blue slowly overcomes the gray, the morning birds sounding
songs from branches camouflaged by leaves emerging
out of night’s sharp darkness into view as green and lustrous, moving
lightly in dawn’s cool breeze. the cyclist speeds through intersections,
ignoring stop signs and watching out for early motorists doing the same.
the air smells in pockets of lilac, tobacco, coffee and bacon.
booted cats are crossing streets, heading home for breakfast.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
the universe
the whole shebang
the this, the that, & the other thing
the quarks, the clusters of galaxies
the songbirds descended from t. rex
the people descended from god knows where
the rocks sufficient as ever unto themselves
the vascular plants, the molds and fungi
the black holes, the white dwarves
the dark matter & the centers of stars
that which transcends all that a monkey could know
& that which substantiates the dance of the atomic apparitions
an incredible act of courage & joy
that there should be anything at all
& more than that, all that there is
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“What we mean by ‘right now’ is a mysterious thing which we cannot define and we cannot affect, but it can affect us later, or we could have affected it if we had done something far enough in the past. When we look at the star Alpha Centauri, we see it as it was four years ago; we might wonder what it is like ‘now.’ ‘Now’ means at the same time from our special coordinate system. We can only see Alpha Centauri by the light that has come from our past, up to four years ago, but we do not know what it is doing ‘now’; it will take four years before what it is doing ‘now’ can affect us. Alpha Centauri ‘now’ is an idea or concept of our mind; it is not something that is really definable physically at the moment, because we have to wait to observe it; we cannot even define it right ‘now.’ Furthermore, the ‘now’ depends on the coordinate system. If, for example, Alpha Centauri were moving, an observer there would not agree with us because he would put his axes at an angle, and his ‘now’ would be a different time.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I (emphasis in original)
i chose to tell you a story you could understand
you were children, barely awake
i knew if i told you fifteen billion years
you’d never believe me
and a number that big would be meaningless to you
you were just learning to count up to twenty
so i told you it took me a week
children’s stories for children
later i told you the story of how i was my own son and could die for you
and how there were some useful things you could learn if you thought about this
even took it to heart
more a story for adolescents than for children
a riddle to challenge growing minds
now you’ve come all this way—lately you’ve grown so fast!—
so let me tell you another story
you can’t have nothing unless you have something
and if you have anything you have to have everything
as for the rest of it, you’re on your own
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
house’s air laden
with fragrance of cooking bacon
two cats sleep cat-sleep on wall-to-wall carpet
siva dances on her infant in the kitchen
cracks eggs
stirs batter
slices peppers
squeezes oranges into juice
krishna marvels
stringing cobra heads into a garland
one cat wakes
one cat sleeps
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“The more you drive a man, the less he will do.” – Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast
okay, where are you? really?
that’s tee rider’s house. that’s funny.
i’m printing. you’re fine. there’s a
terrific echo in here.
music plays in the distance.
a woman laughs. glasses clink.
footfalls. some colognes, when mixed
with sweat, smell of insecticide.
there’s one right over here. a
door closes down a hallway.
voices murmur. the music
plays. he was working with a
whistling man. how’s everybody’s
monday in here? well, it’s monday.
that’s what i like to hear. the
music swells to a crescendo
of horns and drums. cymbals. a
woman, not the laugher, walks
away. thank you. that’s nice. thank
you. a man coughs. a man laughs.
a woman clears her throat. the
echo in here is immense.
sounds reflect from the echoes
of their echoes. thank you. thank you.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
pedro hooks
an angstrom minnow
swimming beneath
the microwaves
into the drifting
internet
and hauled aboard
a fresh-floating option
for gutting as this week’s
opening offering
cooked to within
a prayer of perfection
while letting the microchips
fall where they may
pedro hooks
an angstrom minnow
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Poincaré made the following statement of the principle of relativity: ‘According to the principle of relativity, the laws of physical phenomena must be the same for a fixed observer as for an observer who has a uniform motion of translation relative to him, so that we have not, nor can we possibly have, any means of discerning whether or not we are carried along in such a motion.’ When this idea descended upon the world, it caused a great stir among philosophers, particularly the ‘cocktail-party philosophers,’ who say, ‘Oh, it is very simple: Einstein’s theory says all is relative!’ In fact, a surprisingly large number of philosophers, not only those found at cocktail parties (but rather than embarrass them, we shall just call them ‘cocktail-party philosophers’), will say, ‘That all is relative is a consequence of Einstein, and it has profound influences on our ideas.’ In addition, they say ‘It has been demonstrated in physics that phenomena depend upon your frame of reference.’ We hear that a great deal, but it is difficult to find out what it means. Probably the frames of reference that were originally referred to were the coordinate systems which we use in the analysis of the theory of relativity. So the fact that ‘things depend upon your frame of reference’ is supposed to have had a profound effect on modern thought. One might well wonder why, because, after all, that things depend upon one’s point of view is so simple an idea that it certainly cannot have been necessary to go to all the trouble of the physical relativity theory in order to discover it. That what one sees depends upon his frame of reference is certainly known to anybody who walks around, because he sees an approaching pedestrian first from the front and then from the back; there is nothing deeper in most of the philosophy which is said to have come from the theory of relativity than the remark that ‘A person looks different from the front than from the back.’ The old story about the elephant that several blind men describe in different ways is another example, perhaps, of the theory of relativity from the philosopher’s point of view. But certainly there must be deeper things in the theory of relativity than just this simple remark that ‘A person looks different from the front than from the back.’ Of course relativity is deeper than this, because we can make definite predictions with it. It certainly would be rather remarkable if we could predict the behavior of nature from such a simple observation alone.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I (emphasis in original)
the man takes the broom out to the back porch
sweeps off autumn’s fallen leaves
the cat rubs against the man’s leg
sees the broom
scampers off
the man sweeps
the cat sits in the yard
watches the man
the cat’s tail swishes
this way
that way
fallen leaves rustle
the cat’s tail swishes
this way, that way
rustling fallen leaves
in the yard
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
distant whistle of the midnight freight
pulling into the rail yards downtown
burring rumbled whirr of freeway traffic
passing endlessly behind my house
murmuring voices of next-door neighbors
home from the show and not yet drunk
muffled clink of the spoon against
the bottom of my ice cream bowl
a cough from somewhere outside
a cricket from somewhere inside
the ticking clock on the bookshelf
(Published in High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico (2012, Outpost 19); copyright 2012, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“The American, even in the early eighteenth century, already showed many of the characteristics that were to set him off from the Englishman later on—his bold and somewhat grotesque imagination, his contempt for authority, his lack of aesthetic sensitiveness, his extravagant humor. Among the first colonists there were many men of education, culture and gentle birth, but they were soon swamped by hordes of the ignorant and illiterate, and the latter, cut off from the corrective influence of books, soon laid their hands upon the language. It is impossible to imagine the austere Puritan divines of Massachusetts inventing such verbs as to cowhide and to logroll, or such adjectives as no-account and stumped, or such adverbs as no-how and lickety-split, or such substantives as bull-frog, hog-wallow and hoe-cake; but under their eyes there arose a contumacious proletariat which was quite capable of the business, and very eager for it. In Boston, so early as 1628, there was a definite class of blackguard roisterers, chiefly made up of sailors and artisans; in Virginia, nearly a decade earlier, John Pory, secretary to Governor Yeardley, lamented that “in these five moneths of my continuance here there have come at one time or another eleven sails of ships into this river, but fraighted more with ignorance than with any other marchansize.” In particular, the generation born in the New World was uncouth and iconoclastic; the only world it knew was a rough world, and the virtues that environment engendered were not those of niceness, but those of enterprise and resourcefulness.” – H.L. Mencken, The American Language (emphases and spellings in original)
we dug holes in the cold dirt, scooping small caves for our small superheroes
who rested there after battles with their slightly-larger adversaries.
the dirt was sandy, packed after infrequent rains, but crumbly,
powdery, and laced dun-red with iron oxides. the caves could easily collapse.
we played there every day, marking our caves with tumbleweed twigs or with pebbles,
or with the memory of a pattern of stones in the back wall—
or for my newest cave, almost the best, by stuffing it full with my wadded-up
brilliant red superman cape, surviving item of that year’s trick-or-treat.
a corner of the cape i left poking through an air-hole in the roof of the fragile superhero’s hide-out. my best friend, digging his cave beside mine,
said it was about time i finally took that stupid cape off.
the next day my cape was gone, my cave destroyed. my best friend’s cave
had been badly damaged. it looked as though godzilla had passed rampaging through.
the authorities took our report, but said there was really nothing they could do.
we felt the feelings of betrayal one will feel when fantasy battles with reality
and reality wins. a few minutes later we went to play ball.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
this morning, pre-sunrise, down the paved bike trail along the river,
by the sewage treatment plant, i pumped in seventh gear through a stretch
populated with countless gnats in hovering clouds. it was still too dark
to see them well, but they peppered my arms and face, ticked against
my biking helmet as i rode through their domain, my head down, eyes squinting
to keep them out, mouth barely open and my breathing shallow to keep them
out of my throat or god forbid my lungs.
a flycatcher i passed sprung from its fencepost perch and fluttered along the trail
in front of me, swimming through the air in a meander confounding to any euclidean,
the flycatcher snatching gnats from the air, breakfast served the old-fashioned way.
flycatcher, be there again tomorrow morning, in the dawn.
i shall be there also, inshallah.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“If there is anything that irritates sailors and makes them feel hardly used, it is being deprived of their Sabbath. Not that they would always, or indeed generally, spend it religiously, but it is their only day of rest.” – Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast
at an arcade, a sort of funhouse place, large, cavernous, dark,
there was an empty seat beside you. we were all of us players
of the funhouse video games to sit and wait in these seats
while the games were explained, then we would be allowed to play.
i sat beside you. you told me your name was kathy, but i knew this.
we first met when you were sixteen and i was seventeen.
you were still sixteen, but i was as i am now, except i was still married.
the funhouse had distorting mirrors. they all do.
it was a boy’s night out for me. i had wandered for the first time
into this funhouse. we sat and listened to the long instructions
as to how to play and win the games, but i didn’t care to win,
nor even much to play. i was there looking for what everybody
looks for but never can give a name to. you were spunky and flirtatious,
told me how good you were at the games, told me, you’ll see.
it was time to play. we got on our knees, as instructed, before
the video games. i didn’t know how to play mine, didn’t much care.
it was something to do with spaceships shooting other spaceships.
you finished yours before i finished mine. it turned out you hadn’t
done so well after all, but it was time for you to leave.
there was a man there, smiling and friendly and, if not young,
he was younger than i am now. i thought he was your boyfriend,
and i was disappointed until you told me you wanted to see me again
and asked me for my number. he remained smiling.
he may have been your father.
it was late. the funhouse was closing. we all had to leave.
i pulled out my wallet and fumbled for a card, finally finding one of my own.
i gave it to you and told you to call me at my office, not telling you
not to call me at home due to the wife. (but kathy, i don’t have a wife,
not any longer. haven’t had one for years.) you said you would call,
saying it in a way that means it is true, then you left.
i went outside, into the night where many other young persons
were making their ways back home, some getting into cars while others
waited for buses. i wandered the parking lot, looking for my car,
the funhouse workers eying with suspicion this old man
who had come to play with the children. i held my car keys in my hand,
but my car had been stolen while i was inside playing games.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
she asked me what sort of experience i had
i told her any sort that she could possibly want
she asked me what kind of wage i would need
i told her i would work for free and pilfer everything she owned
she asked me if i knew how to file
i told her there was no jail that could hold me
she asked me if i liked to drink
i told her i’d rather hold a pebble under my tongue
she asked me if i smoked in bed
i told her i would if she set me on fire
she asked me when i could start
i told her i had never stopped
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“In learning any subject of a technical nature where mathematics plays a role, one is confronted with the task of understanding and storing away in the memory a huge body of facts and ideas, held together by certain relationships which can be ‘proved’ or ‘shown’ to exist between them. It is easy to confuse the proof itself with the relationship which it establishes. Clearly, the important thing to learn and to remember is the relationship, not the proof. In any particular circumstance we can either say ‘it can be shown that’ such and such is true, or we can show it. In almost all cases, the particular proof that is used is concocted, first of all, in such form that it can be written quickly and easily on the chalkboard or on paper, and so that it will be as smooth-looking as possible. Consequently, the proof may look deceptively simple, when in fact, the author might have worked for hours trying different ways of calculating the same thing until he has found the neatest way, so as to be able to show that it can be shown in the shortest amount of time! The thing to be remembered, when seeing a proof, is not the proof itself, but rather that it can be shown that such and such is true. Of course, if the proof involves some mathematical procedures or ‘tricks’ that one has not seen before, attention should be given not to the trick exactly, but to the mathematical idea involved.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I (emphasis in original)
all the betitted women, all the embosomed girls,
hippy-hippy-hippy shake me to my foundations as i walk,
to my roots while i stroll.
all the betwittering schoolgirls, all the emblazoning matrons,
swishers of sashays this way and that way,
slackening, skirting, bloused unto perfection.
all the bare-legged havens, all the hosieried homes,
dizzy me to staggering in this heat.
i duck inside to air-conditions, where i watch the walls and scrawl.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“The American is not, in truth, lacking in a capacity for discipline; he has it highly developed; he submits to leadership readily, and even to tyranny. But, by a curious twist, it is not the leadership that is old and decorous that fetches him, but the leadership that is new and extravagant. He will resist dictation out of the past, but he will follow a new messiah with almost Russian willingness, and into the wildest vagaries of economics, religion, morals and speech. A new fallacy in politics spreads faster in the United States than anywhere else on earth, and so does a new fashion in hats, or a new revelation of God, or a new means of killing time, or a new metaphor or piece of slang. Thus the American, on his linguistic side, likes to make his language as he goes along, and not all the hard work of his grammar teachers can hold the business back. A novelty loses nothing by the fact that it is a novelty; it rather gains something, and particularly if it meet the national fancy for the terse, the vivid, and, above all, the bold and imaginative.” – H.L. Mencken, The American Language
i had a bowl of soup with susan at six
and a cup of coffee with cream
she also had a cup of coffee with cream
we watched the sun go down
the moon come up
we followed with fresh melon
berries
and bed
in the morning we’ll have eggs and toast
and more coffee with cream
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
1.
the woman i was in love with that year stopped along the trail,
pointed up and said, my boyfriend and i call that one penis rock.
i looked. she and her boyfriend had a way with names,
but he wasn’t with us.
later, looking down from the rim,
all the rocks looked to me like penis rock.
2.
further along the trail, we stopped for lunch.
she sat in the dirt, eating by clumps of wildflowers,
her long legs drawn up.
she shared her meal,
leaving water and saltines for the local gods.
3.
the trail back down was littered with apache tears.
thousands of apaches crying for thousands of years.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Radio means freedom. You have the radio on, and you can paint the garage. With television, it’s a commitment. Radio is your associate—you have it with you, and you’re listening while you’re doing something else.” – Vin Scully (quoted by Bill Chuck, “Drop the Mic,” Chicago Sun-Times, April 22, 2023)
i wanted to be a hero but there
were no openings. positions were
available only in heel. i would
have to start out there and work my way up,
a daunting corporate ladder for
any go-getter to climb, although it
looks to be guaranteed lifetime employment.
there might even be a pension at
the end, and meanwhile, along the way, there
will be everything i can possibly steal.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
i fall into the crazies now and then
then and again
again and again the crazies a chasm beside me a yawning thing
a virtual construct, definite reality
an appetite, a vacuum, a wallow for the wallowing in
even after washing off, the dirt seems ground into my skin
crazy dirt
crazy, crazy dirt
(Published in High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico (2012, Outpost 19); copyright 2012, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“Monday, Nov. 10th. During a part of this day we were hove to, but the rest of the time were driving on, under close-reefed sails, with a heavy sea, a strong gale, and frequent squalls of hail and snow.
Tuesday, Nov. 11th. The same.
Wednesday, Nov. 12th. The same.
Thursday, Nov. 13th. The same.
We had now got hardened to Cape weather, the vessel was under reduced sail, and everything secured on deck and below, so that we had little to do but steer and to stand our watch. Our clothes were all wet through, and the only change was from wet to more wet. It was in vain to think of reading or working below, for we were too tired, the hatchways were closed down, and everything was wet and uncomfortable, black and dirty, heaving and pitching. We had only to come below when the watch was out, wring out our wet clothes, hang them up, and turn in and sleep as soundly as we could, until the watch was called again. A sailor can sleep anywhere—no sound of wind, water, wood or iron can keep him awake—and we were always fast asleep when three blows on the hatchway, and the unwelcome cry of ‘All starbowlines ahoy! eight bells there below! do you hear the news?’ (the usual formula of calling the watch), roused us up from our berths upon the cold, wet decks. The only time when we could be said to take any pleasure was at night and morning, when we were allowed a tin pot full of hot tea, (or, as the sailors significantly call it, ‘water bewitched,’) sweetened with molasses. This, bad as it was, was still warm and comforting, and, together with our sea biscuit and cold salt beef, made quite a meal. Yet even this meal was attended with some uncertainty. We had to go ourselves to the galley and take our kid of beef and tin pots of tea, and run the risk of losing them before we could get below. Many a kid of beef have I seen rolling in the scuppers, and the bearer lying at his length on the decks. I remember an English lad who was always the life of the crew, but whom we afterwards lost overboard, standing for nearly ten minutes at the galley, with this pot of tea in his hand, waiting for a chance to get down into the forecastle; and seeing what he thought was a ‘smooth spell,’ started to go forward. He had just got to the end of the windlass, when a great sea broke over the bows, and for a moment I saw nothing of him but his head and shoulders; and at the next instant, being taken off of his legs, he was carried aft with the sea, until her stern lifting up and sending the water forward, he was left high and dry at the side of the long-boat, still holding on to his tin pot, which had now nothing in it but salt water. But nothing could ever daunt him, or overcome, for a moment, his habitual good humor. Regaining his legs, and shaking his fist at the man at the wheel, he rolled below, saying, as he passed, ‘A man’s no sailor, if he can’t take a joke.’ The ducking was not the worst of such an affair, for, as there was an allowance of tea, you could get no more from the galley; and though sailors would never suffer a man to go without, but would always turn in a little from their own pots to fill up his, yet this was at best but dividing the loss among all hands.” – Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast
junkie is as junkie does as junkie waits in wanting
junkie is as junkie has the junkie itch for scratching
junkie scratches junkie scratches
deep deep deep deep deep-set itch as junkie waits in wanting
waits in wanting lies in waiting
wants in living lies in wanting
junkie is as junkie is as junkie lies as junkie is
as junkie does as junkie is as junkie dies in wanting
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
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.)
“To enhance the value of the Sabbath to the crew, they are allowed on that day a pudding, or, as it is called, a ‘duff.’ This is nothing more than flour boiled with water, and eaten with molasses. It is very heavy, dark, and clammy, yet it is looked upon as a luxury, and really forms an agreeable variety with salt beef and pork. Many a rascally captain has made friends of his crew by allowing them duff twice a week on the passage home.” – Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast
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.)