The Art of Tetman Callis

Some of the stories and poems may be inappropriate for persons under 16

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Entries Tagged as 'Oniontown'

Publication Notice

January 23rd, 2014 · 2 Comments

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   Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

What the Dead Can Do

November 27th, 2013 · No Comments

Fourteen degrees Fahrenheit at daybreak. The stairwell smells of dirty diapers and stale cigarette smoke. A man dressed several levels below stylish picks through the garbage bin behind a business. Three blocks away at three o’clock this morning, a man was shot to death on the street. The subjective impression of his last moments are […]

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Tags: Economics · Oniontown · Poems · Words

Two-Four Time

November 25th, 2013 · No Comments

The clouds relax, the snow shakes loose. Icy dandruff coats the shoulders of the roads. The sky is gray, the lake is green and still. Gulls threaten each other for scraps. A man stands on the breakwater, shouts at the lake, “Jah! Allah! Motherfucker Santa!” A commercial truck backs up on the street, its beeper […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

The Bell

November 16th, 2013 · No Comments

The joggers and joggettes of Evanston gather in packs on grizzly November days and run south into Oniontown. At their head is the crier who clangs his bell and calls, “Stand aside! Stand aside!” The joggers and joggettes are young and slender and beautiful, their faces unlined, brows unfurrowed, their clothing new and unfrayed, well-styled […]

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Tags: Economics · Oniontown · Poems · Words

What You Know and When You Know It

November 3rd, 2013 · No Comments

When you are young and you move to a new place, you know you are going there to live. Everything there is fresh and very important. When you are older, past the mid-point of your life, and you move to a new place, you know you are going there to die, and you know it […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Up Evanston Way

November 2nd, 2013 · No Comments

Mansions for sale up Evanston way Along Edgemere Court private drive three-point-five million a pop Thirty-five thousand a year to heat and cool Servants’ quarters around back Never been any slaves up here Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Economics · Oniontown · Poems · Words

Clarified

October 20th, 2013 · No Comments

Squirrels in West Rogers Park are fat. Skin ’em and gut ’em and stuff ’em with cloves of sauteed garlic. Sprinkle with black pepper. Wrap ’em in foil. Set ’em to baking in the coals. They come out all juicy, the meat melting off the bones. The skulls can be dipped in clarified butter and […]

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Tags: Economics · Oniontown · Poems · Words

Where the Danger Lies

October 18th, 2013 · No Comments

Nine out of ten doctors will tell you that the crazy guy who gathers sopping newspapers off the sidewalk in the rain while talking to no one you can see about all the reading he now has to do is a crazy guy. He stops talking when people draw near, he’s not that crazy. He […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Counting the Hours

October 8th, 2013 · No Comments

Hell in a very small place is directly beneath my feet. Las Hermanas de Las Dolorosas live if you want to call it living in the apartment below my soles. Their bickering ends only when one or both of them lose or loses consciousness. O to sleep and not to scream. They are up and […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Certificate

October 4th, 2013 · No Comments

A woman sat in a canvas folding chair by the lake. The day was still and water calm. Mist in the sky blurred the horizon. She held her wallet in her lap. She opened it and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, unfolded it, looked at it, a copy of her birth certificate. She […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Hardwood

October 2nd, 2013 · No Comments

The downstairs neighbors are having a bad day. Last night they had a bad night. Yesterday, at least during those parts of the day when I was at home, they were having a bad day. The night before last, etc. I try not to listen. (I want to listen!) I try not to press my […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Behind Closed Doors

September 30th, 2013 · 2 Comments

Memo in the inbox at opening time today. From Divisional Headquarters, Department of Intimate Affairs: There will no longer be any fucking between the husband and the wife. Forms have been submitted, a closed-door hearing has been held (to preserve the privacy of all involved), and the decision has been reached. What little has been […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Spit

September 26th, 2013 · 5 Comments

High over the lake on autumn afternoons gulls flutter flutter? They fly in lackadaisical manner, not in any formations or groups The angels this afternoon have been having a party and threw confetti Gulls flutter and soar and glide above the lake sidelighted by the afternoon sun, lifted by the breeze What do angels eat […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

The City Has Flocks

September 24th, 2013 · No Comments

The city has flocks of big fat finches A factory on the far South Side that turns out Scottie-dogs dog after dog after dog The forges blaze through the night Fresh-cast dogs clatter onto the factory floor Released into the parks by vested City workers the Scottie-dogs chase finches pecking in the grass The big […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Controlled Access

September 22nd, 2013 · No Comments

The police knocked on my door last night. I was pleased they weren’t looking for me. The doorbell rang and I got up and looked through the peephole. I told my wife, It’s the cops. I opened the door and they identified themselves. Hello, we’re Chicago Police. They wore uniforms, badges, guns, and bulletproof vests. […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Image

September 21st, 2013 · No Comments

I’ve lived my entire life afraid to live and afraid to die How does that become a poem? It doesn’t contain any metaphor No imagery No beautiful language It’s No, it’s not even that There’s a man in a room and a light is on. Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Intruder

September 20th, 2013 · 2 Comments

Things happened at night and I don’t remember which of them was real and was happening outside my head. Someone was trying to break in through the back windows or the front door. I got up in the dark and went to my closet and pulled my rifle out and walked down the hallway in […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Fire Sale

September 19th, 2013 · No Comments

You don’t have what they want to buy. You’re reading Thomas Aquinas on the corporeality of angels, spiritual substance made manifest through form, and not even you will buy that. It goes in the back room, with the boxes of used quill pens, and the jars of cold and hardened phlogiston. Crowded back there. Arson […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

The Church of Edmund

September 17th, 2013 · No Comments

Edmund sat on the corner in front of the Fourth Presbyterian Church. He rattled a battered McDonald’s cup at passersby, Excuse me, could you help me get a shower? Sir? Lady? His eyes were tired, very tired. No one stopped, no one dropped anything into his cup. Someone had earlier, I looked into the cup […]

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Tags: Economics · Oniontown · Poems · Words

Her Tells

September 16th, 2013 · 2 Comments

When she stops talk ing in the mid dle of a sentence or even of a word and looks at her plate or the table top or her glass or a fork or who can tell— it means she remembers what was said. When she sits with her hand in her lap and picks at […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Shower Curtain

September 15th, 2013 · No Comments

Lunch is a plastic cup of instant noodles. Pour boiling water in the cup and let it sit for three minutes. Be careful serving it to children, it is hot. You can eat it straight out of the cup. I am not a child. The cup of instant noodles is beef flavor and tastes of […]

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Tags: Economics · Oniontown · Poems · Words

Chicken Noodle Soup

September 14th, 2013 · 2 Comments

She knew right away. He saw it in the look on her face. He never knew how she knew. He rolled away and said, Sorry. I can’t I can’t do this, she said. I can’t —it will be six weeks before graduation and I can’t. He told her whatever she wanted to do, he would […]

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Tags: Economics · Oniontown · Poems · Words

The Storm of the Street

September 13th, 2013 · No Comments

There are matters of sidewalk etiquette that now should be addressed. Whom to say hello to and whom not, and principles of eye contact and gaze aversion. The skinny old retired grey-haired Professor of Avuncular Studies, with his kind and gentle smile and his friendly good morning, to him you not only can return the […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Mopping Up

September 12th, 2013 · No Comments

Wounded people, injured, sick, they sit out front of the Rehab Shoppe on stone benches and in wheelchairs. People with no legs and with tumors and one guy who’s lost his hands in one of the wars. They smoke their cigarettes, cigars, and pipes and say, What does it matter? That we smoke, what we […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

Supermarket

September 11th, 2013 · No Comments

There was only one cashier on duty and she wasn’t there. The manager was pissed off and pushed the restocking cart into one of the customers, careful to avoid eye contact. The automatic change dispenser didn’t dispense any change. The cashier arrived and told the manager, You put it on backwards. She unlocked her register, […]

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Tags: Economics · Oniontown · Poems · Politics & Law · Words

Clubs

September 9th, 2013 · 4 Comments

Foggy morning along a beach populated by shadows. Two in the shallows, man and woman, she giggles, No, it’s not…. His voice low rumbling, she says, Because, it’s because, that’s all…. Atop each breakwater a solo shadow, one taking morning exercise in front of a small jumble of bikes, two others sitting, legs dangling over […]

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Tags: Economics · Oniontown · Poems · Words

Backswing

September 8th, 2013 · No Comments

Out back of the main building in the hard-packed khaki dirt there’s a long and narrow tin awning supported on slender steel poles painted a nubby industrial beige. Young people wearing jeans or cargo pants and white t-shirts and protective helemts swing baseball bats at each other, not attempting to make contact and do each […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

The Teens

September 6th, 2013 · No Comments

Families gather in the small lakeside park every evening. The parents and aunts and uncles sit in folding chairs and talk. Someone grills meats on a portable grill. Children play on the beach and in the shallows. They squeal and scream and laugh and shout and run around and dig holes in the sand with […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words

The Cost of Living

September 5th, 2013 · No Comments

Eight dollars is the cost of admission to Greenwood Beach. Seven dollars and a quarter is the federal minimum wage for hourly workers under certain circumstances.  The state’s minimum is eight and a quarter.  These are the wages beneath which it is considered no worker could be justly paid, unless that worker is a tipped […]

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Tags: Economics · Oniontown · Poems · Politics & Law · Words

Canute the Ninja

September 4th, 2013 · 2 Comments

A slender boy of about twelve wears a black t-shirt and black exercise pants with a silver stripe up each leg like a cavalry trooper’s pants. He has a stick about as long and curved as a cutlass.  He stands lakeside at the water’s edge.  Waves that reach to his knees and sometimes up his […]

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Tags: Oniontown · Poems · Words