“Oh! if you cherish life, never disturb the burial place of old letters! And if, perchance, you should, take the contents by the handful, close your eyes that you may not read a word, so that you may not recognize some forgotten handwriting which may plunge you suddenly into a sea of memories; carry these papers to the fire; and when they are in ashes, crush them to an invisible powder, or otherwise you are lost.” – Guy de Maupassant, “Suicides” (trans. McMaster, et al.)
Author: Tetman Callis
little monkeylittle monkey
there’s been a lot of talk lately about destroying the world
about how we’re going to destroy the world with our automobiles
or our appetites or plastics or nuclear bombs
or something dark and sinister sprung from a lab somewhere
or who knows what, but we’ll find a way
or so the story goes
as if we could destroy the world
it’s a big world, and it’s pretty heavy
we could wreck the environment
destroy our civilization
kill off a fairly large number of ourselves and other animals besides
(we’ve been working on that one for a while)
but destroy the world?
the bacteria hear our talk and laugh their quiet laughter
to them, we’re little more than food and incubators
they know we ain’t gonna be destroyin’ no world
for that, you need a fairly large asteroid or an exploding star
no overgrown monkey all full of itself is going to be destroying any worlds
whatever other damage it may do
the bacteria laugh and whisper, little monkey, get a grip
(Copyright 2003, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
the day before the real columbus daythe day before the real columbus day
the scene is the pre-drawn stole
the pre-dawn stroll (haven’t quite awakened yet)—
it’s this morning, is what—is when it is (is the coffee ready yet? soon? good).
so i’m out walking, and i realize today’s date makes today the day
before the real columbus day, and i wonder if any of that calendar stuff where
dates got changed applies to the mariner’s day (coffee’s ready!).
you know, like how it is that geo. w’ton has two birthdays
(father of our country, born twice himself),
and i decide both probably not and it doesn’t matter.
five hundred and eleven years ago tomorrow, etcetera,
and as we used to sing in our chipper schoolchildren’s voices,
in fourteen-hundred-and-ninety-two,
columbus sailed the ocean blue
without a cabin boy to screw,
oh, what was a sailor-man to do?
which is all good fun to recall or to invent on a still october morning,
walking the streets of the ‘hood underneath a clear sky.
i start looking around in that sky at what is there to see:
a fullish moon heading downwards in the west,
orion and his puppy high in the southern sky,
jupiter rising in the waking east; and when i look down again
at the street in front of me, i see that i am not in danger of being run over
or of straying into a pack of feral dogs, but there is a woman walking towards me.
an unusual sight this time of the day.
she’s dressed in dark, what appear to be athletic clothes
but they could be fashionable evening wear—
probably athletic clothes as she has on her feet white athletic shoes
that practically glow, they are so white. her hair is or seems to be copper in color,
though that could be the effect of the moonlight and the streetlamps.
i say good morning! to her as we pass, don’t want to scare her.
she says nothing, no ninny she—it is still dark out,
and we are alone on the street (it is a dewy morning).
she passes and i smell her smells: perfume, cigarettes, and… cookies?
graham crackers! she smells of graham crackers,
a childhood favorite of mine, but then there is the cigarette smell again,
it’s pretty overwhelming, she just had a smoke.
probably not athletic clothes after all.
so i go, heading back to port, thinking again of the chris who crossed the ocean blue,
making possible—not coffee, that probably had something to do with the portuguese
or the arabs—but certainly he could get some credit for chocolate, slaughter,
sweet potatoes, infestation, this country i live in, and the me that lives here.
(maybe i’m wrong about the sweet potatoes,
but i want to give credit where credit is due.)
(Copyright 2003, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Good digestion is everything in life. It gives the inspiration to the artist, amorous desires to young people, clear ideas to thinkers, the joy of life to everybody, and it also allows one to eat heartily (which is one of the greatest pleasures). A sick stomach induces scepticism, unbelief, nightmares and the desire for death.” – Guy de Maupassant, “Suicides” (trans. McMaster, et al.)
special forcesspecial forces
i went out to feed the cat just now
and saw the most amazing thing on
the freeway exit ramp right behind
my house. stopped for the light at the bottom of
the ramp, a large white s-u-v with
four uniformed special forces guys
riding shotgun on the running boards.
i thought, jesus christ, who the fuck is
that? the s-u-v had tinted windows.
if it weren’t for the special forces
guys, i never would have noticed it.
one of the special forces guys was
wearing mirrored shades. another had
those white plastic handcuffs sticking out
of his back pocket, or maybe hooked
to his belt. all four special forces
guys were wearing flak jackets and helmets
and olive-drab. they had guns and small
radios. they were looking all around
while they waited for the light to change.
there was nothing on the news about
anyone important being in
town. the cat was waiting to be fed.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
the perfect womanthe perfect woman
the perfect woman now lives in our neighborhood.
she walks her dogs at dusk.
two brown dogs on two stainless leashes,
one perfect woman in tow.
she walks her dogs down the sidewalks,
crosses streets, cuts through alleyways.
who does she think she is, to bring her perfect self into this forsaken place,
this neighborhood of shotgun shacks, empty twelve-packs,
thirty-year-old cars on concrete blocks?
she is a goddess come to visit the damned.
we can scarcely stand to glance at her.
we can scarcely stand to turn our glance away.
she is as perfect as anything we have ever seen.
we will stand in our front yards, and wait for her to return.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Certain secret sorrows, certain tricks of fate which awake in us a whole world of painful thoughts, which suddenly unclose to us the mysterious door of moral suffering, complicated, incurable; all the deeper because they appear benign, all the more bitter because they are intangible, all the more tenacious because they appear almost factitious, leave in our souls a sort of trail of sadness, a taste of bitterness, a feeling of disenchantment, from which it takes a long time to free ourselves.” – Guy de Maupassant, “Minuet” (trans. McMaster, et al.)
screwing the old bulb outscrewing the old bulb out
she had everything but the vodka.
i had the vodka, which was very good.
i almost wrote god instead of good. good
god, that vodka was good. it was distilled
from the feathers and fat livers of gray
geese, or so the bottle’s label seemed to
indicate. we had two martinis each.
i mixed them up in her mixer, filled with
her ice, with a smattering of her
vermouth. and they were good. not god, yet. or
any longer. oh, and her olives, too.
the olives were hers, and the toothpicks. we
talked. we talked some more. she pulled out her dope,
and we smoked the better part of a bowl
(her pipe, her lighter). i have to work in
the morning, so i drove home filled with goose
bumps and olives and smoke. on the way, i
drove past a cop who was parked on the shoulder,
his hazards flashing. i was going sixty,
which is all right, it’s a sixty-five zone
even if it is an s-curve and ought
only to be a sixty, at the most,
but i wandered a little to the port
side of my lane, which troubled me. the cop
seemed troubled by something else and gave me
no trouble. i got home safely, guarded
as ever by one or more angels. my
porch light was off. i thought maybe i had
left it off or maybe i had turned it
on and it had burned out. once inside, i
reached for the switch. it was off. i turned it
on. the light blue out—i mean, blew out—in
the instantaneous flash characteristic
of catastrophic failure of the
filament. i have the new bulb here
beside me and will now go screw it
in, after screwing the old bulb out.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
clock radio alarmclock radio alarm
in just a few minutes of morning news
my clock radio told me i would soon be shivering in my home
unable to afford the heat while meanwhile
sex offenders would be living in their cars right outside on my street
or living underground somewhere
or straying too close to schools of children
some of whom would be raped by family members
if they hadn’t been already
and would have to have their wombs scraped clean with twisted coat hangers
probably in some alley someplace
while all of us were slowly poisoned by air too dirty to breathe
all of this and i was still in bed
still in bed
slapping at the snooze button
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“The rough weather continues. Fresh disasters are anticipated.” – Guy de Maupassant, “At Sea” (trans. McMaster, et al.)
grubsgrubs
there’s a paving rig on the freeway just back of my house.
the windows rattle to the dull bass note pounded out by the machine.
the driver leans out from under his bleached orange parasol,
watching his work. i watch him through the kitchen window.
his white hard-hat reflects the pummeling july sun.
i go outside and sit on an old, battered bench in the diminishing shade
cast by a cottonwood tree. the paving rig paves.
i smoke dope out of a small pipe.
hungry orange grubs eat the tree’s leaves.
the grubs are the definition of voracious.
they leave the leaves a dying latticework above a drizzle
of dark-green droppings softly falling onto my shirt,
into the hair on my head,
onto the hairs of my arms,
onto the skin of my fingers,
into the bowl of my pipe and into the cat’s water bowl by the bench,
where the droppings expand like some novelty
purchased for pennies from the back of an old comic book.
the hard-hatted driver shuts his paving rig down for lunch.
i finish smoking my bowl. the day is hot and now very quiet.
(Published in High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico (2012, Outpost 19); copyright 2012, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
how we keep the sabbathhow we keep the sabbath
my next-door neighbor mows his lawn early on sunday morning.
the gasoline engine of his mower is loud. he sees me,
smiles, waves and shouts a cheerful hi!
he survived the state pen, and since his release he’s been happy as a fresh-fed pup.
my next-doors on the other side scream their fucking-fuck-fuck-fucked
at every hour, night and day, day and night, all week long, month after month,
for sale sign newly-raised in the dirt of their easement.
this sunday morning, they have left off the copulation talk for the duration
of their breakfast. a pebble thrown by the mower’s blades
clangs the sign, ricochets in my direction,
skipping to rest at my feet where i wash my car by the curb.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“We entered the farmhouse. The smoky kitchen was high and spacious. The copper utensils and the crockery shone in the reflection of the hearth. A cat lay asleep on a chair, a dog under the table. One perceived an odor of milk, apples, smoke, that indescribable smell peculiar to old farmhouses; the odor of the earth, of the walls, of furniture, the odor of spilled stale soup, of former wash-days and of former inhabitants, the smell of animals and of human beings combined, of things and of persons, the odor of time, and of things that have passed away.” – Guy de Maupassant, “The Farmer’s Wife” (trans. McMaster, et al.)
index fingerindex finger
my index finger has a mind of its own,
fingertip absently moving over my belly as i read in bed,
fingernail discovering a flaky bump of skin to scratch to an upright position,
small white scale of skin standing up from what may well prove to be
the first growth of a melanomic death. i pull it free from
off the bump on my belly, scraping it up with my fingernail,
dropping it into my mouth for recycling,
where it has neither flavor nor weight.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
the cowboythe cowboy
not much of a cowboy i would be
not a week goes by that i don’t fall out of my saddle
drop off my high horse
you don’t care to know about all my bad habits
(they’re the same as everyone’s)
and i don’t care to know about yours
(much the same as mine, i “reckon”)
i roll my own while riding along
tobacco falls out all down the trail
eat too many beans, too much bacon
spit into the wind
pistol’s dirty, can’t shoot it anymore
lariat’s worn out
chaps chafe
damn
just damn, that’s all
then spit into the wind again
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“The effeminate man, as one meets him in this world, is so charming that he captivates you after five minutes’ chat. His smile seems made for you; one cannot believe that his voice does not assume specially tender intonations on their account. When he leaves you it seems as if one had known him for twenty years. One is quite ready to lend him money if he asks for it. He has enchanted you, like a woman. If he commits any breach of manners towards you, you cannot bear any malice, he is so pleasant when you next meet him. If he asks your pardon you long to ask pardon of him. Does he tell lies? You cannot believe it. Does he put you off indefinitely with promises that he does not keep? One lays as much store by his promises as though he had moved heaven and earth to render them a service. When he admires anything he goes into such raptures that he convinces you.” – Guy de Maupassant, “The Effeminates” (trans. McMaster, et al.)
summer gunfiresummer gunfire
it’s only mid-may and the summer
gunfire has already begun. ten shots
in rapid succession. most likely
the emptying of a full magazine
(nine-millimeter semi-automatic
handgun). it happened not long after
nine o’clock. early in the evening
for the summer gunfire. early in
the season, too. the summer gunfire
usually doesn’t begin until
the hot madness of june. and it doesn’t
happen until after ten o’clock.
and usually not a full magazine
at a time. profligate shooter, what did
he hit? time to bring the kids in early.
keep them away from the windows. keep
everyone away from the windows.
we can sit on the floor, it’s cooler here.
(Published in High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico (2012, Outpost 19); copyright 2012, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
shaped chargeshaped charge
the anonymous
caller muffled his
voice, told me, i know
all your dirty secrets.
he named them for me
(it took a little time),
said, soon the whole
world will know.
i told him, these days,
to get the whole
world to know anything
requires the use
of explosives.
don’t push your
luck, he said.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Assuredly, every good journalist must be somewhat effeminate—that is, at the command of the public, supple in following unconsciously the shades of public opinion, wavering and varying, sceptical and credulous, wicked and devout, a braggart and a true man, enthusiastic and ironical, and always convinced while believing in nothing.” – Guy de Maupassant, “The Effeminates” (trans. McMaster, et al.)
6:00 a.m., sunday, april 4, 20046:00 a.m., sunday, april 4, 2004
one stray brown dog half-heartedly barks,
strays sideways into the lot where the old house was torn down last week.
beyond the dog, a gray cat scampers up the trunk of a tree just beginning to leaf.
on the freeway that rights its way through the neighborhood,
a car pulls over to a halt, waits, then pulls back into the light traffic,
accelerating to speed.
the sky is grey with low, wet clouds. rain stains the streets.
mud, gravel, and small boulders litter the streets
from how hard it rained the night before last.
morning birds are singing.
the cocks the cockfighters keep crow their doodly cock-song.
next door to a boarded-up house, a house displays on its screen door
the yellow ribbon that means someone is away at the war.
across the street and down a block, a yard sports campaign posters,
though the election is seven months off. the posters are blue, white, and red.
in the street, parked by the curb, a car with tinted windows starts its engine.
two men pass on the sidewalk. one says, good morning, but doesn’t smile.
the other says nothing, spits once for jesus, once for mary,
and once to keep the devil away.
(Copyright 2004, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
morning in the neighborhoodmorning in the neighborhood
odors of toast and marijuana, bacon and tobacco
pissed-out beer and puked-up rum
apple and plum trees in full bloom
perfumed women and old spicy men
waiting on the bus’s black-sooted exhaust and metallic smell of motor oil
whiff of plastic burning, of coriander, chile verde and mace
axle-grease and antifreeze and morning in the neighborhood
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“If there is only one death, there are more ways of its reaching us than there are days for us to live.” – Guy de Maupassant, “Our Letters” (trans. McMaster, et al.)
new year’s day (january 1, 2001)new year’s day (january 1, 2001)
we slept on sofas or sprawled in chairs
our heads back, necks crimping, mouths hanging open
or stretched across a stranger’s bed we slept
or we had found a sober friend somehow
or called a taxicab to take us home
and in the morning (it was afternoon)
all across the nation we came, the third millennium men
coming by bus or by taxicab
coming by lift from a friend
coming on foot, unshowered, unshaven
coming out the doorways of the places where we’d spent the remnants of the night
stretching, yawning, blinking, scratching
heads pounding, stomachs roiling
men of the new era, coming to retrieve our cars
(Copyright 2001, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
possessionspossessions
we had an apartment on the upper west side
sub-let from the sub-lessee, our possession was tenuous
we had a radio with a tape player for playing the tapes we brought from canada
and from new mexico
we had a television but we didn’t watch it
we had a neighbor above us who had a television
maybe he watched it and maybe he didn’t
but we could hear it through his floor which was our ceiling
we had regular habits
our neighbor above us had regular habits
he had the habit of having on his television
while we had the habit of silence for our writing
we went upstairs to complain
not to complain but to ask our neighbor nicely
nicely as we could stand to ask
if he would turn his television down
we knocked on his door and he opened
we could see his television beyond him in his living room
he had a console television squatting on the floor
and a large aquarium with a light and a pump
the light was silent and the pump was loud
our neighbor had his television turned up so he could hear it over the pump
we told him what our problem was
he was a big guy, had a beer belly and large arms
had a daughter who stood behind him with a frightened look in her eyes
her jaw wired shut, unable to speak
our big neighbor guy with his television and his aquarium
and his daughter and his belly and his arms
he said he didn’t give a flying
said he’d lived there twenty years and he’d about
had it with the faggots who lived downstairs
he shut the door in our faces
we couldn’t help it
our hands shot out, fisted
and pounded on his door
he yanked his door open
his daughter stood behind him
terrified look on her face
he grabbed us by our arms
our skinny faggy arms
slammed us into the wall
wrestled with us on the landing
we could swear he tried to throw us down the stairs
then he let go and went back inside his apartment
with its television and its aquarium and its daughter and her jaw wired shut
we went downstairs and called the police
they came, they said do you have any bruises?
any cuts or broken bones?
we said no
they said we don’t have anything we can do for you
we said we have a tire iron
we could hit him with a tire iron
they said you don’t have the right to do that
so don’t
they took us upstairs to have a discussion with our neighbor (arms, aquarium, belly, etc.)
he said he had no idea what we were talking about
his daughter stood behind him, terrified
wired shut
we all had to promise the police we would behave before they would go away
later
in our kitchen
one of us had an idea
it wasn’t a very good one, involving violence and revenge
and misuse of the postal system
so we had beer and cigarettes instead
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Forgetting is the only form of forgiveness; it’s the only vengeance and the only punishment too.” – Jorge Luis Borges (quoted by Gavin Francis in “The Dream of Forgetfulness”)
december 27december 27
young woman downtown, her face framed by ruddy blonde hair
dancing on her shoulders as she walked along the sidewalk
pretty face, young face, gray slacks and black sweater close-fitted and stylish
and the days of my having any hope of closeness outside of commerce
with such a woman as this young woman
are as gone as this winter’s Christmas
my teeth are stained and my gums are sore
my face is lined and my hair turns gray
my mind is slow and my heart, it hurts me all the time
i walk unsteadily now, so i sit here on the cold stone steps of this bank building,
and i do not look up again
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
when language is a living thingwhen language is a living thing
when a language is a living thing,
it is a tree, with roots and branches.
its words are leaves, flowers and fruits—
twigs, even, for such simplicities as a, the, and and.
a leafy word, well, there’s leaf, to begin with.
branch is a leafy word, too, in this taxonomy, as is roots.
as for flowers, they come in many shapes, sizes and smells.
there is the emetic stench of such poison blooms as faggot and nigger,
the heavy, musky odor of fuck—a fragrance some claim to find offensive,
but almost all are pulled by its enticement—
and on to the light, watery semi-sweetness of rose-by-any-other-name.
as with natural trees, the fruits come last. what would be a fruity word?
not fruit—if it’s not a leafy word, then it’s a flowery word.
not pregnant—although one may assume initially
that pregnant is an obviously fruity word, it is in fact leafy.
a fruity word, a word capable of making itself (or something)
flesh (or flesh-like, or flesh as a very broad metaphor,
because, after all, we’re up a tree), could be such a word as love,
the sometimes sickly-sweet, sometimes—well, it’s love,
fruit of the fuck-flower. it comes in every flavor you can imagine.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Roughly speaking: objects are colourless.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein, “2.0232”, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
as energy decreases to zero, mass increases to infinityas energy decreases to zero, mass increases to infinity
one would think it would be enlightening to be an illusion of energy
a shimmering arrangement harmonious of infinitesimal electrical charges
separated by a great deal of empty space
but i smoked a pack of cigarettes today
ate an entire cheesecake for dessert
and if you dropped me now
i wouldn’t bounce
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
desiredesire
what we all want, my love,
the madness that makes the madness of human being possible to tolerate,
palatable the bitter fruit of good and evil—
to believe the distant hanging grapes are almost certainly not sour,
and better yet, are real—
to be so certain there shall be some catbird seat plushly upholstered,
one such for each deserving one of us,
our names embossed in gold on the upright backs,
from which comfy perches we can watch what follows our passing,
smiling with confidence yet with appropriate humility,
nudging one another to point out
there
and there
see? and see? happy endings everywhere,
our names remembered, our works cherished and enduring
(not forgotten, crumbling into indistinguished dust).
but, my love, we shall sleep in dust unknowing, pulverized by time,
not find ourselves watching the show from the bleachers
to the right or left of god.
so kiss me now, my love,
and kiss me again.
am i to stop you, when a million of your kisses are too few?
kiss me again before it’s time we go.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)