tails. segmented armor so they can
swing their tails right over their heads
the way scorpions do—arachne save me from
scorpions—and if you ask me,
i don’t think they taste all that good.
no, give me housefly, succulent and fat.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
i am not making a fresh cup of coffee to replace
this fresh cup of coffee just because some stupid fly
flew in to float parboiled on the steamy surface.
if the coffee is hot enough to kill that fly
(and it’s dead, see? stupid fly), it’s hot enough to kill whatever
was on that fly, and if it isn’t, then whatever was on that
fly is in the coffee and will have to take its chances
in my stomach’s hydrochloric acid; though i will take
a fork and remove the carcass, careful not to break anything off.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“I must confess that I do not understand why things are so arranged, that women should seize us by the nose as deftly as they do the handle of a teapot. Either their hands are so constructed or else our noses are good for nothing else.” Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, “How the Two Ivans Quarreled,” Taras Bulba and Other Tales (trans. various)
i like the smell of earwax on my fingertips.
it has a musky, acrid smell.
whenever my ear itches inside, i rub around with my little finger,
with the tip, down inside the earhole,
which has a latin name that i forget.
the tip of my little finger comes out with a little smear of wax,
bright brown, sometimes almost orange,
glistening on the pad and nail.
i rub this little fingertip against the rest of my fingertips and my thumb.
if no one is looking, i casually pass my hand by my nose,
and smell the smell of my earwax. i’ve done this for as long as i can remember.
i bet other people do it, too. i watch them passing by me on the street.
i casually pass my hand by my nose, pretending i’m about to scratch,
or that i’m waving a shy hello. they scratch and wave back.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
it pleases me to report there were no
murders in the neighborhood last year.
the map in yesterday’s paper was wrong—
those killings took place one block further south.
that’s a completely different neighborhood,
it has a different name and i tell
my son, don’t you ever cross that street
and go into that neighborhood, it’s
a completely different neighborhood.
and what’s more, i tell him, when you hear
gunfire, don’t look, just get down right away.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“There is nothing more irritable than departments, regiments, courts of justice, and, in a word, every branch of public service.” – Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, “The Cloak,” Taras Bulba and Other Tales (trans. various)
how much more humble we would be if our flatulence were green.
we would trail tell-tale clouds, iridescent and glowing.
there would be no pretending as to who was responsible.
no way to lie or to prevaricate.
how much more truthful we would be if our noses quickly turned purple when we lied.
if not more truthful, then probably we at least would not say as much.
not so many lies about love and sex and death.
imagine if our lips flushed bright crimson whenever we had thoughts or feelings of lust.
no more pretending not to notice the luscious babe or hunky stud.
we would constantly be outing ourselves.
what if our fingernails flashed a blazing yellow when we were afraid?
no more stiff upper lips and steely glares to cow both friend and foe,
unless we wore thick gloves.
imagine a presidential press conference if we were wired in this fashion.
it would be a bio-neon hullabaloo.
the president would enter the room, his hands jammed into his pockets.
the fingernails of the rookie reporters, and of the press secretary,
would all be flashing chrome yellow.
the lips of more than one reporter would be a fully flushed crimson,
even if maybe the babes weren’t so luscious nor the studs so hunky.
every time the president went to say something, his nose would suddenly go purple.
in a little while we would see
that he had the chili cheese and bean burrito for breakfast again.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
what a tiny pit!
i’ve never seen an avocado with such a tiny pit!
perhaps this avocado is a mutant strain,
mulish child of science and commerce copulating in sloppy abandon.
perhaps it’s just an accident, one of those acts of god.
such a tiny pit!
such a great amount of meat, thick and musky, the color of an old refrigerator.
i lay the avocado, split in halves, upon my plate,
take a spoon in hand and eat.
bless me, lord, i eat.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“There is no power stronger than faith. It is threatening and invincible like a rock, and rising amidst the stormy, ever-changing sea. From the very bottom of the sea it rears to heaven its jagged sides of firm, impenetrable stone. It is visible from everywhere, and looks the waves straight in the face as they roll past. And woe to the ship which is dashed against it! Its frame flies into splinters, everything in it is split and crushed, and the startled air re-echoes the piteous cries of the drowning.” – Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, “Taras Bulba,” Taras Bulba and Other Tales (trans. various)
there is such a thing as a postmodern peach
it arrives at the wrong time of year
shipped over the ocean from a country on the other side of the world
it is fuzzy as a peach should be
its flesh gives enticingly beneath the touch
but inside it is hard and dry and will never be sweet
there is still such a thing as a modern peach
it arrives in high summer by truck from one state over
it is perfect
hold it in your hand and bite into it
its sticky juices run down your fingers onto your wrist and even sometimes
down to your elbow
it is as sweet as your favorite anything
there even is still such a thing as an enlightenment peach
no fooling, there is
it grows out back on the tree by the far wall
you pull it right off a branch in the late afternoon
it is ripe and warm from the sun
there are dozens more hanging on the tree
we can make a cobbler
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
auden said that if we men discovered what the women said
when none of us was there to hear the awful truths they would tell,
we would be shocked—
stunned, puckered, and withered we would cringe.
wystan, it turned out it wasn’t so bad,
the night charisse, lori, and sylvia invited me to join them at their backyard table
while they snacked on martinis and stories of their various lovers,
most of whom had glaring faults of which said lovers were only dimly,
if at all, aware. the talk was riotous and bawdy.
men can’t talk that way unless they’re gay.
the women cast a vodka spell that night upon their male companion,
to prevent him from ever quoting their words direct,
but among the stories recounted at that table, there was
the tale of one septuagenarian lover’s priapic skills,
report of which was enough to make any man of post-adolescent age
consider himself in comparison, and keep his mouth shut about it.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“The things with which we concern ourselves in science appear in myriad forms, and with a multitude of attributes. For example, if we stand on the shore and look at the sea, we see the water, the waves breaking, the foam, the sloshing motion of the water, the sound, the air, the winds and the clouds, the sun and the blue sky, and light; there is sand and there are rocks of various hardness and permanence, color and texture. There are animals and seaweed, hunger and disease, and the observer on the beach; there may be even happiness and thought. Any other spot in nature has a similar variety of things and influences. It is always as complicated as that, no matter where it is. Curiosity demands that we ask questions, that we try to put things together and try to understand this multitude of aspects as perhaps resulting from the action of a relatively small number of elemental things and forces acting in an infinite variety of combinations.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. 1
i haven’t been keeping up with the news
i’ve been traveling
been through a lot of airports
had to catch the news on the fly
i see there’s some sort of controversy going on in the capital
and somewhere someone has shot someone else
a plane crashed (hate to see that news in an airport)
a ferryboat sank
there was a train wreck, i saw the footage of that
there’s a war, maybe more than one
while a freak storm blew in from the ocean
and another new planet was discovered
orbiting a neighboring star
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
cherries remind me of zachary taylor
old rough and ready, who accidentally killed himself one july day
through eating too many cherries, ripe and sweet
some say the pickles and ice cream didn’t help
it was independence day, at a time when slavery was an issue
man eats
god laughs
king john, so they say
ate too many eels, his favorite food
and they pretty much swam straight through him
some say it wasn’t eels, it was ale
or plums or peaches
divine justice or so they say
for his having lost the crown jewels in the river thames
not to mention that business with robin hood and the sheriff
and the lovely maid marian
she was a virgin (that’s unconfirmed)
and last i heard, god was still laughing
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“The future is unknown, and stands before a man like autumnal fogs rising from the swamps; birds fly foolishly up and down in it with flapping wings, never recognising each other, the dove seeing not the vulture, nor the vulture the dove, and no one knowing how far he may be flying from destruction.” – Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, “Taras Bulba,” Taras Bulba and Other Tales (trans. various)
cats awaiting feeding crowd the yards
huddling in the leeward thresholds by the doors to kitchens
cats awaiting feeding sing their oriental songs
middle-eastern wailings, thin keening cries
sparrows hear
tremble above them in the bare-branch trees
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
dead come stand beside me in shy sadness in my dreams and say,
when you are finally with us,
we shall teach you how to return yourself to trees and air,
to smoke and autumn’s falling, crumbling leaves.
when you are finally with us,
darkness shall be as light,
lightness shall be as weight,
waiting shall be as joy,
joy shall be as holding,
and holding you, we shall teach you how.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“He is not a good warrior who loses heart in an important enterprise; but he who is not tired even of inactivity, who endures all, and who even if he likes a thing can give it up.” – Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, “Taras Bulba,” Taras Bulba and Other Tales (trans. various)
downtown
standing on the corner
cigarette in my hand
a man shuffles by, walking with a limp
he chuckles and grins
looking straight ahead he says, you understand?
he passes and i see something written in black ink
in a spidery hand on the back of his dirty camel-hair jacket
i can’t make out what it says
it’s written in paragraphs
properly indented
he chuckles again, crossing the street against the light
a horn honks and tires screech
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
the drovers move slowly,
driving their cattle across the river ford.
shepherds herd their sheep,
trotting across the fields.
the length of the foot is three times the width of the hand.
i shade my eyes,
and climb to heaven on the beams of the sun.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Laws are the product of compromise, and no law pursues its purposes at all costs.” – Justice Neil Gorsuch, Luna Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools, et al. (No. 21-887, United States Supreme Court, March 21, 2023) (internal cites and quotes omitted)
a convention of very large women is in town.
they wear name tags, shop, sweat in the mid-summer sun,
call out loudly to one another across their hotel lobby.
three young boys play in front of the hotel, outside double glass doors,
by bronze statues of business men and women, tourists,
authentic natives and a bronze boy on a bronze skateboard.
the real boys start fooling with the skateboard boy, trying to pull him down.
he won’t come down. he is bronze and anchored in place.
the real boys open the double glass doors and slip into the hotel lobby.
a young woman who is not attending the convention walks by the boys.
she’s wearing what once were called come-fuck-me pumps,
this season’s footwear fashion. her clothes are simple and tell
of money to spend: sleeveless cream blouse, black knit pants.
she wears black-framed glasses. her hair is blonde.
she adjusts the shoulder straps of her brassiere with one hand
as she walks past the three young boys. they watch her, then they enter
a gift shop in the lobby. they wander the shop, picking up and setting down
various trinkets. the proprietress pretends not to watch their
every move, but she is watching their every move. they buy a lollipop
and leave the shop. the proprietress thanks them, says, be good boys.
they say nothing, don’t look back.
the young woman walks by again, graceful as a gazelle.
the very large women, conventional, waddle by,
shouting, grunting, and dripping sweat.
the three boys screech like monkeys, dashing across the lobby to the doors.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
just the other side of a smooth-wire fence is a farmer’s field,
its stubble side-lit in sunlight softened by thin, filtering clouds.
geese are flocking to breakfast, gathering in a corner of the field.
closer to the center stalk sandhill cranes, walking their tentative walk,
as though there may be something in the field no crane
would care to step in. their knees are on backwards.
a flight of three cranes circles the field in a lazy, graceful figure-eight.
a standing crane calls, its cry the clacking loudness of a party favor amplified.
the three cranes coast and flap their ways to landing. they eat a while,
stalking the field with the other cranes. hot-air balloons drift slowly by overhead.
with a sudden whooshing flutter the cranes ascend and swim the air.
calls of other cranes come from nearby woods. the geese send up
a parliament of honks. the burners of the passing balloons sigh great sighs.
the cranes head south. the geese will follow.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Good afternoon folks. I am Grace Lynn. I am a hundred years young. I’m here to protest our school district’s book-banning policy. My husband Robert Nichol was killed in action in World War II, at a very young age, he was only 26, defending our democracy, Constitution, and freedoms. One of the freedoms that the Nazis crushed was the freedom to read the books they banned. They stopped the free press, banned and burned books. The freedom to read, which is protected by the First Amendment, is our essential right and duty of our democracy. Even so, it is continually under attack by both the public and private groups who think they hold the truth. Banned books, and burning books, are the same. Both are done for the same reason: fear of knowledge. Fear is not freedom. Fear is not liberty. Fear is control. My husband died as a father of freedom. I am a mother of liberty. Banned books need to be proudly displayed and protected from school boards like this. Thank you very much. Thank you.” – Grace Lynn, at Martin County, Florida, school board meeting, March 21, 2023 (quoted by Brandon Gage, in AlterNet, March 22, 2023)