September 30: "Greek and Roman Statuary," Diminishment of Living, Strolls and Saunters

This time of year--between the bounty of summer and the white erasure of winter--encourages thoughts on the slow diminishment of living.  It doesn't help that my birthday falls at the beginning of October.  I woke this morning to the sound of my furnace roaring to life and the taste of frost in the air.

Even Billy Collins contemplates mortality today . . . 

Greek and Roman Statuary

by: Billy Collins

The tip of the nose seemed the first to be lost,
then the arms and legs,
and later the stone penis if such a thing were featured.

And often an entire head followed the nose
as it might have done when bread
was baking in the side streets of ancient Rome.

No hope for the flute once attached
to the lips of that satyr with the puffed-out cheeks,
nor for the staff the shepherd boy once leaned on,

the sword no longer gripped by the warrior,
the poor lost ears of the sleeping boy,
and whatever it was Aphrodite once held in her severed hand.

But the torso is another story—
middle man, the last to go, bluntly surviving,
propped up on a pedestal with a length of pipe,

and the mighty stone ass endures,
so smooth and fundamental, no one
hesitates to leave the group and walk behind to stare.

And that is the way it goes here
in the diffused light from the translucent roof,
one missing extremity after another—

digits that got too close to the slicer of time,
hands snapped off by the clock,
whole limbs caught in the mortal thresher.

But outside on the city streets,
it is raining, and the pavement shines
with the crisscross traffic of living bodies—

hundreds of noses still intact,
arms swinging and hands grasping,
the skin still warm and foreheads glistening.

It’s anyone’s guess when the day will come
when there is nothing left of us
but the bare, solid plinth we once stood upon

now exposed to the open air,
just the wind in the trees and the shadows
of clouds sweeping over its hard marble surface.

There are things I used to be able to do that I have surrendered to age.  I used to run every day.  A few years ago, I transitioned to jogging.  Now, I have graduated to long walks.  Brisk long walks.  I'm sure, eventually, I will have to settle for just long walks, and then strolls and saunters.

Funny thing is, when I look in the mirror, I look the same as I always have.  I'm not saying that sarcastically or to make you laugh.  Literally, I don't notice the diminishments of aging--the missing nose or ear, fingers and toes, if I were a Greek or Roman statue.  I still feel whole, intact, young.  Michelangelo's David.

Yet, here I sit, married almost 30 years to the same beautiful woman, father of a 23-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son.  I've had at least three careers, as a healthcare worker and university professor and library event programmer.  Tonight, I got to perform in a variety show with some of my best friends--a writer, an actress, and two musicians.  I am a very blessed person.

Regardless of my chronological age, I enjoy being very busy.  It keeps my mind sharp and my creativity sharper.  I'm sure my college students probably consider me ancient, but they also keep me young, in thought and spirit.  Sure, I have more wrinkles on my face.  Yes, what hair I have is tinged with silver, but I don't spend my days chasing kids off my lawn.  I try to be more timeless than that.

Saint Marty isn't ready to disappear from his marble plinth just yet.  His mighty stone ass is going to be here a while longer.

September 29: "Pornography," Mangled Glasses, Art

I'm often stirred or moved by works of art:  paintings and poems and songs and movies and books.  That is one of the functions of art--to inspire people to action.  To understand the confusing.  To love the unlovable.  To sing the unsingable.  Art is about celebrating the whole human experience.

Billy Collins celebrates a painting . . . 

Pornography

by: Billy Collins

In this sentimental painting of rustic life,

a rosy-cheeked fellow

in a broad hat and ballooning green pants

is twirling a peasant girl in a red frock

while a boy is playing a squeeze-box

near a turned-over barrel

upon which rest a knife, a jug, and small drinking glass.

Two men in rough jackets

are playing cards at a wooden table.

And in the background a woman in a bonnet

stands behind a half-open Dutch door

talking to a merchant or a beggar who is leaning on a cane.

This is all I need to inject me with desire,

to fill me with the urge to lie down with you,

or someone very much like you

on a cool marble floor or any fairly flat surface

as clouds go flying by

and the rustle of tall leafy trees

mixes with the notes of birdsong--

so clearly does the work speak to me of vanishing time,

obsolete musical instruments,

passing fancies, and the corpse

of the largely forgotten painter moldering

somewhere beneath the surface of present-day France.

This morning, I couldn't find my glasses.  I traced and retraced my steps.  Looked in all the usual places.  Then I looked in all the unusual places, including the refrigerator.  I was about to give up, but I decided to check by the couch one more time.  As I walked over to it, I felt something underneath my shoe bend and then break, and I looked down.

There were my glasses, mangled, with one temple snapped off.

I'm not ashamed to say I let fly from my mouth a long stream of obscenities.  Of the two pairs of glasses I own, my reading ones are necessary for me to function properly on a daily basis.  I can't even see my computer screen clearly without them.

So, what do my pulverized glasses have to do with celebrating the human experience through art?

Collins is moved to sexual excitement because of the painting by the forgotten painter moldering in his grave.  I was moved by Collins' poem to write a blog post about breaking my reading glasses.  There is really nothing in the painting that should make Collins randy, and there's not even a mention of eyeglasses in his stanzas.

Perhaps, after reading my words, you'll feel pulled to call your significant other and set up some afternoon delight.  Or maybe you'll be compelled to contact your eye doctor's office to make an appointment.  Art affects every person differently.  Where one person sees pornography, another sees love and passion.

Tonight, all Saint Marty sees is a new pair of glasses in his future.

September 28: "Ballistics," New Collection of Poems, Bigfoot

I often wonder if what I write makes any difference in the world.

It seems like a lot of people read this blog.  I've been averaging several thousand pageviews a day.  The insecure part of me chalks that statistic up to Google searches gone wrong.  Out of the four thousand plus views Saint Marty received today, I can probably name ten or 20 of those readers as my friends.  Maybe the rest are Russian bots or AI cyborgs from the future.  

But there's no way around it:  poetry simply doesn't garner Stephen King-size audiences.

Billy Collins executes some poetry . . .

Ballistics

by: Billy Collins

When I came across the high-speed photograph
of a bullet that had just pierced a book —
the pages exploding with the velocity —

I forgot all about the marvels of photography
and began to wonder which book
the photographer had selected for the shot.

Many novels sprang to mind
including those of Raymond Chandler
where an extra bullet would hardly be noticed.

Non-fiction offered too many choices —
a history of Scottish lighthouses,
a biography of Joan of Arc and so forth.

Or it could be an anthology of medieval literature,
the bullet having just beheaded Sir Gawain
and scattered the band of assorted pilgrims.

But later, as I was drifting off to sleep,
I realized that the executed book
was a recent collection of poems written

by someone of whom I was not fond
and that the bullet must have passed through
his writing with little resistance

at twenty-eight hundred feet per second,
through the poems about his sorry childhood
and the ones about the dreary state of the world,

and then through the author’s photograph,
through the beard, the round glasses,
and that special poet’s hat he loves to wear.

Today, I saw several people posting pictures on Facebook of themselves holding copies of my new collection of poems, A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders.  My copies are on the way, but, as of 9:45 p.m. on this 28th day of the ninth month in the year of our Lord 2024, I have not held the book in my hands.

Walt Whitman revised Leaves of Grass his entire life, adding and deleting and rewriting again.  Emily Dickinson wrote over 1800 poems but published only ten during her lifetime.  It took J. D. Salinger ten years to finish The Catcher in the Rye.  J. R. R. Tolkien labored on The Lord of the Rings for 17 years.  Remembrance of Things Past ate up 14 years of Marcel Proust's 51-year life.

Me?  I've been living and writing about Bigfoot for over 20 years.  The oldest poem in my new collection predates the birth of my 23-year-old daughter.  That's a long time.  I wrote this book because it was something I wanted to read.  I think that's the reason most writers write--to satisfy their own particular interests and passions.

That doesn't mean A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders is going to resonate with millions and millions of readers.  I hope it does, but I'd be really shocked if that happened.  Then again, when I started this blog way back in 2010, I never dreamed that in 2024 it would still be going strong, with 1.6 million hits and close to 5700 posts.  

My Bigfoot is out in the world now, and this blog post will soon join the Big Hairy Guy.  I'm living proof that dreams do come true.  Now, will my words be meaningful to people who buy my book or read my blog?  Or will they use my Bigfoot poems as target practice, à la Billy Collins?  The jury's still out on that one.

But Bigfoot has been a good friend to Saint Marty/

September 27: "January in Paris," Long Walk, Fever Dreams

I went for a long walk this evening.  It was unseasonable warm, as it has been for the last few weeks.  There were tons of people out and about, hiking, bicycling, jogging, walking dogs.  As I passed Lake Bancroft, I stopped and gazed around me.

Everything was golden or gold-tinted, thanks to the setting sun and first gasps of autumn.  The soft waves, geese honking in the distance, fingers of long grass waving--it all made me want to sit down and write the final stanza to the poem around me.

Billy Collins finishes another poet's poem . . . 

January in Paris

by: Billy Collins

Poems are never completed—they are only abandoned.

— Paul Valéry

That winter I had nothing to do
but tend the kettle in my shuttered room
on the top floor of a pensione near a cemetery,

but I would sometimes descend the stairs,
unlock my bicycle, and pedal along the cold city streets
often turning from a wide boulevard
down a narrow side street
bearing the name of an obscure patriot.

I followed a few private rules,
never crossing a bridge without stopping
mid-point to lean my bike on the railing
and observe the flow of the river below
as I tried to better understand the French.

In my pale coat and my Basque cap
I pedaled past the windows of a patisserie
or sat up tall in the seat, arms folded,
and clicked downhill filling my nose with winter air.

I would see beggars and street cleaners
in their bright uniforms, and sometimes
I would see the poems of Valéry,
the ones he never finished but abandoned,
wandering the streets of the city half-clothed.

Most of them needed only a final line
or two, a little verbal flourish at the end,
but whenever I approached,
they would retreat from their ashcan fires
into the shadows—thin specters of incompletion,

forsaken for so many long decades
how could they ever trust another man with a pen?

I came across the one I wanted to tell you about
sitting with a glass of rosé at a café table—
beautiful, emaciated, unfinished,
cruelly abandoned with a flick of panache

by Monsieur Paul Valéry himself,
big fish in the school of Symbolism
and for a time, president of the Committee of Arts and Letters
of the League of Nations if you please.

Never mind how I got her out of the café,
past the concierge and up the flights of stairs—
remember that Paris is the capital of public kissing.

And never mind the holding and the pressing.
It is enough to know that I moved my pen
in such a way as to bring her to completion,

a simple final stanza, which ended,
as this poem will, with the image
of a gorgeous orphan lying on a rumpled bed,
her large eyes closed,
a painting of cows in a valley over her head,

and off to the side, me in a window seat
blowing smoke from a cigarette at dawn.

Yes, these past couple weeks have been fever dreams--the last breaths of summer.  Anyone who's lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for any length of time realizes how brief the warm months are.  That's why the beaches of Lake Superior have recently been so packed with people getting their final doses of 80-degree evenings 

I am never ready for summer to end.  Collins starts his poem with a famous quote from Paul Valéry:  "Poems are never completed—they are only abandoned."  I think this applies to summer in the U.P., as well.  It never feels complete because autumn and winter assert themselves pretty quickly come September/October.  There's never a real coda to summer--a last line filled with sunlight and sweat and sand.  Instead, Yoopers go to bed one September or October night, and they wake up to a world transformed with white.

So, think of this post as my farewell-to-summer stanza.  Golden light.  Warm breeze.  A glassy, Bob Ross lake filled with happy little accidents of waves.  

And Saint Marty standing on the shore, breathing in the smell of leaf mold and marsh weeds.

September 26: "The First Night," Son's Birthday, Shuffling Off

There is something about being near a young person that makes you feel older, especially if that young person is your own offspring.

I am the father of a daughter and son.  My daughter is 23 going on 24.  My son turned 16 today.  And I am ancient.

Billy Collins contemplates mortality . . . 

The First Night

by: Billy Collins

The worst thing about death must be
the first night.
—Juan Ramón Jiménez

Before I opened you, Jiménez,
it never occurred to me that day and night
would continue to circle each other in the ring of death,

but now you have me wondering
if there will also be a sun and a moon
and will the dead gather to watch them rise and set

then repair, each soul alone,
to some ghastly equivalent of a bed.
Or will the first night be the only night,

a long darkness for which we have no other name?
How feeble our vocabulary in the face of death,
How impossible to write it down.

This is where language will stop,
the horse we have ridden all our lives
rearing up at the edge of a dizzying cliff.

The word that was in the beginning
and the word that was made flesh—
those and all the other words will cease.

Even now, reading you on this trellised porch,
how can I describe a sun that will shine after death?
But it is enough to frighten me

into paying more attention to the world’s day-moon,
to sunlight bright on water
or fragmented in a grove of trees,

and to look more closely here at these small leaves,
these sentinel thorns,
whose employment it is to guard the rose.

My son is amazing.  Smart and funny, he can always make me laugh.  Like any teenager, he can also drive me up a wall sometimes.  It goes with the territory.  He's had his share a struggles in his young life and has overcome a lot.  Please note that I'm not saying my son is perfect.  (I hate those Christmas letters that paint portraits of children as reincarnations of Saint Francis of Assisi or the Virgin Mary.)  I'm just saying the kid is pretty awesome.

We celebrated my son's birthday rather quietly today, per his request.  He hung out with a friend after school, and then he came to a poetry reading at a local kombucha establishment.  My daughter showed up to give him a present at the reading, and one of my best friends gave him a present, too.  He didn't want anyone to sing him "Happy Birthday," and he didn't want to blow out candles on a cake.  Remember, he is 16 and gets embarrassed by the smallest of attentions.  I can't have the car radio on when dropping him off at school, lest classmates hear my humiliating taste in 1980s music.

I remember those awkward teenage years.  In fact, even though I graduated from high school a very long time ago (according to my son), I still carry around my 16-year-old self.  Writer Willa Cather once said, "By the time you are eighteen, you have all the material you will ever need to write."  I don't think we ever totally exorcise those damaging teenage years.  Perhaps that's what Cather's getting at.  

As I said at the beginning of this post, kids have a way of reminding you that you're old.  It's doesn't take much.  A Duran Duran song.  A gray hair.  An invitation to a 40th class reunion.  My son always says the same thing, "Man, you're fucking old."

Saint Marty isn't quite ready to shuffle of this mortal coil just yet.  

September 25: "No Things," Thingness, Fireworks

Poet William Carlos Williams once said, "No ideas but in things."

I think most poets subscribe to that maxim.  Ideas are empty cups, and it's up to the poet to fill those cups with pomegranate juice or blood or mud or a thousand breaths.  Whatever it takes to turn the empty cup into something that can be tasted or seen or smelled or heard or felt.

Billy Collins has some things to say about things . . . 

No Things

by: Billy Collins

This love for everyday things,
part natural from the wide eye of infancy,
part a literary calculation,

this attention to the morning flower
and later to a fly strolling
along the rim of a wineglass—

are we just avoiding out one true destiny,
when we do that, averting our glance
from Philip Larkin who waits for us in an undertaker’s coat?

The leafless branches against the sky
will not save anyone from the void ahead,
nor will the sugar bowl or the sugar spoon on the table.

So why bother with the checkered lighthouse?
Why waste time on the sparrow,
or the wildflowers along the roadside

when we should all be alone in our rooms
throwing ourselves against the wall of life
and the opposite wall of death,

the door locked behind us
as we hurl rocks at the question of meaning,
and the enigma of our origins?

What good is the firefly,
the droplet running along the green leaf,
or even the bar of soap sliding around the bathtub

when we are really meant to be
banging away on the mystery
as hard as we can and to hell with the neighbors?

banging away on nothingness itself,
some with the foreheads,
others with the maul of sense, the raised jawbone of poetry.

I don't spend my days preoccupied with nothingness.  No thingness.  I remain pretty enamored of the small things in my life.  Sometimes, when I close my eyes at night, I become very aware of each breath I take, the very action of inhaling and exhaling.  In summertime, I can spend a couple hours watching bees swimming in my lilac bushes, and, in wintertime, I love the slant of light in icicles.  

Thingness is what poetry is all about for me.  I'm not sure that makes me a disciple of Dr. Williams, but all the little fireworks of everyday life--ants crawling on the sidewalk, an ice cube melting in my glass of water--lend meaning and grace to my existence.

Even if you're not a practicing poet, you can still celebrate thingness.  I say practicing poet because I believe every person is born a poet.  When I've worked with elementary school students, they blow me away with their creativity and facility at language play.  And then something happens--life, puberty, bad teachers--and, by the time they hit high school and college, they're too cool or embarrassed to unleash their inner poets. 

Celebrating thingness is easy.  You just need to open your eyes, be aware of all the little miracles you encounter each and every day.  Once you get into the practice (it takes a little while--be patient), you will find it difficult to stop.  Each dandelion or mud puddle or spiderweb becomes a firework blossoming in front of you.

Saint Marty wishes you all happy thingness tonight.

September 24: "The Four Moon Planet," Too Much of a Good Thing, Sunset

Is there ever too much of a good thing?

Living in the United States has been difficult these past eight years.  Ever since a certain man was elected President of the United States in 2016, it seems as though people have been given a free license to spew hate and more hate.  It's been difficult seeing friends and family drinking the Trump Kool-Aid and goose-stepping behind him.

Of course, hatred never goes gently into that good night.  It screams, bites, lies, argues, and screams some more.  And then it runs for President of the United States again.  Love, understanding, compassion, empathy, and beauty are as rare as albino deer or solar eclipses.

Billy Collins shares some beauty . . . 

The Four Moon Planet

by: Billy Collins

I have envied the four-moon planet.
-The Notebooks of Robert Frost


Maybe he was thinking of the song
“What a Little Moonlight Can do”
and became curious about
what a lot of moonlight might be capable of.

But wouldn’t this be too much of a good thing?
and what if you couldn’t tell them apart
and they always rose together
like pale quadruplets entering a living room?

Yes, there would be enough light
to read a book or write a letter at midnight,
and if you drank enough tequila
you might see eight of them roving brightly above.

But think of the two lovers on a beach,
his arm around her bare shoulder,
thrilled at how close they were feeling tonight
while he gazed at one moon and she another.

I want to focus on something beautiful tonight, because there's enough cruelty and hate in the world at the moment.

It is a picture from my drive home, the last remnants of sunlight slowly leeching out of the heavens.  Dark clouds were piled up above me, and, as I watched, the gold and orange faded from the sky like an old photograph.  But, for a few brilliant minutes, beauty was center stage, and I felt like everything is going to be alright.  

I asked at the beginning of this post if there can ever be too much of a good thing.  Too much hope.  Or too much love.  Or too many beautiful sunsets.  

Saint Marty's unequivocal answer to that question:  no.    

September 23: "High," Mondays, Arbor Day

It has been a Monday.

I know there are people out there who like Mondays.  I don't understand those individuals, the way I don't understand abstract algebra, organic chemistry, or MAGA Republicans.  Perhaps it has something to do with hope and possibility, as in, since last week was so shitty, I hope this week isn't going to suck ass, too.

I am not opposed to the possibility of a good Monday.  It's just that, in my experience, Mondays are the Arbor Day of the week--nobody really enjoys or celebrates them, except a few tree lovers, if you get what I mean.

Billy Collins has a good day, thanks to some enhancements . . . 

High

by: Billy Collins

On that clear October morning,

I was only behind a double espresso

and a single hit of anti-depressant,

yet there, on the shore of the reservoir

with its flipped-over row boats,

I felt like I was walking with Jane Austen

to borrow the jargon of the streets.

Yes, I was wearing the crown,

as the drug addicts like to say,

knitting a bonnet for Charlie,

entertaining the troops,

sitting in the study with H. G. Wells--

so many ways to express that mood

of royal goodwill

when the gift of sight is cause enough for jubilation.

And later in the afternoon

when I finally came down,

a lexicon was waiting for me there, too.

In my upholstered chair by a window

with dusk pouring into the room,

I appeared to be doing nothing,

but inside I was busy riding the marble,

as the lurkers like to put it--

talking to Marco Polo,

juggling turtles,

going through the spin cycle,

or--my favorite, if I had to have one--out of milk.

I did not start my day with an espresso/anti-depressant cocktail.  However, I did dose myself with a caffeinated beverage, but it didn't help.  It was still Arbor Day.

There were a few bright spots.  I had lunch with one of my best friends to work on plans for a book tour when my new poetry collection is released.  At the library, I hosted a great blues concert by a band fronted by another good friend of mine.  Both of these lifted my Monday spirits.  Not so much that I was walking with Jane Austen or wearing the crown.

When I got home tonight, there was a package waiting for me.  It was from a good poet friend, Dennis Hinrichsen.  He sent me a copy of his newest collection of poems, Dominion + Selected Poems.  Once I unloaded my car, put out the garbage for tomorrow morning, and changed into my pajamas, I sat down on my couch and started reading this gift, and it put me in the mood of royal goodwill, as Collins says.  My Arbor Day became Christmas as I unwrapped one poem after another.

I was reminded that I'm a really fortunate person.  I've got a beautiful, supportive spouse; great kids; a really cute puppy; and friends who send me unexpected presents in the mail that transform me.

Saint Marty will take another Monday like this any time.

September 22: "Searching," Snowflake, Bigfoot

I'm kind of obsessive, in case you haven't noticed.  Most poets are, in my experience.  We become entrapped by our preoccupations.  A Cajun poet friend of mine became engrossed with the life of the French explorer Cadillac; she ended up writing an entire bilingual collection based on his biography.  Another poet friend loves birds; she can listen to birdsong in bright morning light and tell me the singer's name, feather color, and migration habits.  That friend just published a book of poems about her winged obsessions.

There's nothing better than having a passion--something that piques your curiosity and sparks your creativity.  I've going through several in my life.

Billy Collins gets obsessed over an albino gorilla . . .

Searching

by: Billy Collins

I recall someone once admitting
that all he remembered of Anna Karenina
was something about a picnic basket,

and now, after consuming a book
devoted to the subject of Barcelona—
its people, its history, its complex architecture—

all I remember is the mention
of an albino gorilla, the inhabitant of a park
where the Citadel of the Bourbons once stood.

The sheer paleness of her looms over
all the notable names and dates
as the evening strollers stop before her

and point to show their children.
These locals called her Snowflake,
and here she has been mentioned again in print

in the hope of keeping her pallid flame alive
and helping her, despite her name, to endure
in this poem where she has found another cage.

Oh, Snowflake,
I had no interest in the capital of Catalonia—
its people, its history, its complex architecture—

no, you were the reason
I kept my light on late into the night
turning all those pages, searching for you everywhere.

So, Collins obsesses over Snowflake, the albino gorilla of Barcelona.  He stays up late, searching for Snowflake in the pages of a history of the city.

I, of course, have been obsessed with a different kind of ape, but one just as mysterious and elusive.  My preoccupation began almost 20 years ago with a single love poem written for my wife on our anniversary.  I've been hunting Bigfoot ever since.  Two decades of writing.  I've driven myself crazy at times (and probably driven my loved ones a little crazy, as well).

Now that my Bigfoot poetry collection is being published soon, I'm feeling a little unmoored.  The big guy has been a part of my life for a very long time.  He's taught me a lot about myself and my world.  In a lot of ways, I think Bigfoot is smarter than me.  More authentic.  

I lead a life where I wear many masks.  I teach college English.  Schedule and host programs at a public library.  Perform on a radio variety show.  Play keyboard/pipe organ at several churches.  Host a few podcasts.  And I write poetry.  Some people know me primarily as an instructor.  Others recognize me as an event organizer.  I was in Walmart this afternoon and met a person who recognized me from my appearances on TV.  It's all me and not all me at the same time.

Bigfoot is just . . . Bigfoot.  He doesn't pretend to be anything else.  At least my version of Bigfoot doesn't.  He doesn't diet or exercise.  Gets annoyed by people who stare at his feet.  Struggles with grief and loss.  There's nothing hidden or obscure in Bigfoot's psyche.  If he's pissed, he kills a porcupine with a rock.  If he's lonely, he chases Lady Bigfoot up mountains and through blizzards.  If he's happy, he opens his mouth and howls at owls.

I've enjoyed the company of Bigfoot these last score of years.  He's kept me sane through a lot of insanity in my life.  (By the way, Bigfoot is not a fan of Donald Trump.)  But, it's time to release him back into the wilds.  Maybe he'll come knocking on my door again, insist on being written into another poem.  If he does, I will oblige him.

In the meantime, Saint Marty is on the hunt for a new obsession.  Maybe a book of poems about saints.

September 21: "Brightly Colored Boats Upturned on the Banks of the Charles," Autumnal Equinox, P. J. Soles

I went for a lot of walks today.

In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we've been experiencing an extended stretch of very warm weather--close to 90 degrees every day.  It hasn't felt like September, more like the dog days of August.  Today, the temps topped out in the mid-80s, and I took my puppy for a few extended saunters and then strolled up to church to play the pipe organ for Mass.

But tonight, a cold front pushes through, followed by thunderstorms, and then fall weather takes over.  I think a meteorologist would refer to the upcoming days as being more seasonal.  I guess that's appropriate since tomorrow is the autumnal equinox--12 hours of day, 12 hours of night--then the slow slide to winter.  

Billy Collins row, row, rows a boat . . .

Brightly Colored Boats Upturned on the

Banks of the Charles

by: Billy Collins

What is there to say about them
that has not been said in the title?
I saw them near dawn from a glassy room 

on the other side of that river,
which flowed from some hidden spring
to the sea; but that is getting away from
the brightly colored boats upturned
on the banks of the Charles,
the sleek racing sculls of a college crew team.

They were beautiful in the clear early light—
red, yellow, blue and green—
is all I wanted to say about them,
although for the rest of the day
I pictured a lighter version of myself
calling time through a little megaphone,
first to the months of the year,
then to the twelve apostles, all grimacing
as they leaned and pulled on the long wooden oars.

In Collins' poem, he imagines a lighter version of himself (translation:  a younger version) "calling time" in one of the sculls he observes by the Charles River.  He's haunted by time and faith in the second stanza, his ghostly self riding in a boat rowed by Jesus' 12 disciples.  

My recent TV obsession is a series titled The Haunting of . . . , featuring psychic Kim Russo.  Every episode has a celebrity who has had a paranormal experience.  The celebrity returns with Kim to the site of the haunting to confront fears and find closure.

Now, I will be the first to admit that many of the episodes seem slightly staged.  My son thinks the whole show is a load of bullshit.  I am not so compelled to watch because of the supernatural elements.  It's the human drama that has me hooked.  Often, the featured celebrity reveals very personal details during the course of filming--deeply held secrets.  

Of course, all of the streaming services are now pushing Halloween content since it is the middle of September.  I find myself sucked into watching movies and TV series that highlight ghosts and monsters.  I've always had an affinity for horror in literature and film. I read William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist when I was in fourth grade, and I saw the original Halloween in a movie theater when I was about ten or so.  (I still have a thing for actress P. J. Soles.)  

I'm not really looking forward to the change in weather or season, despite my love of P. J. Soles.  Sure, I will watch all the normal scary flicks in the next month or so, from Michael Myers to Jason Vorhees to Leatherface.  But my spirit is still firmly planted in July.

Perhaps Saint Marty should buy a bag of candy corn to stir his inner October.

September 20: "Carry," Great Poet Friend, Poetry and Life

We all carry things, every day of our lives, from the moment we open our eyes in the morning until we close them again at night.  Sometimes the weight of those things are very light, and other times that weight is almost crushing.

I've dealt with a lot of struggles in the last quarter century.  (Wow, typing that just now made me feel really old!)  Mental illness.  Separation.  Deaths.  On the flip side, I've also had incredible gifts of joy.  Parenting.  Poeting.  Husbanding.  Friending.  Working.  My story is not unique in any way.  Anyone who has lived as long as I have will carry battle scars and bruises, great light and laughter, simultaneously.

Billy Collins carries on . . . 

Carry

by: Billy Collins

I want to carry you
and for you to carry me
the way voices are said to carry over water.

Just this morning on the shore,
I could hear two people talking quietly
in a rowboat on the far side of the lake.

They were talking about fishing,
then one changed the subject,
and, I swear, they began talking about you.

This morning, I met with one of my great poet friends.  She's been in my life longer than I've been married, through some of my darkest and brightest times.  Whenever we get together, we laugh.  A lot.  She has dealt with quite a bit in her life, as have I, and we have similar coping mechanisms:  poetry and a sense of humor.  Sure, we both carry suitcases crammed with hurts and pains and insecurities, but we also open up those suitcases, put on the ridiculous outfits inside (even if they're too small for us now), and allow ourselves to giggle, chortle, guffaw until we're breathless.

Today, she and I talked poetry and life and kids and grandkids and hopes.  I know this sounds like a therapy session.  In a way, it was.  I always feel lighter after spending time with her, and I hope she feels the same.  Friendships can be one-sided, and I try to avoid being THAT friend who takes and takes without giving back.

When I got home tonight, I told my wife, "Your Jewish mother says hello!"  And my wife knew exactly whom I was talking about.  A person who loves and cares for us both.

So, Saint Marty is carrying his friend with him tonight, and she will probably be mortified by this blog post.

September 19: "The Revenant," Surrounded by Ghosts, Out Loud

We all go through our days surrounded by ghosts.  

Call them what your want:  memories or spirits or energies or auras or guardian angels.  They're hovering over us when we wake up in the morning.  They sit down to breakfast with us when the smell of coffee burns the air, hitch rides with us to work or school.  At lunchtime, they share bites of our crackers and cheese.  Maybe they go for walks along the Lake Superior shoreline with us or watch America's Got Talent and eat pizza with us.  And, at night, they brush their spectral teeth and crawl under the covers with us.

Billy Collins is haunted by his dead dog . . . 

The Revenant

by: Billy Collins

I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you--not one bit.

When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.

I resented the way you moved,
your lack of animal grace,
the way you would sit in a chair to eat,
a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.

I would have run away,
but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
while I was learning to sit and heel,
and--greatest of insults--shake hands without a hand.

I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.

You do not want to believe this,
but I have no reason to lie.
I hated the car, the rubber toys,
disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.

The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
You always scratched me in the wrong place.
All I ever wanted from you
was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.

While you slept, I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.
It took all of my strength
not to raise my head and howl.

Now I am free of the collar,
the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
the absurdity of your lawn,
and that is all you need to know about this place

except what you already supposed
and are glad it did not happen sooner--
that everyone here can read and write,
the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.

Tonight, the spirit of my friend, Helen, nudged me.

Every third Thursday, Helen hosted an open mic called Out Loud at her Joy Center--a little artist retreat she created in the middle of the woods.  Friends and creatives would gather to share stories and poems and songs and, sometimes, visual artwork.  Without fail, Out Loud has gone on every month, in one form or another, for close to 20 years, even during the pandemic. 

I was on a walk around 7:30 this evening when the ghost of Helen texted me via my wife:  "Weren't you supposed to have Out Loud tonight?  It's the third Thursday."

 I inherited Out Loud when Helen passed two years ago, and, up until today, I've kept Helen's streak unbroken.  When I got home from my walk, I talked about it with my wife.  Should I just forget about it?  Should I send out a last-minute email, inviting people to a shortened Out Loud?  I didn't know what to do.

Then the ghost of Helen nudged me again through my wife.  "Why don't we just share with each other?  You can read something, and then I'll read something."

So that's what we did.  I rang Helen's bell and read a few of her poems (she always gets the first word).  Then I shared a blog post about my recently deceased aunt, flipped through my journal and read rough drafts of a few poems.  My wife brought out her journal and read some of her rough drafts.  My puppy got into the act, too, barking wildly when she saw a squirrel out the window.  (It felt like a rebuke, because she just got a haircut today and is not happy.)

As I said, ghosts surround us all the time.  Helen's ghost made sure that Out Loud happened and the streak remained unbroken.  

Now Saint Marty just hopes his puppy doesn't unman him with a snap while he's sleeping tonight.

September 18: "The Centrifuge," Mission Space, Space Travel

At EPCOT in Walt Disney World, there is a ride called Mission Space that simulates the speed and G-forces of a rocket's launch and reentry.  The more intense version of the ride uses a centrifuge to spin and tilt passengers.  I'm not sure if Mission Space accurately depicts the experience of cosmic travel, but the attraction usually has huge wait times.

I have ridden on Mission Space once.  Yes, I allowed myself to be strapped into a seat, and I felt the centrifuge start to spin.  Of course, I was locked in the enclosed "cockpit," I couldn't see the actual circular motion.  I just felt its effects--nausea and headache and cold sweats.

Billy Collins has an experience with a centrifuge . . . 

The Centrifuge

by: Billy Collins

It is difficult to describe what we felt
after we paid the admission,
entered the aluminum dome,

and stood there with our mouths open
before the machine itself,
what we had only read about in papers.

Huge and glistening it was
but bolted down and giving nothing away.

What did it mean?
we all openly wondered,
and did another machine exist somewhere else--
an even mightier one--
that was designed to be its exact opposite?

These were not new questions,
but we asked them earnestly and repeatedly.

Later, when we were home again--
a family of six having tea--
we raised these questions once more,
knowing that it made us part
of a great historical discussion
that included science
as well as literature and the weather

not to mention the lodger downstairs,
who, someone said,
had been seen earlier leaving the house
with a suitcase and a tightly furled umbrella.

I met with one of my best poet friends this morning to do a little writing.  We sat in her garden with journals and pens, scribbling away as the morning blossomed around us.  For some reason, I had difficulty falling into a poetic state of mind.  There was a lot of clutter in my head.

Centrifuges have been used in medical laboratories for a long time to separate blood components.  That's what they are mostly known for--breaking down heterogenous mixtures into their individual elements.  Writing poetry is a centrifugal act.  It forces me to examine a particular experience, separating out and meditating on its individual parts.  

That's what I did this morning with my poet friend.  I allowed the writing to spin and isolate the chatter in my mind, reducing my thoughts into something concentrated:  a poem containing the essence of grief or joy or wonder or whatever.  Take your pick.  

I think that's why poems affect me physically.  Some leave me breathless.  Others make me dizzy.  I've even had them induce nausea.  Reading a poem is like strapping yourself into a rocket and being launched into the face of eternity.  Time can bend.  Emotions can leapfrog.  And all you can do is hold on and hope you don't vomit or piss yourself.

Saint Marty did neither this morning, but he did have a chipmunk crawl over his feet.  

September 17: "The Order of the Day," Night Owl, Failure

I am more of a night owl than a morning crow.  Those late hours when the day's work is done and everyone has gone to bed are precious to me.  Nothing pressing to accomplish.  No crisis or tragedy to handle.  Just me and my neuroses.  

I have writer friends who get up at 3 a.m. and stumble to their desks/laptops/journals.  One friend, in particular, has finished his daily writing before my alarm even goes off in the morning.  Every once in a while, I have been known to scribble in my Moleskine before I leap into the day's activities, especially when my brain is cluttered with worries and anxieties.

For the most part, however, I cherish moonlight over sunlight.

Billy Collins's morning routine . . .

The Order of the Day

by: Martin Achatz

A morning after a week of rain
and the sun shot down through the branches
into the tall, bare windows.

The brindled cat rolled over on his back,
and I could hear you in the kitchen
grinding coffee beans into a powder.

Everything seemed especially vivid
because I knew we were all going to die,
first the cat, then you, then me,

then somewhat later the liquefied sun
was the order I was envisioning.
But then again, you never really know.

The cat had a fiercely healthy look,
his coat so bristling and electric
I wondered what you had been feeding him

and what you had been feeding me
as I turned a corner
and beheld you out there on the sunny deck

lost in exercise, running in place,
knees lifted high, skin glistening—
and that toothy, immortal-looking smile of yours.

As I've said before, I make lists every morning of things I need to get done.  Then I prioritize the list, using a complicated method of letters and numbers.  (I blame my math/computer science background for this habit.)  Sometimes, the list is short, ranging from A1 (most important) to A4 (get it done before the end of the day).  Other times, the list gets a little . . . long and messy, moving from A1 to B1 (try to get to this, but it's not urgent) to C3 (think way into the future, if you have time).  

So, I spell out my order of the day pretty explicitly.  That's why, when something truly unexpected occurs, I have a difficult time recalibrating.  One minor fluctuation can cause me unease, and one major glitch can send me into a tailspin from which I can't recover easily.

If all this sounds slightly control-freakish, it is.  I admit it.  Yet it works for me, giving me a sense of control, however false that sense may be.  In truth, I know that I'm not in the driver's seat when it comes to my life.  As a Christian, I've been taught to believe that God is my chauffeur.  (Cue Carrie Underwood singing "Jesus, Take the Wheel.")  When I get lost on some backroad through a swamp, I'm supposed to slide into the passenger seat, close my eyes, and trust.  That's difficult for me.

Today had a few twists and turns.  Things I didn't expect.  My life was never in peril, but I did have to alter my order of the day several times to compensate for these not-so-welcome surprises.  Now, sitting on my couch, my night owl self takes over.  I have this blog post to finish and poems to revise (A5 on B2 on my list).  If I don't get too tired, I will tackle both of these items because I hate unfinished business.  If my brain decides not to cooperate, I will fall asleep feeling that I have failed today.

Saint Marty's prediction:  failure.

September 16: "Genius," Boiling Point of Coal Tar, Sea of Tranquility

I'm not a genius.

I want to get that out of the way first.  Do I think I'm smart?  Yes, I do.  However, I can't change the oil on my car.  Don't know how to drive a stick shift.  Stay up way too late every night.  If you ask me what the boiling point of coal tar is, I wouldn't be able to tell you, and I have no idea if there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll.

However, I write a pretty good poem, and, given enough time and some chord sheets, I can play any song on the keyboard.  My singing voice is decent, and, every once in a while, I've been known to get some laughs on stage.

But I'm not a genius.

Here's what Billy Collins says about geniuses . . . 

Genius

by: Billy Collins

was what they called you in high school
if you tripped on a shoelace in the hall
and all your books went flying.

Or if you walked into an open locker door
you would be known as Einstein,
who imagined riding a streetcar into infinity.

Later, genius became someone
who could take a sliver of chalk and squire pi
a hundred places out beyond the decimal point,

or someone painting on his back on a scaffold,
or a man drawing a waterwheel in a margin,
or spinning out a little night music.

But earlier this week on a wooded path,
I thought the swans afloat on the reservoir
were the true geniuses,

the ones who had figured out how to fly,
how to be both beautiful and brutal,
and how to mate for life.

Twenty-four geniuses in all,
for I numbered them as Yeats had done,
deployed upon the calm, crystalline surface—

forty-eight if we count their still reflections,
or an even fifty if you want to toss in me
and the dog running up ahead,

who were smart enough to be out
that morning—she sniffing the ground,
me with my head up in the light morning breeze.

It has been a trying day.  I'm not going to get into any details, but I will say that God has a way of keeping you humble.  Don't worry.  Nobody is dead or dying.  I still teach at the university and program at the library.  My new collection of poems is still coming out at the beginning of October, and my puppy is snoring away peacefully in her cage.

Tonight's genius, for me, is the moon, which looks like a swan feather floating in the heavens.  I've always been an astronomy geek, and I spent a good deal of time, when I was younger, studying the lunar surface with my cheap telescope.  So I know all about the Sea of Tranquility and other maria.  

The moon reminds always me how small and insignificant human struggle is.  Compared to the rings of Saturn or the Andromeda Galaxy, my problems seem pretty . . . tiny.  I wish everyone in the world would spend just ten minutes outside every night, staring up at the stars and planets.  I think the world would be a much more peaceful place to exist.

Saint Marty is going to go look at the moon one more time before he brushes his teeth and closes his eyes.

September 15: "Boy Shooting at a Statue," Unlimited Lives, Snapping Turtle

I think anyone can be a poet, just like anyone can be a computer programmer or firefighter or teacher.  We're only limited by our interests and passions.

When I was younger, I wanted to be Steven Spielberg, surround myself with whip-toting archeologists and heart-glowing extraterrestrials.  (I knew these things weren't real.  I just loved Spielberg's storytelling, how he could hold in a thrall a couple hundred people in a movie theater.)  When I was a little older, I wanted to be Stephen King, scaring the shit out of million of people with my words.

That's what kids do.  They imagine different lives for themselves--better, exciting, unlimited lives.

Billy Collins observes a young boy playing a game . . . 

Boy Shooting at a Statue

by: Billy Collins

It was late afternoon,
the beginning of winter, a light snow,
and I was the only one in the small park

to witness the lone boy running
in circles around the base of a bronze statue.
I could not read the carved name

of the statesman who loomed above,
one hand on his cold hip,
but as the boy ran, head down,

he would point a finger at the statue
and pull an imaginary trigger
imitating the sounds of rapid gunfire.

Evening thickened, the mercury sank,
but the boy kept running in the circle
of his footprints in the snow

shooting blindly into the air.
History will never find a way to end,
I thought, as I left the park by the north gate

and walked slowly home
returning to the station of my desk
where the sheets of paper I wrote on

were like pieces of glass
through which I could see
hundreds of dark birds circling in the sky below.

The boy in this poem may be imagining that he's a cowboy or soldier or frontiersman.  I don't think he's pretending to be a poet.  That job belongs to Collins, who walks home, sits at his desk, and begins to write.

Believe it or not, from a pretty young age, I abandoned ideas of being launched into outer space or saving a baby from a burning building or sitting in the Oval Office.  Of course, when I told my mom that I wanted to be a writer, she supported my ambition, but also encouraged me to get a degree in computer programming for something to fall back on.

Thank goodness, I haven't had to fall back.  Yet.  

Yes, I'm a published writer.  That was my dream.  Still is.  I'm sort of like a snapping turtle--I latched onto the idea and never let go.  This life may not have brought me a ton of money, but it has brought me a ton of happiness. 

Saint Marty couldn't have asked for more than that.  

September 14: "The Lanyard," Summer Camp, "A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders"

I never went to a summer camp.  My parents talked about sending me to a diabetes camp and a Catholic camp and a poetry deprogramming camp.  (Okay, I made that last one up.)  However, I effectively dodged all of those bullets in my youth.

I don't feel in any way deprived.  In order to experience deprivation, you need to know what you've missed.  I grew up happy and fulfilled without ever stepping foot in a mouse-infested cabin.  Sure, I regularly see a therapist, but that has little to do with my severe lack of summer camping when I was young.

Billy Collins writes about his summer camp days . . . 

The Lanyard

by: Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Since I never had the summer camp experience, I never had the opportunity to make my mother a lanyard or diorama of the Last Supper made of popsicle sticks or rock painted with van Gogh's The Starry Night.  I don't think she minded.  She knew my tastes and temperaments weren't of the swimming-in-a-leech-infested-lake variety.

But she knew I loved poetry, and she encouraged me in this endeavor quite a bit.  She was in the front row when I defended my theses for my MA and MFA.  She attended most of my poetry readings prior to her Alzheimer's diagnosis.  When I was named U.P. Poet Laureate for the first time, we went out to dinner at Red Lobster together.  While I wasn't a typical son, I know my mother was always proud of my creative accomplishments.

And now I have another creative accomplishment.  It's the lanyard I never made for my mom.  You see, I've been working on a book of poems about Bigfoot for over 20 years now.  It's been both blessing and curse.  I literally never thought I was going to be done with it.  Mom even heard some of my Bigfoot poems before she passed and loved them.

Here it is:  I can finally announce that my poetry collection A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders will be released on October 1st.  The Kindle version comes out September 28.  That's right, I said Kindle.  Soon to follow will be an Audible version, with your favorite saint reading the poems.  And I'm over-the-moon and completely humbled at the same time.

You see, I wrote this collection simply because it was a book I wanted to read.  I never thought it would have appeal to many other people outside my immediate family.  Yet, here I am, getting ready to plan a book tour.  Life really is strange.

My mom would have loved this book, I think, and not because I wrote it.  The poems in it would have made her laugh.  A lot.  They may have even choked her up a little bit.  (She was never much for crying.)  Above all, she would have been proud of her son, the poet, even if he never made her a lanyard at summer camp.

Saint Marty hopes y'all will consider ordering a copy of his new book from Modern History Press:

Paperback:  https://www.lhpress.com/store/A-Bigfoot-Bestiary-and-Other-Wonders-p695417501

Kindle:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DH2Y8T2H?ref_=pe_93986420_775043100

September 13: "Building with Its Face Blown Off," Aunt Marian, Joy and Grief

When looking on a scene of devastation--say a car accident or burned building--I always find myself meditating on the victims and their lives.  How they probably woke up in the morning, just like me, thinking it was going to be a normal day.  Maybe they had oatmeal for breakfast and were planning on returning some books to the library on their way home from work.  Perhaps they made dinner plans with some friends.  Ordinary, boring, everyday stuff.

Until it's not.

Billy Collins writes about heartbreak and loss . . .

Building with Its Face Blown Off

by: Billy Collins

How suddenly the private
is revealed in a bombed-out city,
how the blue and white striped wallpaper

of a second story bedroom is now
exposed to the lightly falling snow
as if the room had answered the explosion

wearing only its striped pajamas.
Some neighbors and soldiers
poke around in the rubble below

and stare up at the hanging staircase,
the portrait of a grandfather,
a door dangling from a single hinge.

And the bathroom looks almost embarrassed
by its uncovered ochre walls,
the twisted mess of its plumbing,

the sink sinking to its knees,
the ripped shower curtain,
the torn goldfish trailing bubbles.

It’s like a dollhouse view
as if a child on its knees could reach in
and pick up the bureau, straighten a picture.

Or it might be a room on a stage
in a play with no characters,
no dialogue or audience,

no beginning, middle and end-
just the broken furniture in the street,
a shoe among the cinder blocks,

a light snow still falling
on a distant steeple, and people
crossing a bridge that still stands.

And beyond that- crows in a tree,
the statue of a leader on a horse,
and clouds that look like smoke,

and even farther on, in another country
on a blanket under a shade tree,
a man pouring wine into two glasses

and a woman sliding out
the wooden pegs of a wicker hamper
filled with bread, cheese, and several kinds of olives.

Billy Collins captures the two sides of tragedy pretty well in this poem.  While he's anatomizing the site of the bombed-out building, a man and woman in another country are sitting down for a romantic picnic.  Life just goes on.

My day was pretty normal.  I worked at the library, worked on my Bigfoot manuscript some, and picked up Border Grill for dinner on the way home.  My wife and I watched an episode of The Crown.  As I was leaving the house to take my puppy for a walk, I got a text from my sister, informing me that our Aunt Marian, my mother's youngest sister, had just died.

I can't say that I was shocked by the news.  A little over a week ago, she suffered a stroke, and then, while she was in the hospital for treatment, the doctors discovered that her body was full of metastatic cancer.  There was really nothing that could be done for her.

Suddenly, my boring evening became a building with its face blown off, if you get my meaning.  For the last few hours, all I've been thinking about is my aunt and what a wonderful, loving person she was.  One of my most vivid memories of her is from a New Year's Eve party at my parents' house, all of us sitting around the dining room table, playing board games into the wee hours of January 1st.  And then I thought of her at home this evening, in bed, breathing those agonal breaths.

Poet Mary Oliver once wrote this:

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two

housed as they are in the same body.

Tonight, Saint Marty is shaking with joy and grief, giving thanks for his Aunt Marian, mourning her loss.

September 12: "Flock," Community of Poets, Nandi Comer

I think everyone needs to feel like they are part of a group.  We all want to belong, be a part of something bigger than ourselves.  That's why we gather friends around us in school and why we attend church.  We go to movie theaters so that we can laugh or scream or clap together for a movie.  I write this blog for my virtual disciples.  My poetic posse.    

Billy Collins writes about a community of sacrificial lambs . . . 

Flock

by: Billy Collins

               It has been calculated that each copy of

               the Gutenburg Bible . . . required the

               skins of 300 sheep.

               ---from an article on printing

I can see them squeezed into the holding pen
behind the stone building
where the printing press is housed,

all of them squirming around
to find a little room
and looking so much alike

it would be nearly impossible
to count them,
and there is no telling

which one will carry the news
that the Lord is a shepherd,
one of the few things they already know.

I spent a good portion of this afternoon and evening surrounded by poets and poetry.  At the library, I hosted an open mic and got to see some people I hadn't seen in a while.  Heard some great readings.  Read a poem in honor of my late brother, Kevin, whose birthday was today.

Then I drove over to the university to listen to a discussion about inclusion in poetry.  The panelists were Nandi Comer, the current Michigan Poet Laureate, and Beverly Matherne, the current U.P. Poet Laureate.  It was a great conversation about the power of words to unite disparate groups of individuals.

I really do believe that one of the jobs of a poet is to provide connection and understanding.  We transform the personal into the universal.  When I sit down to write a poem, I always start with my own experiences.  I try to capture what it felt like to be me when I was sitting in the hospital room while my sister was dying.  Or when I'm mowing my lawn on a Saturday morning.  Or when I'm eating pizza with my daughter.  You get the idea.  And then I hold my hand out to readers, invite them to join me in my grief or exhaustion or hunger or love.  Because, regardless of what a certain orange-complexioned politician says, we're all more alike than different.

Saint Marty came home tonight with his poetic cup overflowing.  And a couple new books.

September 11: "The Names," Love, "Godspeed"

I remember the morning.  Watching the news reports from the Twin Towers.  Seeing the second plane plow into the second Tower.  The Pentagon.  Shanksville.  And I remember going into a classroom at the university that afternoon, staring into the faces of young people who knew that their world had just changed forever.  

When I got home that evening, I picked up my nine-month-old daughter and hugged her.  Hard.

Billy Collins' poem for the victims of 9/11 . . . 

The Names

by: Billy Collins

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.

In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name --
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.

Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner --
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.

When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.

Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.

In the evening -- weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds --
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.

Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

I'm not going talk any more about my memories of 9/11.  Everyone of a certain age has memories like mine about that terrible day.  Memories full of shock, anger, and grief.  

Tonight, I hold onto the love I feel for the people in my life.  If there was one thing that I learned that September day 23 years ago, it's this:  never to take for granted my family and friends.  At the end of my life, it's not going to matter how much money I have, how many books I've written, or how famous I am.  What is going to matter is how much I've loved and how much I was loved.  

That's Saint Marty's wish for you all this evening--love.

Godspeed

by: Martin Achatz

I write these words over two weeks
past the time I last spoke with you,
when you called me from your bed,
said in a voice so weak it sounded
like dandelion seeds in August,
“Always,” letting me know this would be
our last time together, that you were
done with this stupid blue marble
floating in this ever-expanding
universe, wanted to spread your arms
and soar. I write these words two
days after we all gathered to say
goodbye, Godspeed, thanks
in the rain, where table napkins
with daisies on them melted
into a puddle of beached jellyfish.
And I write these words twenty-
one years and one day after
the planes hit the Towers
and people dialed their husbands,
wives, sisters, brothers, children,
lovers, friends to say one more time
“I love you” and “I will always
be there.” Yesterday, I saw
the picture of a man who leapt
from a window in Tower One,
him diving down, arms glued
to his legs. I hope that he felt
like an eagle or kite or seraphim
as he sailed and spun. Hope
that the wind in his face reminded
him of that day as a kid
when his dad pushed him
on the playground
swing so high he thought
he would keep rising, rising
at the speed of God.