Category: Poems
bright mars in the morning sky, brilliant
red-white light embedded in the cantaloupe
glow just above the shadow of the earth.
mars closer now than at any time in
history, maybe closer now than at
any time that would make sense, any sense
that could be felt and not the dry, remote
sense of numbers too large to be
comprehended. mars very close, mars next
door, in the holiday flags. mars the guide
star, illuminating, defining,
constraining, determining action and
reaction and reaction again. mars
the spotlight, sole light lighting the dark. bright
mars in the morning sky, growing closer,
blood-red light filling shadows, filling
the noon-day sky, filling the evening
sky, filling the midnight skies, filling all
the time in history. mars a presence
sensed in every dry bone, seen in every
eye, heard in every wailing song. mars a
mars now too large to be comprehended.
(Copyright 2003, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
i have got to find a way and
there has to be a way and
i have got to find a way and
there has to be a way and
i have got to find a way and
there has to be a way and
i must find it
i have got to find a way and
there must be a way and
i have got to find a way and
there must be a way and
i have got to find a way and
there must be a way and
there must be a way and
i must find it
i have got to get away to get away to get away
and there must be a way to get away to get away
and i must make a way to get away to get away
and i know i’ll get away i’ll get away i’ll get away
and i know there is a way to get away to get away
and i will make it
i will focus on my bliss on my bliss on my bliss
i will focus on my bliss it’s a part of every bliss
i will take a few deep breaths a few deep breaths a few deep breaths
i will focus on the bliss all is bliss all is bliss
all is bliss goddammit all is bliss
(Copyright 2000, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
standing we’ll sing a rational anthem,
clamping our hands flat firm to our chests over the locations
where we believe our hearts to be.
yes they’re there fluttering and pumping.
we sing.
we feel in our palms the thumping of those hearts,
feel in our bones over ribs and sternums the buzzy
vibrations of our voices as so loudly we hail
the triumph of every well-considered thought and aptly-planned act.
we sing the body mechanic,
ever fruitful in its justly-measured ways.
we stop our song precisely when it’s done,
returning our hands to our sides.
our bones now quiet,
we sit,
scarcely feeling what may as well be our hearts.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
the echo in this hotel atrium
echo in this atrium
echo in this hotel atrium is pronounced
a fountain near me fountains
gurgling its fontane gurgling
fontane song
a woman laughs
her laughter echoes
her perfume i can smell
it smells fruity
fruity woman in the atrium
i am eating an apple
an apple seed is in my mouth and i would like to spit it out
i pull it out instead
politely
discreetly
using thumb and middle finger
according to certain principles of design
what’s left of the apple is on the table in front of me
turning brown as apples do
i pick it up
i take a bite
the sound of my biting
snapping
crunching
echoes
i take another bite
a door chime chimes
chimes nearby and echoes
the woman still smells like fruit
she laughs again
a vacuum cleaner vacuums clean a hall around the corner from the fountain
fontane gurgling
the apple tastes good
a heavy object clatters in the
heavy object clatters in the hall
echoing echoes echo
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
fog burning off now, catching rays
fog juices trickle down gutters to sewer grates
fog ashes eddy on sun giggles
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
the most remarkable cacophony
of sound today at lunch. i was walking
down first street, past the railyards, when the noon
amtrak came in. as the train braked, from
various wheels on various cars
there arose a chorus of screeks and
squeaches that sounded for all the world
like an orchestra tuning up. and i
was not on drugs. the sounds sounded not
unlike something off a beatles album
(sgt. pepper’s, i think), or like
a contemporary classical
composition. as the train slowed to
a stop, the sounds rose in pitch, like a
crescendo, and then ceased almost as if
a conductor had brought down his baton.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
i read a new yorker story the other day
it had everything a new yorker story ought to have
it had lesbians, professors, sexual degradation
multiple marriages, marijuana
alienated children of a certain age
woods and second homes
snow
i could never write a story like that
i don’t know any professors and i have only one home
it’s pitched in the middle of the desert
far from the woods, out where it never snows
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
tristan,
i must confess that this past weekend was a disappointment. you are walking distance away but it’s not possible to schedule in time to fuck. i know we aren’t allowed to fuck during the middle of the week. and obviously we aren’t allowed to fuck on weekends either. holidays only?
isolde
isolde,
i will come to your apartment after i get off work tomorrow
and i will strip you naked from the waist down
and i will slip two fingers into you
and i will squeeze you till you come
and you come and come again and again
and you come until you beg me to stop
then i will lie on my back and pull you down to straddle me
and i will push myself into you
and i will hold you to me so that you cannot get away
and i will fuck you until i am satisfied
and i trust that will answer your question
tristan
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
her eyes are crooked her nose
is crooked her mouth is crooked
her teeth are crooked (though
they are white) her voice is loud
on the streets at night
her lips are thin her hips
poke out her ears do too her hair
is streaked with early gray
she’s afraid of the world she
pushes it away
she left forever yesterday
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
mary when i saw you and lisa in the
building today by the jewelry shop i
didn’t recognize you at first i was
waiting for lisa to introduce me to
her friend turning to you i saw that it was
you for a moment i thought you were about
to hug me or maybe for a moment i
thought you were a dream come true i could easily
fall for you were we twenty years younger and
were you not married but it wouldn’t be you i
fell for you remind me awfully much of
someone i did fall for when i was twenty
years younger the music of your voice your laugh
the line of your smile the very expressions
you sometimes carry on your face and your
very face yourself you
may as well be her
you could be her ghost come back to life she was
a long time ago in a time that didn’t
have what i would call a happy outcome
today trying to be witty i was
inept instead asking you what you were
doing in my part of town it wasn’t you that
i was trying to push away hard by the
jewelry shop hard to get to the ages we
have got to without ghosts dogging our heels
pestering us getting in the way
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
my father loved the deer of colorado’s western slope.
he drove carefully at dusk along the rural two-lane blacktop, counting those he saw— doe, buck and fawn—one hundred seventy-five one evening, by his count.
he’d fought in korea and vietnam, killed strangers and had his young friends
die beside him.
he loved the deer for being alive and free,
allowing him to tend to them by driving carefully at dusk.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
a bumblebee
bounces
off the office
window by my
desk
tapping the glass
with a small
soft thud
silhouetted
against the sky
the bee
resembles a flying
black thumb
two hundred
feet above the street
zagging cloudward
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
do you have a dollar?
i was there fifty-six fucking
fifty-six fucking days and sister julia
pissed me off
could i have a dollar?
i ain’t doing anything
i’m a viking bitch
a viking bitch from hell
am i registered to vote?
i’m a viking bitch from hell
my cigarette broke
could somebody please have a cigarette?
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
Today we’re going to take the A-train
And ride it on down to B-town,
Get ourselves a couple of C-sections
Across the street from the D-home,
Check in and check out our E-mail
At the concrete kiosks by the F-stop,
Buy a big roll of red nylon G-string
Just in time for cocktails at H-hour,
Smoke ourselves a big fat J
And munch out on surplus K-rations
Slathered with steaming L-dopa
Hot out of the beeping M-wave
And cooked to the Nth degree,
With a side dish of crispy O-rings
Sprinkled with well-minded Ps and Qs
Of the highest discernable R-value
To be found along the S-curve
That wends its way around the T-square
Down by the harbor filled with U-boats
Crewed by sailors wearing V-necks,
Who pipe us aboard and hand us W-9s,
Then line us up for annual X-rays
Before we head back to our rooms at the Y
To settle in and catch ourselves some Zs.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
the full moan rises
as the sin is setting.
the bids are settling in
for the nought. house-cots
begin their evening wonderings,
bets flitting overhead,
pursuing incest. watch-dugs
hail and burp at passing
shatters. livers bond their
buddies to gather, empensioned
ones swatting and mooning as
head-lice arc across their boardroom
walls. stirs spackle
the nought-time skis. son,
the tune will slap, its
inheritance at rust under
the shunning full moan.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
jack took jill right off the pill,
and then he made her holler,
but when he found he’d knocked her up,
he wouldn’t even call her.
mother took the hanger’s crook
to make jill’s belly smaller.
her lover’s mound was emptied well—
see mother scrape with choler.
now get out! her mother’s shout
sent jill to live in squalor.
jack came round to see his jill,
him thinking he might ball her.
jack, you wait here by the gate,
said jill, you are my scholar
who’s taught me sweetly love’s swell tricks—
i’d kill you for a dollar.
here’s ten bits, jack said, and it’s
to call your bluff and price you.
jill cut him down with kitchen knife—
you should have known i’d slice you.
jack screamed and fell against the gate,
cried out, you filthy cunt!
jill stood her ground and spoke to jack,
her knife held out in front.
your good looks, and cock that cooks
inside the girl who wants you,
won’t help you now, she sliced again,
it’s time you see what ‘cunts’ do.
jill lay jack flat on his back.
her lover-boy won’t gall her,
she fixed him well—nowadays he swells
a smidgen, but no taller.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
she says the sweetest thing
she says
i love it when you come in me
i love it too
i say
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
sun-dress
flip-flops
perfect figure
long shiny hair
crinkle-nosed smile
prim and pretty face
there is no price you can pay
you cannot have this girl
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
o
my dick is sore
last night
i was fuckin the duck
dreamin of my wife
no foolin
she’s a wrinkled old thing
but she loves me muchly
and her smile is a bright light shining
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
when we crack open atoms
or stare into space with x-ray eyes
or break another genetic code
we think we’re discovering the what behind the what
but we’re not discovering the what behind the what
it’s all just different versions of the what
and it’s all very fascinating when you first get into it
but after a while you just need your what to hold still long enough
for you to get your plow in
that’s the what
anybody got a light?
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
something happened outside my house last night,
i don’t know what, it started when i was
asleep. there were bright lights when i woke up,
blue and red flashing police lights, police
car headlights and spotlights, footsteps running
clat-clat up the sidewalk right outside my
bedroom window, the silhouette of a head,
haircut like a police man’s haircut
silhouetted in the police lights on my
bedroom window curtain. and all at the same
time a police car turning and speeding
into the alley behind my house. you
can walk down this alley and pound on my
bedroom wall, i’m right there. and police car
headlights sweeping across my curtains.
a man’s voice saying stop! put your hands up!
and another man’s voice saying i was
just— this all happened real fast whatever
it was. less than a minute is all it took.
the police were on the street, their blue and red
lights flashing for a while longer. the police
helicopter came over, its searchlight
shining down on the alley and my wall
and my kitchen window, where i stood in
the dark inside my home, peeking out through
the blinds at i don’t know what. this morning
there were shattered beer bottles on the corner
down the street, near where the blue and red lights
were when i was at the kitchen window.
shards on the concrete just across from
the playground at the lutheran school,
next to my friend mary the retired
librarian’s house. me and mary
and the lutheran children, all safe now
in the bright daylight from we don’t know what.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
i ordered some chaos the other night
but when it arrived
it was piping hot
and had been sliced into squares
i sprinkled it with black holes
stirring them in well
kinking and curving all its straight lines
cooling it cooler than the coldest ice
edible it was not, so i drank it
wiping my vanishing mouth
with the back of my disappearing hand
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
new orleans drowns
new orleans drowns and i sit in a coffeeshop
new orleans drowns and i sit in a plastic wicker chair
at a dark green table on the patio of a coffeeshop in a city in new mexico
new orleans drowns and the cries go up for help
please help us god we are drowning
we are forsaken, stranded, dying of thirst
water everywhere but none to drink
we are awash in the poisoned sea
new orleans drowns
new orleans drowns and the faces and voices on the television news
are black if they are in new orleans
raising their voices and their hands to plead for help and deliver us into their rage
new orleans drowns and a black man sits at a table just to my right and reads the paper
and i am a white man and i am afraid to look at him
damn straight i am afraid
new orleans drowns
new orleans drowns and i have no boats
no emergency supplies
no heavy lift capacity
no politicians in my pocket all wound up and set to dance
set to make their crazy sounds, they smile, they look concerned
new orleans drowns
new orleans drowns and people sitting at a table just to my left talk about
the wine festival last weekend, it was fun
there was plenty of wine, lots of cheese
someone even got to be interviewed on television
new orleans drowns
(Copyright 2005, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
i bicycle through the city in the
pre-dawn faint blue light from the wakening
sky, in the blue, white, yellow and red light
from buildings, signs, lamps and cars. down streets and
along sidewalks i roll on my ten-speed.
a man gets into his pickup truck, turns
on the headlights and starts the engine, puts
the truck in gear and pulls away from
the curb right away. i pass and think that’s
no way to warm up an engine and i
hope he doesn’t run me down. he’s behind
me as i carefully run a stop sign
he has to stop at. he passes and he
doesn’t stop at the next stop sign, he runs
it carefully. i am a leader of
men this morning, setting the example
for others to follow. i bicycle
through downtown, along the red-brick sidewalks,
using the wheelchair ramps at the street
corners to smooth and speed my passage.
across the street, at the army recruiting
center, a woman soldier stands outside
in the yellow light from the building’s lamps.
she stands in her camouflage uniform
and smokes a cigarette, i think, or
maybe she doesn’t but she should and i
want her, in her uniform, with her
muscular butt and her short blonde hair
under her army fatigue cap. i
bicycle by fast, hoping she sees me
and longs for civilians and i am a
fool, but a happy fool am i.
ahead of me at the next corner a
man digs angrily through a garbage can.
he has long, dirty blonde hair and is bald
on top. he wears the scruffy clothes of
america’s lowest and most-lost class,
the inmates and homeless, interchangeable.
he’s throwing garbage around, looking like
he’s looking for something of some value,
maybe an empty can for recycling
or a full one for drinking from, and as
i pass him he looks up and throws a piece
of garbage at me—a small, wadded up
piece of what feels like a junk food package
when it hits my leg. part of me wants to
turn around, stop my bike, get off and get
in a fist-fight with him for his insult,
but i am forty-seven years old this
month and long past brawling in the streets so
i console myself with the thought that he
has probably not been long out of jail
and will probably be there soon again,
while i will not be if i behave
myself; if i am careful which stop signs
i run and who sees me run them; if i
am careful to commit my worst crimes in
the privacy of my own home, toward
which i pedal my bicycle, rolling
slowly uphill into my neighborhood.
(Copyright 2005, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
landlord mowed the cats.
landlord mowed the welcome mat, grasses, bushes, seedling trees and twigs,
small rocks.
the small rocks.
cats batted small rocks. fresh-mown cats howled thin yowling cat-howls
after landlord mowed their water dish.
cats batted small rocks, pirouetted feline pirouettes with slender twigs.
slender twigs littered the cats’ back yard.
slender twigs littered the fresh-mown cats.
bushes of cats danced along the edges of the lawn.
small rocks rolled across the welcome mat.
small rocks rolled.
small rocks rolled between the cats’ paws, under the soles of landlord’s feet.
unmown hose was rolled, safely stowed upon the drive.
landlord rolled the fresh-mown cats across the welcome mat,
down the drive through splintered seedling trees to where the bushes dance,
where the twigs pirouette at night, under the vulpine moon.
(Published Pearl 43, Fall/Winter 2009. Copyright 2009, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
my boss is getting divorced
mid-life crisis time for him and his wife
childhood crisis time for their kids
what went wrong i don’t know
usual stuff i guess
little things big things
little things that become big things
like this thing he does at the office
he stuffs two or three pretzels in his mouth
then stands behind me where i sit at my desk
and talks to me with his mouth full
little pretzel pieces fall out and litter the carpet
i found one on my shoulder once, too
i wouldn’t want to be married to that
but most mornings i’m pretty flatulent
sometimes it’s pretty bad
i wouldn’t want to be married to that, either
and in fact
i’ve been divorced for years
farting away
the boss should be careful about standing behind me
eating pretzels or not
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
i know a place where the snow still sleeps
i know a place where the ice still creeps
up your spine
and to thine
ownself
be true
do
whacka-do whacka-do
oedipus, baby, you’re all heart
but your light bill
is due
you cast a pall on the palace
when your
hanged
bulbs
unscrew
do
look yourself in the eye
if you dare
do
if you dare
oedipoo
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
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.)
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.)