“You think the body belongs to you, that it will always bend to your will, that with a simple word, size of a mustard seed, you can deploy the finger to find the itch, or—way off yonder there at the far end of the territory—set the toes to tapping or legs to running or, someday all of a sudden, cast that whole mountain of flesh into the sea. But then you find it don’t belong to you, the body, not really, not when the fear settles and the bone in the socket locks. The heart booms. The body wobbles. The—out the lungs it goes, that last little bit of sky.” – Alan Sincic, “One Shot Beetle”
Author: Tetman Callis
“To live in a world of stones and bones and flesh and blood, you gotta touch and taste and smell, you gotta gather up the flavor of the day.” – Alan Sincic, “One Shot Beetle”
“Where the sea and the land collide they call it the line of the coast, the coastline, as if a line is what it is and not a wreck in the making, a blur where the water breaks and the earth buckles and the spray of the salt obliterates the hand that holds the map. Nobody knows nothing.” – Alan Sincic, “One Shot Beetle”
“Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassions every man to his brother: and oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.” – Zechariah, ch.7, vv. 9-10
“Their father had been a learned man, an author; he died, of course, in poverty, but he had managed before he died to give his children an excellent education; he left a lot of books too.” – Ivan S. Turgenev, “The Country Doctor”
“I believed then, as most conceited young people do, that a strong rational argument will carry the day if sufficiently well supported by substantiated facts. This, of course, is nonsense. Once a group of powerful people have made up their minds on something, it develops a life and momentum of its own that is almost impervious to reason or argument. This is particularly true when personal ambition and bravado are involved. In this case even an appeal to fear of ridicule and historical condemnation would not have worked. The decision had been taken at the highest level, and a vast military machine had been set in motion. The opinions of a young intelligence officer were not going to stop it.” – Brian Urquhart, “The Last Disaster of the War” [regarding the fiasco of Operation Market-Garden in the Second World War]
“I don’t think I want to get notified about Armageddon through an email. That would not be my preferred notification.” – Robert J. Contee, III, District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Chief, Select Committee Testimony Transcript, January 11, 2022
“If you have been in a fight for 5 minutes, it is a long time.” – Robert J. Contee, III, District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Chief, Select Committee Testimony Transcript, January 11, 2022
“In all human beings, if only understanding be brought to the business, dignity will be found, and that dignity cannot fail to reveal itself, soon or late, in the words and phrases with which they make known their high hopes and aspirations and cry out against the intolerable meaninglessness of life.” – H.L. Mencken, The American Language
“I think if you sit around waiting for something like inspiration to happen, you could just spend your lifetime sitting there. I think you get excited by actually doing it, you get excited by painting, you get excited by the possibilities of it.” – Richard Butler, a self-described “painter who sings,” His Majesty of Modesty: Richard Butler
“With the change in the type and tactics of a new and different enemy, we have evolved in the direction of total surveillance, unmanned warfare, stand-off weapons, surgical strikes, cyber operations and clandestine operations by elite forces whose battlefield is global.” – Robert H. Latiff, Future War: Preparing for the New Global Battlefield
“The retina is, in fact, the brain: in the development of the embryo, a piece of the brain comes out in front, and long fibers grow back, connecting the eyes to the brain. The retina is organized in just the way the brain is organized and, as someone has beautifully put it, ‘The brain has developed a way to look out upon the world.’ The eye is a piece of brain that is touching light, so to speak, on the outside.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I
“It was announced by the Bureau of War Risk Insurance on March 30, 1918, that there were then 15,000 Millers in the United States Army. On the same day there were 262 John J. O’Briens, of whom 50 had wives named Mary.” – H.L. Mencken, The American Language (emphases in original)
“People’s lives today are filled with vice and the trappings of it. Ambition, greed and selfishness all have to do with vice. Sooner or later, you have to see through it or you don’t survive. We don’t see the people that vice destroys. We just see the glamour of it—everywhere we look, from billboard signs to movies, to newspapers, to magazines. We see the destruction of human life.” – Bob Dylan (interviewed by Robert Love in “Bob Dylan His Way,” 2015)
“Talent is one thing, but getting up in the morning and putting on your boots and doing something about it is another.” – Daniel Lanois (interviewed by Rick Beato on The Beato Club, published May 17, 2023)
“Don’t we just love the unusual when it’s good?” – Daniel Lanois (interviewed by Rick Beato on The Beato Club, published May 17, 2023)
“Somebody might study debate for five years in the university. That’s fine, but I’ve studied how to get along with people and how to get things done, in those five years. What would you call that? Is there a department that teaches cooperation, productivity, agreement, working together in such a way that you get to a better place collectively? These are the big lessons for me.” – Daniel Lanois (interviewed by Rick Beato on The Beato Club, published May 17, 2023)
“Imagine life without the ‘Undo’ button.” – Daniel Lanois (interviewed by Rick Beato on The Beato Club, published May 17, 2023)
“English, even in its most formal shapes, is chiefly taught by those who cannot write it decently and who get no aid from those who can.” – H.L. Mencken, The American Language
“The pedant is eternally convinced that pigeon-holing and relabelling are contributions to knowledge.” – H.L. Mencken, The American Language
Welcome to Bicycling!Welcome to Bicycling!
racing bike, front wheel—
pavement discrepancy—welts,
bruises, spitting teeth.
(Published in Weekly Alibi, Vol. 9, No. 37, Sep. 14-20, 2000. Copyright 2000, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
Habilis (for RK)Habilis (for RK)
If I could paint
the most necessary painting
a portrait setting
the Dutch Masters to shame
it would be you
If I could have my fingers play
in perfect rhythms and changes across
the strings and frets
a pure and balanced melody
it would be you
If I could make my
feet to move
and carry me across the floor
with grace and sureness in the dance
it would be you
But I fingerpaint
play the kazoo
and crawl everywhere I go
And there’s no making of mine
that will make you mine
and no more need be said.
(Published in Weekly Alibi, Vol. 9, No. 6, Feb. 10-16, 2000. Copyright 2000, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.” – Richard P. Feynman’s last words, as reported by Alan Lightman in “The One and Only”
Personals: I Saw UPersonals: I Saw U
You:
Sitting in the sun,
smoking, doing
the crossword puzzle
on your lap.
Me:
Stumbling by,
unwashed and hungover,
passing rancid gas.
Luckily, downwind.
(Published in Weekly Alibi, Vol. 8, No. 6, Feb. 11-17, 1999. Copyright 1999, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
MagicMagic
She said, “You’re cute
and everything,
but save your crystals and auras—
You want to talk
magic
with me, lover-boy, give me your
fractal components
of the self-replicating
inflationary universe, or give me your
omnidirectional time-line
of subatomic particles,
or give me your imaginary number
in the tachyon formula—
or fuck it, just shut up
and give me your tongue.”
(Published in Weekly Alibi, Vol. 8, No. 6, Feb. 11-17, 1999. Copyright 1999, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“It is usually the case that at the end of a voyage, where there has been the finest weather, and no disaster, the crew have a wearied and worn-out appearance. They never sleep longer than four hours at a time, and are seldom called without being really in need of more rest. There is no one thing that a sailor thinks more of as a luxury of life on shore, than a whole night’s sleep.” – Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast
Kent 1940Kent 1940
Children in a trench, crouching
with faces upturned—
England during the war.
One girl, oldest of the lot
somewhere in her teens
open-collared shirt, sweater
with a hole, dark hair
pulled back from her brow
covering ears; dark eyes
hopeful and anxious
in a face of timeless beauty—
a face made for falling for
across an ocean
across time.
She would be older
than my mother
if she’s even
still alive.
(Published in Weekly Alibi, Vol. 8, No. 6, Feb. 11-17, 1999. Copyright 1999, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
For Lucille, Whose Name Means LightFor Lucille, Whose Name Means Light
do something to me. tell me
how happy you are to
see me. see me
looking at you looking
around the room to see
whoever else you may know
who may be here.
smile. do something to me. tell me
how well you’ve been doing—
it’s been a long time.
you look
great (your hat is cute). your hair
is so much longer now; straighter,
too. it looks like silk.
you look ten years younger.
i’d forgotten
how beautiful you are. (i like
your hair like that).
do something to me. now
walk away.
i’ll walk the other way.
(Published in Weekly Alibi, Vol. 7, No. 6, Feb. 11-17, 1998. Copyright 1998, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“I have no fancies about equality on board ship. It is a thing out of the question, and certainly, in the present state of mankind, not to be desired. I never knew a sailor who found fault with the orders and ranks of the service; and if I expected to pass the rest of my life before the mast, I would not wish to have the power of the captain diminished an iota. It is absolutely necessary that there should be one head and one voice, to control everything, and be responsible for everything. There are emergencies which require the instant exercise of extreme power. These emergencies do not allow of consultation; and they who would be the captain’s constituted advisers might be the very men over whom he would be called upon to exert his authority. It has been found necessary to vest in every government, even the most democratic, some extraordinary, and, at first sight, alarming powers; trusting in public opinion, and subsequent accountability to modify the exercise of them. These are provided to meet exigencies, which all hope may never occur, but which yet by possibility may occur, and if they should, and there were no power to meet them instantly, there would be an end put to the government at once. So it is with the authority of the shipmaster. It will not answer to say that he shall never do this and that thing, because it does not seem always necessary and advisable that it should be done. He has great cares and responsibilities; is answerable for everything; and is subject to emergencies which perhaps no other man exercising authority among civilized people is subject to. Let him, then, have powers commensurate with his utmost possible need; only let him be held strictly responsible for the exercise of them. Any other course would be injustice, as well as bad policy.” – Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast
The SunThe Sun
pants down around my legs,
shirt unbuttoned—
the stink of my sweat—
i walk with small steps,
shoes untied.
the sun is coming up.
(Published in Weekly Alibi, Vol. 7, No. 6, Feb. 11-17, 1998. Copyright 1998, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)