Category: Words
Prose and poetry, for the most part
boss,
here are the procedures for recording your voice onto your computer and copying the file to a compact disk.
- make sure the mike is plugged in.
- open system preferences.
- open sound, which is in hardware.
- open the input window.
and do something with it which i could figure out how to do except you just interrupted me to talk about the hundreds of hours of your home movies you want me to edit and then you want me to do your taxes because your wife used to do them but you haven’t got a wife anymore and hey boss neither do i but you said maybe you can get her to come in and train me
i’m sure she would be thrilled i know i would i have a weakness for other men’s ex-wives
and then there are the authority files you want me to scan
and now you are walking out the door to get a haircut telling me you’ll be in touch while i sit here pretending i’m working
which is what i usually do
and usually it works
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
monday morning elevator ride up to the office
riding with a slender young woman whose long copper hair
looks wet and is parted all awry
she yawns and groans
says, excuse me
i straighten my tie in the elevator’s mirrored wall
the yawning copper-haired woman looks at the elevator’s floor
looks at the elevator’s ceiling
whispers, whisper
the elevator’s bell dings at my stop
the doors slide open, i step out, hearing the elevator doors
slide closed behind me
a whispering noise
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
it has been quiet since your last call.
no faxes.
no visitors.
nothing of note in the mail.
still at my desk i sit, still.
the sun slips free of its bank of low clouds,
dropping slowly to its january horizon.
the branches of the grey trees are yellow.
i will go home now.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
it’s almost time for me to go to the office,
to see my smiling, sober, successful boss,
do some work for him and keep him from
knowing that his assistant (me)
is this morning ever so somewhat intoxicated
(stoned) and contemplating how it is my life
has turned out to be not quite the life i wanted
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
skinny junkies drag their squalling children
by their wrists through parking lots at discount chains.
rusting junkers’ ancient engines idle in the artificial light.
skinny junkies in hip-hugging pants
entice odd bookish lads who ought to be at home.
tattooed hate boys wearing women-beaters
rule the restless night, scrapping over scraps.
cops cruise whores who cruise for copless corners
where they can stand and give a wave and whistle.
skinny junkies smack their crying brats
and scream unheeded screams.
rusting junkers pull away in cloudy blue-white rumbles.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
frightened girls who want to be loved take whatever they’re given
convincing themselves that lies are true
that being robbed is the same as freely giving
frightened girls who want to be loved are blessings to the vain
cursings to themselves
subject at any time of night or day to random boot and slamming fist
frightened girls who want to be loved
mourning what they’ve taken
mourning all that has been given them
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
god’s covenant expired in the year of our lord the zinc penny,
impaled on the axis running from the berlin of the wannsee conference
to the chicago of the fermic pile
we live now as debtors
owing borrowed time greatly in excess of annual income
the animal smarter than wise,
cursed fat-head with opposable thumbs,
the show-stopping act of the monkey on its own back
better it would be to be the careless sparrow or the scuttering roach,
or the bothersome gnat striving at the window-pane
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
my daddy is
so cool he speaks
german and smokes
pot flirts with girls
half his age drives
at twice the limit
on the wrong
side of the road
eats the candies he
finds on the floor
takes me for
walks in rough
neighborhoods looks
evil in the eye
believes there is
nothing about himself
or his life that
isn’t a waste
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
twice in ten days, in neighborhoods five miles
apart, the same woman has approached me
on the streets. frantic, animated, hell-bent
on death, her cheeks ravaged, her breasts high and firm
underneath her nondescript shirts, her entire
being a suppressed scream of junkie and whore,
i paid no attention to the details
of her story. it’s always the same story.
i’ve flirted with enough bad company
to have heard it a time or two before,
though maybe never from a woman whose
breasts appeared so enticing. her waist was
narrow, too, comely and not too narrow,
her hips of good proportion, her butt nicely
rounded. too bad about the rest of her.
the second time she stopped me to pitch her
petition, she showed no sign of remembering
the first time. i didn’t choose to remind her,
but i gave her five dollars for whatever
it was she needed. she asked me my name.
i told her we’re all the same. and we are,
but we are not. she insisted on shaking
my hand. i didn’t tell her the most
important thing she could do would be to
die. i shook her hand, then washed my
hands as soon as i could.
we woke up, wearing clothes and carrying weapons
we woke up, our women carrying babies on their hips
as we wandered the dry, sun-drenched plains
we woke up to find ourselves living in crowded cities
drinking beer in the cool, dark shops
grinding grain and gossiping by the city walls
watching the seasons and marking the stars
calculating when to plant the corn
painting ourselves, hacking the gemstones, melting the ores
prostrating ourselves before ten thousand gods
slicing the hearts from endless rows
of sacrificial victims captured by the soldiers
arrayed in endless rows of the armies
we found ourselves marching in when we woke up
out of our dreaming and into this nightmare
(Published in Synchronized Chaos, September, 2013; copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
the latest true messiah has arrived in town
he’s wearing sunglasses
he’s here to dedicate the new power plant
he has a winning smile
he wears a fine blue shirt and points this way and that
he says he’d love to stay a while longer and talk some more with us if only he could
but he has so very many things to do
his bodyguards make a way for him through the pressing crowd
we give way and he is gone
we don’t know when he may return but we are sure he will
we are sure he knows we want him to
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
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.)
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.)
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.)
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.)
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.)
“I was committed for two weeks to a mental health hospital for depression and suicidal behavior. Two weeks doesn’t sound long, but let me assure you that time is, in fact, relative. Imagine, if you will, being driven off in the middle of the night, poked and prodded by a doctor, having everything about you catalogued from your earrings to your underwear, being stripped and shoved in a shower, dressed in ill-fitting pink scrubs, marched out to a white-walled cage, and then watched. Watched by a panel of placating smiles, who ask questions for which they’ve already decided the answers. Watched as you color with the bright colored crayons, smile at everyone, swallow your pills, laugh too much, line up for the cafeteria, attend group and circle the happy face when you just want to yell, ‘I’m not in kindergarten!’ But you don’t because you want out, and, perhaps even more so, because you’re afraid you shouldn’t be let out. Sometimes I think I could spend a lifetime finding words in those two weeks alone.” – Beth McKinney, Rattle 56
“I write because I am irritable and impossible to live with if I don’t.” Yamini Pathak, Rattle 59
http://cheatriverreview.com/tetman-callis/
“Not since Watership Down has there been such a whimsical, original take on humanity in the form of beloved members of the animal kingdom. Franny & Toby is a gorgeously rendered tale of love.”
– Suzy Vitello, author of The Empress Chronicles series
http://silkyoakpress.com.au/?p=433
Identity Theory has published my story, “What Coy Said,” from my collection, Cocktails.
http://www.identitytheory.com/what-coy-said-tetman-callis/
Gravel Magazine’s November 2014 issue has been published, and includes one of my stories — “Guys Come in Three Sizes.”
http://www.gravelmag.com/tetman-callis.html
Today I posted “Abrumpo” to the “Previously Published Stories” sidebar. It was originally published in NOON last March. Diane Williams, NOON‘s editor, provided the title, tightened up the last two paragraphs, and provided the final two lines.
It’s called Franny & Toby
http://silkyoakpress.com.au/?p=433
A story of mine called “A Dog by the Ears” was published last October in Robot Melon Issue 13. I have posted it slightly to the right as you face your computer monitor, in the sidebar called Previously Published Stories.
Pif Magazine has published one of my very short pieces.
http://www.pifmagazine.com/2014/03/desserts-for-the-reading-of-the-k-j-v/
Trailer Park Quarterly Issue Four has been published. It contains one of my poems (“Supermarket”) and can be found at:
http://www.sundresspublications.com/tpq/TPQ4.pdf