April 13, 2025: “The Language of the Brag,” Job of a Poet, Old Glory”

Sometimes the job of a poet is to speak truths that other people don’t want to hear or are afraid to voice.  That’s why poets in Russia were shipped off to gulags—because they refused to be silent in the face of injustice and genocide.  It would be very easy to simply write about pretty trees or pretty snowstorms or pretty sunsets over churches.

Some jobs are simply harder and more dangerous than others.

Sharon Olds brags about the hard job of giving birth . . . 

The Language of the Brag

by: Sharon Olds

I have wanted excellence in the knife-throw,
I have wanted to use my exceptionally strong and accurate arms
and my straight posture and quick electric muscles
to achieve something at the center of a crowd,
the blade piercing the bark deep,
the haft slowly and heavily vibrating like the cock.

I have wanted some epic use for my excellent body,
some heroism, some American achievement
beyond the ordinary for my extraordinary self,
magnetic and tensile, I have stood by the sandlot
and watched the boys play.

I have wanted courage, I have thought about fire
and the crossing of waterfalls, I have dragged around

my belly big with cowardice and safely,
stool charcoal from iron pills,
huge breasts leaking colostrum,
legs swelling, hands swelling,
face swelling and reddening, hair
falling out, inner sex
stabbed again and again with terrible pain like a knife.
I have lain down. 

I have lain down and sweated and shaken
and passed blood and shit and water and
slowly alone in the centre of a circle I have
passed the new person out
and they have lifted the new person free of the act
and wiped the new person free of that
language of blood like praise all over the body.

I have done what you wanted to do, Walt Whitman,
Allen Ginsberg, I have done this thing,
I and the other women this exceptional
act with the exceptional heroic body,
this giving birth, this glistening verb,
and I am putting my proud American boast
right here with the others.

Sharon Olds has a lot to brag about.  I’ve watched my wife give birth twice—once naturally and once by Caesarean section.  Having a baby is, to put it bluntly, fucking hard work.  Painful.  Bloody.  Terrifying.  Beautiful.  All of those things.  And women have been performing this labor since Homo sapiens first appeared on the scene about 300,000 years ago, longer if you count the time we were in full 2001: A Space Odyssey Dawn of Man mode.

Yet, for reasons I don’t understand, men have been running things for a very long time, fucking up this planet and its inhabitants.  (Climate change, table for one.)  I, for one, would be very comfortable if the world was run by women.  Men are just too preoccupied with power and wealth and violence.  In all of the jobs I’ve ever had, my direct supervisors were all women, and I never felt demeaned or taken advantage of.  Quite the contrary.  These women have always treated me with respect and kindness.  

Don’t get wrong.  I don’t think ALL men are lazy misogynists.  In fact, most guys I know respect and value the women in their lives, just like me.  I’ve never been accused of being lazy.  I’m a hard worker.  If I find myself simply sitting on the couch at 9 p.m., not doing anything, I experience a strain of guilt usually reserved for the Catholic confessional.  I don’t like wasting time, ever.  If I’m awake and fairly cogent, I try to get something accomplished, whether it’s grading papers, writing a poem, and typing a blog post.

This afternoon, I performed at a poetry reading.  Now, lots of people don’t think reading poetry in front of a group is work.  I mean, all I’m doing is making a few jokes, telling a few stories, and reciting a few poems.  However, most poets I know are introverts.  Interacting with people can be exhausting for normal individuals.  For introverts, it’s debilitating.  (I’m an introvert, despite teaching college composition and hosting library events all the time.). 

But I’ve grown accustomed to the hard work of not being an introvert, and I’m a pretty content individual.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for this evening about being a hard worker in the land of the free (for now), based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

In honor of Seamus Heaney’s birthday (b. 1939), write a poem about your native land, providing historical details without being overtly political.  Instead, focus on personal details about, for instance, what your parents and/or grandparents did for a living.  Be present in your poem, and don’t shy away from unlikely (“ordinary”) poetic subjects, such as digging in the dirt, farming, baking, or cleaning the house.

Old Glory

by: Martin Achatz

My dad flew the flag every day

of his life, unfurled it like a prayer

every morning, folded, brought it

inside every evening when darkness

turned red, white, and blue into

oxblood, parchment, and midnight.

He grew up on a farm before moving

to Detroit, and I imagine him

doing chores in the barn, pitching

hay, shoveling manure, picking

corn off stalks under punishing

July and August sun, his face

and arms burning to umber,

almost the same hue as the soil

in the Upper Peninsula mining town

where I cut my teeth as a kid,

blasts from the Tilden rattling

dishes, windows daily, hematite

fogs sometimes turning each breath

into bloody bites of air.  I didn’t

follow my father’s boot tracks,

traded wrench and copper pipe

for fountain pen and journal,

the hard work of water heaters,

sewers, furnaces for the hard

work of syllables, lines, stanzas.

My dad and I didn’t see

eye-to-eye on a lot of things,

but, Jesus, he broke his back for us.

Every morning, after raising

Old Glory, he climbed behind

the wheel of his work truck,

disappeared into the bright light 

of a new day as the colors slapped

and chewed the sky to pieces.

April 12, 2025: “Infinite Bliss,” Resist with Happiness, “Palm Sunday in Bliss, Idaho, at the Miracle Hot Springs”

Happiness is always fleeting.  A good meal with a person you love.  An unexpected hug from your 16-year-old son.  A warm spring day at the beginning of April.  Eventually, all the food will be eaten.  Your son will disappear into his bedroom again.  Footprints of snow will fill the air with winter again.

Yet, those brief moments of bliss are miracles when they appear.

Sharon Olds writes about moments of bliss . . . 

Infinite Bliss

by: Sharon Olds

When I first saw snow cover the air

with its delicate hoofprints, I said I would never

live where it did not snow, and when

the first man tore his way into me,

and tore up the passageway,

and came to the small room, and pulled the

curtain aside that I might enter, I knew I could

never live apart from them

again, the strange race of their massive

bloodied hooves.  Today we lay in our

small bedroom, dark gold with

reflected snow, and while the flakes climbed

delicately down the sky, you 

came into me, pressing aside

the curtain, revealing the small room,

dark gold with reflected snow,

where we lay, and where you entered me and

pressed the curtain aside, revealing

the small room, dark gold with

reflected snow, where we lay.

In the poem, Olds is convinced she can’t live without snow or the attention of men.  Because both bring her bliss.  I understand where Olds is coming from.  The first time I tasted the body of another person, I knew I couldn’t ever live without it again.  Ditto for chocolate and poetry and Star Wars and cradling my infant daughter and son in my arms.  You hold onto bliss as long and as hard as you can.

Today was a really good day.  Sure, 47 is still President of the United States.  Yes, there is snow predicted in the coming days.  Easter week is upon us, which, for church musicians, means a whole lot of worship and not much sleep.  However, today was . . . blissful.

My wife and I slept in.  We took our puppy for a couple long walks.  I played the pipe organ for a Palm Sunday Mass at my home church.  Then, I took my wife out on a dinner date.  We ate and talked about the state of the world and country and politics and friends and family.  When we got home, I got in my pajamas and worked on a new poem (the one included below).

Now, this bliss isn’t going to last.  I know that.  Something will come along to fuck it up.  That’s just life.  But tonight, sitting on my couch, typing this blogpost, I accept the miracle of bliss.  Yes, I said miracle.  Lots of people would say that walking your dog or spending time with a loved one or feeling the sun on your face are not miracles, but they really are.

Tomorrow, I have to play two church services in the morning.  In the afternoon, I’m going to be reading poetry at a local venue.  Then, in the evening, I’ll be leading a poetry workshop.  For me, those are all miracles, too, because they bliss me out.  

I know the world right now is difficult, especially in the United States.  However, I refuse to walk around in fear and anger every waking moment.  That doesn’t mean I’m going to hide my head in the sand.  I can be aware of all the abuses of the U.S. Constitution and civil rights and human decency, but I won’t give surrender joy.  Joy is a bigger weapon than violence or hatred or vitriol.

So, resist with happiness.  Revolt with joy.  Protest with miracles.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about miracles for today, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem that begins In Bliss, Idaho, at the Miracle Hot Springs . . .  What might happen to a speaker in such a place?  Perhaps she finds true happiness and witnesses divine grace, but she might just as easily encounter obstacles that prevent either, such as a mosquito swarm or throngs of tourists wearing Snoopy t-shirts.  Share all the quirky details with your reader.

Palm Sunday in Bliss, Idaho, at the Miracle Hot Springs

by:  Martin Achatz

We the faithful smother ourselves in mud,

press it into foot ulcers, swallow handfuls

to quell indigestion and stomach cancers,

drop it into eyes clouded with cataracts, 

brush teeth and scrub bald heads with it

because we crave miracles.  In Lourdes, 

disciples come in wheelchairs, on stretchers, 

wait to bathe in the grotto’s water, be cleansed

of twisted limbs and broken hearts.  In Bliss,

the alkaline spring simmers at 106 degrees

Fahrenheit, but the Virgin Mary has never

made a personal appearance here.  Yet we still

baptize ourselves until our skin shouts hosannas 

as the sun rides its donkey across cornflower 

heavens toward the waiting arms, willing 

body of beautiful and miraculous night.

April 5, 2025: "Monarchs," Butterfly Moment, "Things I Learned About Politics from My Dad"

Some moments in life change you irreversibly.  Kindergarten.  First crush and kiss.  High school graduation.  First sex.  College.  Weddings.  Funerals.  Parenthood.  Serious illness.

There's the old saying that the only constant in life is change.  As much as I would have liked to stay chronologically around 25 or 30 years old, time marches on, bringing all kinds of transformations.  Chrysalis into butterfly.  Butterfly into sunlight.

Sharon Olds has a butterfly moment . . . 

Monarchs

by: Sharon Olds

          (for P. W.)

All morning, as I sit, thinking of you,

the Monarchs are passing.  Seven stories up,

to the left of the river, they are making their way

south, their wings the dry red of

your hands like butchers' hands, the raised

veins of their wings like your scars.

I could scarcely feel your massive rough

palms on me, your touch was so light,

the chapped scrape of an insect's leg

across my breast.  No one had ever

touched me before.  I didn't know enough to

open my legs, but felt your thighs,

feathered with red, gold hairs,

          opening

between my legs

like a pair of wings.

The hinged print of my blood of your thighs--

a winged creature, pinned there--

and then you left, as you were to leave

over and over, the butterflies moving

in masses past my window, floating

south to their transformation, crossing over

boarders in the night, the diffuse blood-red

cloud of them, my body under yours,

the beauty and silence of the great migrations.

Olds seems to be writing about her first sexual experience--something intimate and universal at the same time.  There's great beauty in what she says.  However, there's also fear and violence mixed in, as well.  I suppose any "first" conjures up these kinds of mixed emotions.

You've probably noticed that I haven't been posting much recently.  I've been finding it difficult these days to put any thoughts on a page/screen.  The reasons are manifold (writer's block, busyness, exhaustion), but they all boil down to one thing:  truth is stranger than fiction or poetry these days.  Each morning, when I perform my first doom scroll, I don't feel inspired to create anything.  Rather, doing this makes me lose focus, enrages, shocks, and embarrasses me.  

Hence, I've been spending most of my days and evenings doing anything to distract myself from this American horror story, mostly by binging seasons of television cooking shows.  Or watching movies I've already seen 500 times.  Or just laying down and closing my eyes.

Of course I have political thoughts.  Yes, I'm worried that Constitutional freedom of speech is going the way of the dodo.  Certainly, the mass deportations sicken me.  Sure, I get physically ill when I read about college students being disappeared for writing an op-ed criticizing #47.   And let's not forget what else is joining the endangered species list now:  the money in my retirement accounts.

So, I've been distracted quite a bit by the collapse of democracy in the United States.  That's why I haven't been blogging or writing much.  I try not to talk politics much during the day.  I'm not afraid of expressing my opinions.  Just ask my wife.  But I'm not a political poet for the most part, and, in my jobs for the library and university, I'm supposed to remain non-partisan.  

Today, however, I was asked by a good friend to speak at the Hands Off protest in Marquette, Michigan.  My topic:  the dismantling of the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the spending freeze of its grants and awards.  Over 3,500 people showed up and marched and chanted and cheered.  (To put that into perspective:  that's about 1/10 of the entire population of the city.)  There were seniors and kids, college students and military veterans, tribal leaders and poets.

Now, by nature I'm an introvert.  I know that's hard to believe.  My jobs require me to do a lot of public speaking, and I love interacting with audience members at events I attend and/or host.  As I stood listening to the speakers and performers before me this afternoon, I found myself becoming quite anxious.  These individuals knew how to fire up a crowd.  Generally, very few people chant and cheer at poetry readings.  (Perhaps this should change?)

Eventually, my friend called me to the mic, and I climbed the ramp to speak, looked out at the crowd, and opened my mouth.  I can't remember exactly what I said or how I said it.  I had my facts and talking points.  Had gone over them.  And over them.  And over them.  Until they were like breath.  So, when the words started coming out of my mouth, it was almost like singing a song from the 1980s.  I didn't really have to think all that much.  Of course, I ended with a poem.  

And people cheered and laughed and applauded.  If you've never had over three thousand people screaming and clapping for you, I highly recommend the experience.

Of course, the message I was delivering was much more important than the messenger.  I was there to ask people to support their libraries and museums and arts organizations.  That's it.  It's not a controversial message.  Everyone (Democrats, Republicans, straight, LGBTQIA+, citizens, immigrants) benefits from these resources.  

I spoke up and out.  Visited with the a few of the rally's attendees.  Grabbed a cookie.  Left.  It felt good.  Hopeful even.  It changed me.

If we have a presidential election in four years, and a Democrat wins, I think I would make a pretty good inaugural poet.  

Saint Marty wrote about this butterfly moment in his life tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem in which every line begins with the words I remember . . .  Here are some sample lines to help inspire you:  I remember the giant Modess sign on the lawn where we watched fireworks / I remember asking my mother "what's a tampon?" (she did not answer).  For further inspiration, check out Joe Brainard's book, I Remember.  Aim to use fresh, personal, and unexpected language in your poem as you repeat I remember at the opening of every line.

Things I Learned About Politics from My Dad

by: Martin Achatz

I remember him taking me to the John Birch Society

     bookstore some nights, where he would vanish

     into the backroom to listen to someone speak

     while I read Nancy Drew books.

I remember I loved Nancy, her tight-fitting

     sweaters, the mysteries of the melting coins

     or the disappearing diamonds or galloping

     ghost bus.

I remember the radio in the corner playing

     "Wipe Out," its insane laugh, driving drums,

     how I bobbed my head, slapped my fingers

     against my knees, imagined Nancy twisting

     and grinding and jiggling in front of me.

I remember plates of bagels by the store's cash

     register, an old (to me) Black janitor wearing

     a Pearl Harbor baseball cap handing me

     an Asiago dripping with cream cheese,

     telling me how his son loved Nancy Drew,

     too, but was killed by Viet Cong 

     in country, even though I had no idea

     where "in country" was.

I remember my dad collecting me after

     the backroom speaker was done,

     him so angry, talking all the way

     home about commies and pinkos

     and Jimmy Carter.

I remember wondering, in my bed at night,

     if I was a pinko for dreaming of Nancy

     naked while the janitor's son stared up

     at strange, alien stars and surrendered 

     his last breath.

I remember how, when my dad was dying,

     he looked like he was marching

     off to war in his hospital bed,

     his legs kicking, moving,

     his face a loaded gun.

I remember thinking to myself

     this was a case for Nancy Drew--

     The Mystery of the Father's Ghost--

     my dad storming the Pearly Gates,

     trying to Make Heaven Great Again.