Category: Words
Prose and poetry, for the most part
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.)
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 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.)
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 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.)
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.)
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.)
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.)
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.)
quitting smoking now
will greatly reduce serious risks to my health
quitting smoking now
will bring my hairline back down to where it belongs
quitting smoking now
will turn my belly flab to six-pack abs at home in my spare time
quitting smoking now
will take the liver spots out of my hands
quitting smoking now
will cause my eyes to focus
stop my gums from bleeding
kill my appetite for chicken skin
leave me at a loss for words
quitting smoking now
will leave me with a small pile of butane lighters
and seventeen cigarettes
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
it happened like this: the rains came, late as usual,
passingly sufficient to turn the desert green and yellow
with high summer’s thirsty flowers growing on the slopes
of ancient volcanoes that rose black, crusty and pumiced.
at the peak of one volcano, in the long-cold cone there swarmed flying ants,
red a dark unto black, wings a shimmering glisten reflecting late afternoon sun.
dancing their mating dance, swirling beyond any other control,
a million uncountable ants at play.
wings shimmered. the sun went down. ants landed, mated, lost their wings.
out from the cool spaces, reeving the volcano came millipedes,
first one here, two there,
then so soon as to seem miraculous, millipedes everywhere,
a thousand of them on the volcano’s rocks, among the high summer’s flowers,
millipedes large and small and each size in between,
brown as fancy cigarettes or small cigars,
floating on undulating fringes of legs that carried them
into the desert night along the flowered, antic slopes.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
this would have been two men walking at night,
and one of them would have looked like me.
the other one would have looked like he could
hurt the one who looked like me, except
he would have looked even bigger than that,
and he would have said, aren’t you scared?
the one who looked like me would have said—
would have lit a jumpy cigarette with
a wavering match and would have said—
would have blown some smoke out, squinted, tossed his
head and said—yeah, i’m scared. i’m always scared.
sometimes i’m screaming into my knuckles,
pants-wetting scared. other times i’m just
a nice, smooth, mellow scared, like unsalted
butter of fear. the big one would have said,
what kind of scared are you right now?
and the one who looked like me would have said,
right now i’m a kind of a rainbow scared, all
different colors.
sounds pretty, the big one
would have said. you got a pot of gold at
the end of that? and the one who looked like
me would have said, yeah, and would have taken
a deep drag off his cigarette.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
a quarter-moon is overhead tonight, rushing westwards over rainish clouds,
pulling at our eyes and dreams and giving pale reminder of the time when we were
little more than scum, clinging to the shoreline’s rocks while that same moon now
overhead tugged at the salt-sea waters enwombing us, or rather at our somewhat slimy
distant ancestors, forcing what we would by great eventuality become to gasp
and grasp and grow out of our sheltering mother sea, the tidal moon marooning
us at the bare beginnings of a dry-land life that has come to have certain attractions,
such as this evening’s quarter-moon and scooting clouds, and such as what some small
family branch of that ancient scum grew up to be, that being the we who built
our ships to sail a different and quite hostile kind of sea, to reach at last one day
that moon whose own slow dance has called us into life and its contemplations.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
my heart was once an open wound on my sleeve,
dripping on the ground as i walked,
spattering my shoes.
look here, i’ll open it up a little wider and we can take a peek inside—
see? presto-shamzo, there’s nothing to see, this empty
receptacle that maybe once contained all my
blood and all it stood for.
now it’s a space to let, unfurnished,
and i feel the need for a clean shirt and a shoeshine.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
a national geographic reporter is in town.
he’s a tall guy, in a blue shirt and lackluster voice.
he has a cell phone in his hand. he’s talking into it, and listening.
he’s on assignment.
he sits in the atrium of a posh hotel
and talks into his phone about his assignment.
he’s going to go to a trendy, funky neighborhood this evening
to see what’s there to be seen. he said even for an hour will be fine.
he’s never been there before.
he’s also going to get a bite to eat.
last night, his car broke down on old 66. it was the car of his local contact.
it broke down the way a sentence or a train of thought will break down,
without warning or obvious cause.
he and the contact got out to walk to the nearest service station.
along the way, in a woods just off the road,
they saw large naked women cavorting.
the women saw them and ran deeper into the woods,
and this is where the story ends (though the road goes on a ways).
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
hot august night, clear sky and no moon.
we sit in deck chairs hauled up by ladder to the flat roof of a mountain house,
where we lean back and look up into the dark, sparkling sky
to catch glimpses of shooting stars unzipping the night,
the brightest leaving smoky, glowing trails.
light for an instant lights the pines and oaks covering the slopes,
the pale flash like a flashbulb miles above. we marvel and coo.
one hill away, a panther squalls an unearthly, tormented call,
sounding like a giant, tortured infant. we glance at the ladder,
agree the night is growing cold and late,
and we should soon climb down and go inside.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
there is nothing more perfect in this world than a strip of number four staples
shining and ordered, geometrical and symmetrical
hinting of infinity
the very image of the logos that in the beginning was with
and was
but staples have sharp points
are easily placed in the mouth
can be swallowed where they will lodge in the throat
and must be kept out of the reach of children
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
the rain today brought the snails out for their snail-paced play.
they left snotty trails on the concrete of the back porch.
my son squatted by the open back door,
cooing over the slow-dancing snails, telling me,
look, dad, they’ve all found their shells.
the big ones have found big shells,
and the little ones have found little shells.
they all found the shells that fit them just right.
at the edge of the porch, by the wet grass, he saw an empty shell.
he picked it up, looking around for the snail it must have belonged to.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
tücher the prince and cinderella scoot
moving boy-footed and girl-slippered to set the coffee table for tea
fat-handed children giggly to spread the white sheet with tease and toys
the sheet doing for a tablecloth for children spilling onto the floor
their laughy bodies falling falling
stopped at mid-play by cinderella’s mother calling
‘step lightly, cinderella, step away’
leaving a slim glass slipper under the ghostly-sheeted coffee table
topped by cold dregs for sipping
stale scones for supping
cinderella slipping like mist from charmful tücher the prince
now of the -pality of one
boy-footed to the doorway moving
watching cinderella run
calling to the ashen girl vanishing cinderella! making fists unmaking fists
making fists again
fat hands rolled into scepter’s ends
prince tücher squints into the brightliness of a sunnish day
watching the girl-slippered girl slip away—
knobby-handed princeling, it’s time to clear the table
there will be another ball tonight
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
he is a man of several habits
his virtue that of the fallen arch
his odor the smell of an evening’s must
his taste the flavor of nothing at all
his lovers ephemeral, he carefully gnaws a thumbnail or two
rubbing himself the wrong way
spitting thumbnail slivers onto the floor
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
a light
switch
clicks
a woman
gasps
a twig
snaps
like
that
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
the caterpillar crawls and eats
crawls and eats
spins itself into a chrysalis
waits changing
waits
changing
emerges with a dress made of wings
dances for a day
sips nectar, mates, and is gone
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)