i had the desert, it was mine
when the plates were flying across the kitchen to smash against the walls
i had the desert
it was mine to escape to and to wander in
its vast empty sky
hot sun burning my pale pink skin
whirling dust devils
tall khaki columns against the clear blue sky
dusty sand of quartz and limestone
round black stink bugs scurrying along
their butts in the air
menacing robber flies buzzing by in their zig-zag flight
tumbleweeds and wildflowers
dry grasses and goat’s-head stickers
clumps of mesquite and stands of greasewood sheltering jackrabbits
high-trilling ground squirrels heard but rarely seen
timidly scampering lizards
flanks pulsing with their breathing
shiny snouts and pinhole nostrils
dark beady eyes and tiny sharp claws
tails that came off to lay twitching in the sand
horny toads with their hundred spines
wide mouths and flat bodies
air of wisdom and of patience longer than any lifetime
grey coyotes with their howls
their sidelong glances and loping gait
they were of the desert as i was of the desert
they were mine as i was theirs
we sheltered ourselves together
keeping always our wary distance
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
not at all (for he does exude a regal air).
pick a name: pie eye, a stock name for drab mob.
areopagite, receive time, foe.
bitten, i’m odd.
date, name, i said.
did you attempt it?
weakling, not an artificer, is at tollhouse,
is yearning not to yearn (alibi).
law, house, and town
done gone and hit the riser.
dew-daddy said, she, son, is aware of no web.
i’m teaching of ogle pie.
ecumenical tears, my lieb, abrogate a rift.
nominal goes the road before the king.
day, come down, dismember.
(tit cankered a day for you, life. self-nubile,
you arm many a clucking maid;
so sure, you elocute car jags.)
tea service neat, egg hid, equal,
dew-daddy says, can’t count a sty, or you.
odd, that a man rages.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“The American has no national religion, and likes to show his independence of priestcraft by doing as he chooses on the Lord’s day.” – Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast
you rot.
i retch.
date, try to scream. i covet,
got cot, and my hug flits wit, rends seam.
(is nine; is late;
say, oh, good evening, maw.)
foist ads. hi ho,
ha ha—lax game, yo mo-fo (hi ho).
of old, my child, new egg,
gut ohio, rust veal,
later reign. nude, you saw salomé lie down, for by your love—
no. i/you halves. you have a liar, damn you,
talisman tin.
i opt self, selfness, tin urals.
you domesticate trysts, lose four
who never seemed neighbors. (room, me snoring, sad doze.)
lion matrimoan, i hit, run. rot name-setter,
rat ovum distinguished, i ought lock niche, tug non satyra,
eject vomit. gone, i vomit steel, fey to follow armada.
you’re gorgeous, desultory.
say it—to feed image, hit gun ire.
to negate wit, ale kid.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
no stint.
you lose elation, stench.
sure, et al. is a moot clearing of throats. sit at tidy
near dark. tut, tut—
stay—lay—i’ll put on airs, sow a wave.
to vid okay—kiss. (oh, toy! right!)
rented door on this vaj, he dial you first.
secure you die, exclaim, oh! lewd is rancid.
(weak me, first nodding man.
damn, be a capulet, capitulate easy. i be an ex.)
newer, a tenuous creek,
a kind guy, i/you.
fit, all i had is you. (oy.)
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“When did she give up on escape? She was a lady—a wife, a daughter, a sister—a lady never need open a door. Patience is power, her mother had taught her. To be a lady is to be patient.” – Jennifer Blackman, “Lady Dorothy Townshend Is Descending the Stairs”
pestilence, pustules you cause—
nah. (sit tight, rap sill.)
oh, i wedded it, lode caring hotly if i rob—
or, by harm done, nettled steed swears slanders,
coward to the dead.
tuneful cadger, exhaling, exhuming,
he starts it tough. oh, stay new. hot racing
pushes my rate. i—
i kid—
i kiddle little loser
(loser, right, yet the deed).
on royal purple pus should tie here an eye,
how ought not i vie i.
i axe.
he sob,
no, it’s a loss—
i albatross.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
mmmmmm . . .
some folks like to glue shards back into pots.
sometimes eros phones up, he says, it’s time to hammer.
you pluck slag by laughing.
do sigh, it suits a dream sadder than victory
(i ate my cheerful hi!).
i ought to grub for an enigmatic nod, hum
drum, run detail, lose i.d. and cough. i baste
two swatches with whisper, add
flirtation, tell stingray soul, na la la, it’s so—
that is, you have regal oh’s.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Revolutions are matters of constant occurrence in California. They are got up by men who are at the foot of the ladder and in desperate circumstances, just as a new political party is started by such men in our own country. The only object, of course, is the loaves and fishes; and instead of caucusing, paragraphing, libelling, feasting, promising, and lying, as with us, they take muskets and bayonets, and seizing upon the presidio and custom-house, divide the spoils, and declare a new dynasty. As for justice, they know no law but will and fear. A Yankee, who had been naturalized, and become a Catholic, and had married in the country, was sitting in his house at the Pueblo de los Angelos, with his wife and children, when a Spaniard, with whom he had had a difficulty, entered the house, and stabbed him to the heart before them all. The murderer was seized by some Yankees who had settled there, and kept in confinement until a statement of the whole affair could be sent to the governor-general. He refused to do anything about it, and the countrymen of the murdered man, seeing no prospect of justice being administered, made known that if nothing was done, they should try the man themselves. It chanced that, at this time, there was a company of forty trappers and hunters from Kentucky, with their rifles, who had made their head-quarters at the Pueblo; and these, together with the Americans and Englishmen in the place, who were between twenty and thirty in number, took possession of the town, and waiting a reasonable time, proceeded to try the man according to the forms in their own country. A judge and jury were appointed, and he was tried, convicted, sentenced to be shot, and carried out before the town, with his eyes blindfolded. The names of all the men were then put into a hat and each one pledging himself to perform his duty, twelve names were drawn out, and the men took their stations with their rifles, and, firing at the word, laid him dead. He was decently buried, and the place was restored quietly to the proper authorities.” – Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast
if i be a whore for doing,
seize not the cessation of day.
see it (see it),
hey it, nay it—
or, sir, it’s a ninny’s to-do.
even to nod to sin as it raps down heat (a pox pot
boils—excise it.), oh, hard by sad bed.
enough of hi, my friend.
cupped hands dial phone at ten
(i might fear and meet success).
live, see job/ligation—
some ought, some will—
at your touch, my lion gate opens.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
ta . . .
ta ta ta.
i see your dripping distillations
(i see your bait dangle).
it’s half a tao, this tao.
yuck. sat a bit, some sissy fuss, lynn eating.
enough, aye, here.
the rear rug cranium jig gives agony—
so, have eight.
have eye dew.
you are a he-nine.
are! i scream,
i am your retro-nine!
for riches’ fee my ass is in the air. (you play coy.)
oh, suck muck, bays a troop of lancers.
fog is a smart-ass.
between walls, here i go.
making novellas of suns, i go.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“No one has ever been on distant voyages, and after a long absence received a newspaper from home, who cannot understand the delight that they give one. I read every part of them—the houses to let; things lost or stolen; auction sales, and all. Nothing carries you so entirely to a place, and makes you feel so perfectly at home, as a newspaper.” – Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast
zup
zup til three this mornng
gzausted
got all deadlines met
or will when get to post office
mail stuff
gzausted
must go
miles to go
must go
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
it was the best of the worst of times.
a season when victorian faerie-paintings were all the rage.
slender maidens gazing with vacuous wonderment
at tiny insect humans dancing and cavorting,
glowing like irradiated mutant survivors
of defense department tests.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“It will turn out . . . that many simple things can be deduced mathematically more rapidly than they can be really understood in a fundamental or simple sense. This is a strange characteristic, and . . . there are circumstances in which mathematics will produce results which no one has really been able to understand in any direct fashion.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I (emphasis in original)
when i grow up
i want to be a quantum mechanic
fixing photons
that may or may not be there
there’s a beautiful sunset today
maybe
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
this breakfast is nice
the berries
the roots
the little lizards roasted on a spit
but i have to get to work
go down in the cave
paint some more of those lions and rhinos
herds of horses galloping over the plains
if i don’t paint them
down there in the dark
they won’t come back
reborn and running next spring
okay
you can come
you can help if you like
i’ll let you hold the torch
if we have time
we’ll spray some outlines of our hands.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Some of the first vessels brought dogs out with them, who, for convenience, were left ashore, and there multiplied, until they came to be a great people.” – Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast
subject vehicle southbound on interstate twenty-five at
or about the hour of three thirty-six a.m. was brought
to impact against the left retaining wall subject vehicle
immediately ricocheting off wall crossing interstate
at a contrary vector relative to the sparse traffic
at that hour made its way across the low guardrail along
right edge of interstate sliding at a high rate of speed down
the embankment and onto the exit ramp where it impacted
the ramp’s right guardrail with force sufficient to snap one thick wooden
supporting post in two uprooting the major segment with
a loud concrete-and-metal crunching grinding noise the sound and
vibration of which were sufficient to wake several persons
sleeping in the houses immediately to the west of
exit ramp subject vehicle twisted and crushed rested against
damaged right guardrail of exit ramp when a passing motorist
pulled over and stopped and called for help on his cell phone a second
passing motorist pulled over and stopped and approached subject
vehicle peering inside shrinking back turning covering her mouth
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
probably blow low-vent all night, rain-smell coming in.
no need for pumping water pump, little motor whirring,
always seeming on the verge of breakdown.
cat hiding under the car in the drive,
waiting for the slim possibility of a second supper.
no hunting sparrows or mice in this weather.
hummingbirds braving the spattering rain,
sipping from birds of paradise before sunset.
boys with basketballs under their arms,
standing at windows, watching the clouds.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Suppose that the true laws of motion of atoms were given by some strange equation which does not have the property that when we go to a larger scale we reproduce the same law, but instead has the property that if we go to a larger scale, we can approximate it by a certain expression such that, if we extend that expression up and up, it keeps reproducing itself on a larger and larger scale. That is possible, and in fact that is the way it works. Newton’s laws are the ‘tail end’ of the atomic laws, extrapolated to a very large size. The actual laws of motion of particles on a fine scale are very peculiar, but if we take large numbers of them and compound them, they approximate, but only approximate, Newton’s laws. Newton’s laws then permit us to go on to a higher and higher scale, and it still seems to be the same law. In fact, it becomes more and more accurate as the scale gets larger and larger. This self-reproducing factor of Newton’s laws is thus really not a fundamental feature of nature, but is an important historical feature. We would never discover the fundamental laws of the atomic particles at first observation because the first observations are much too crude. In fact, it turns out that the fundamental atomic laws, which we call quantum mechanics, are quite different from Newton’s laws, and are difficult to understand because all our direct experiences are with large-scale objects and the small-scale atoms behave like nothing we see on a large scale. So we cannot say, ‘An atom is just like a planet going around the sun,’ or anything like that. It is like nothing we are familiar with because there is nothing like it. As we apply quantum mechanics to larger and larger things, the laws about the behavior of many atoms together do not reproduce themselves, but produce new laws, which are Newton’s laws, which then continue to reproduce themselves from, say, micro-microgram size, which still is billions and billions of atoms, on up to the size of the earth, and above.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I (emphases in original)
miss america got a gun, a thirty-eight special, and she knows how to use it.
miss america shot out the tires on the burglar’s car. she held on to her walker
and pulled out her pistol.
she is old now. when she was young and miss america,
her image was painted on the nose of a flying fortress.
she leaned on her walker, shot out the tires and told the crook,
one step closer and you’re a dead man.
she is miss america.
her image was painted on the nose of a flying fortress.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
jesus loves me, this i know,
for my teevee tells me so.
he is always watching me,
his older brother, suave and free.
jesus loves me, every day,
no matter what i do or say.
i can pull the wings off flies
or spread the pretty schoolgirl’s thighs.
jesus, love me, pretty please,
it’s not fair for you to tease
your older brother in this way—
be a sport; what do you say?
jesus, don’t you love me so?
if you don’t, where can i go
to flee the angel i’ve become
and hades’ low, incessant hum?
jesus, please, don’t leave me now.
i’ll swear to any kind of vow
to keep you in my rightful place,
gazing on your holy face.
damn it, jesus, turn around!
don’t turn your back—you’re all i’ve found
who would forgive me what i do—
jesus loved me—this i knew.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“On Monday morning, as an offset to our day’s sport, we were all set to work ‘tarring down’ the rigging. Some got girt-lines up for riding down the stays and back-stays, and others tarred the shrouds, lifts, etc., laying out on the yards, and coming down the rigging. We overhauled our bags and took out our old tarry trowsers and frocks, which we had used when we tarred down before, and were all at work in the rigging by sunrise. After breakfast, we had the satisfaction of seeing the Italian ship’s boat go ashore, filled with men, gaily dressed, as on the day before, and singing their barcarollas. The Easter holydays are kept up on shore during three days; and being a Catholic vessel, the crew had the advantage of them. For two successive days, while perched up in the rigging, covered with tar and engaged in our disagreeable work, we saw these fellows going ashore in the morning, and coming off again at night, in high spirits. So much for being Protestants. There’s no danger of Catholicism’s spreading in New England; Yankees can’t afford the time to be Catholics. American shipmasters get nearly three weeks more labor out of their crews, in the course of a year, than the masters of vessels from Catholic countries. Yankees don’t keep Christmas, and ship-masters at sea never know when Thanksgiving comes, so Jack has no festival at all.” – Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast
i believe in
eating
drinking
pissing
shitting
sleeping
and fucking
everything else is pretty much
icing on the cake
both of which
(icing, cake)
i also believe in
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
my god! the lesser angels in assembly cried,
there has been a creation error! the scheme has not been found!
entry is required but access is denied!
the block is too large! the labels will not fit!
what about the handles? responded god.
there are no available handles,
moaned the angels of middle management.
there is no room—not enough memory—
the path is not found, and the internal error cannot be modified.
fix it, responded god.
oh god, the angels bawled,
the display is invalid and we cannot find the command,
we cannot find the correct copy, we cannot find the virtual objects—
and the clipboard data is not correct!
from the corners of chaos there came angelic shouts—
driver warning!
illegal characters!
maximum exceeded!
divide overflow!
non-unique forms found!
cancel, directed god, and exit without saving.
generation terminated! one angel called, relief in his sweet voice.
god looked upon his host of angels.
we’ll get it right next time, or there will be some fatal errors up here.
where’s lucifer? find him and tell him
i want to see him in my office, right away!
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Space of itself, and time of itself will sink into mere shadows, and only a kind of union between them shall survive.” – Hermann Minkowski (quoted by Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I)
fungus ain’t a critter take no for an answer.
fungus ain’t gonna get up and go
just because you say go.
black mold on the rug, black mold in the carpet pile,
white mold growing on the underside of the bed,
boudoir smelling of the mushroom patch.
bleach, ammonia, soap—so what?
fungus the critter own the original deed,
ink indelible, parchment unburnable.
burn down the house? and all the goods inside?
fungus be a spore, float away on the smoke,
go live someplace else.
be waitin there when you arrive.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
look at all this food!
on top of the fridge, i’ve got
a bag of corn chips, a can of peanuts
(roasted & salted), and a box of crackers.
inside of the fridge, i’ve got
bananas, berries (blue, straw, and rasp),
corn still on the ears (three!),
a loaf of whole-wheat bread,
an entire pound of pure cheese,
and a gallon (!) of low-fat milk,
(fortified with vitamins).
it will be days, maybe even a week,
before i’m hungry again.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Do not laugh at notations; invent them, they are powerful. In fact, mathematics is, to a large extent, invention of better notations.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I