May 13, 2025: "The Pope's Penis," Fearless, "Ornithology"

I admire Sharon Olds as an artist because she's fearless.  She tackles topics that upset people--from sexuality to violence to discrimination to corruption.  As I said in previous posts, that's one of jobs of a poet:  to speak truth, no matter what.

One of my favorite poems by Olds is below.  The first time I encountered it back in the early 1990s, I was blown away.  My reaction can be summed up like this:  "Wait!  You can write about THAT?"  This little poem convinced me to become a poet, because it was so . . . out there and wonderful at the same time.

Sharon Olds give readers an encounter with . . . 

The Pope's Penis

by: Sharon Olds

It hangs deep in his robes, a delicate

clapper at the center of a bell.

It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish in a

halo of silver seaweed, the hair

swaying in the dimness and the heat--and at night,

while his eyes sleep, it stands up

in praise of God.

You may be offended by this poem.  That's okay.  If you don't like it, don't read it.  It's that simple.  You don't have to burn any books or go to some kind of meeting where you're crusading to rid the world of pornography.  Just politely close the book or log off this page and don't return to it.  Period.

Olds certainly is being humorous with her words here.  However, she's also providing commentary on how women have been subjugated by certain Christian denominations (including Catholicism).  And she's celebrating the sacredness of the body, in all of its uncontrollable splendor.  Even popes aren't immune to the physical cravings of the flesh.  Sharon Olds finds nothing shameful in sexuality.  In fact, I'd argue that she, in her own way, is saying that sexuality is one of God's gifts and should be exalted rather than relegated to the confessional.

That's my poetic sermon for today.  I'm climbing off my soapbox now.

I'm currently in between teaching semesters.  That gives me some time to breathe and relax and catch up on some much-needed sleep.  (In a week, I start teaching again until the end of June, so I'll be back to my neurotic self by Monday.)  I'm attempting to kickstart my writing, as well.  I've gotten lazy about sitting down with my journal and pen.  Not because I have nothing to say about life in the United States.  It's just this inability to know where to start.  

Do I focus on poetry, and ignore politics?  Do I pretend that the President 47 isn't accepting 400-million-dollar airplanes as a bribe from Qatar?  Do I tell cute stories about my puppy and ignore the Ice Agents arresting and deporting innocent people?  Don't get me started on tax cuts for billionaires.  

As a writer, I simply can't choose where to shine my spotlight.  It's exhausting.  When I sit down to work on a new poem, I have to give myself ten minutes to vent and bitch on the page.  Only after I've exorcised my anger and sadness can I begin to think in poetic terms.  Otherwise, all you'd probably be getting from me is one word repeated over and over and over and over.  (The word begins with an "f," ends with a "k," and isn't "folk" or "funk.")

All that being said, I don't have a lot on my mind at the moment.  Went out for drinks and KFC with some friends this evening.  I may have imbibed a little too much, as I can barely keep my eyes open.  

Saint Marty did write a poem for tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Sit in a comfy chair (with or without a glass of wine) and listen to jazz or classical music for fifteen to twenty minutes.  Have a notebook to jot down images or ideas that come to mind as you listen to the music.  Write a poem about something you thought of while you listened.  If you like, keep the music on while you write.

Ornithology

by: Martin Achatz

I don't practice poetry the way

I practiced scales on the piano

or parallel parking when I was

learning to drive--no tests to pass

or licenses to carry to prove

I know trochaic tetrameter, no, just

an impossible impulse to chase

words the way my Aussie chases

finches in my backyard, body

a rubber band, snout threshing

the air back, up, forth, down

until she catches something in her

eager jaws--maybe a feather small

as an eyelash--tosses it, shakes

her head, wrings every drop of flight

from its downy barb until death

arrives the way it did for Keats:

too soon, leaving behind flocks

of poems wheeling in the blue

lungs of heaven like hungry gulls.

June 15: Fearless, Dorothy Parker, "Resume"

Writers have to be fearless.

I know that there are some subjects that cause me a great deal of pain.  Usually, if I find myself trying to avoid something in my writing, I know that it's the very thing I need to confront.

Dorothy Parker confronts difficult topics in her writing.  Heartbreak.  Betrayal.  Death.  Suicide.  She just does it in a really funny way.

Saint Marty hopes he will never be a coward in his writing.

Resume

by:  Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

January 22: Curse of the City, Fearless, Terry Godbey, "Descent"

Self-consciousness is the curse of the city and all that sophistication implies.  It is the glimpse of oneself in a storefront window, the unbidden awareness of reactions on the faces of other people--the novelist's world, not the poet's.  I've lived there.  I remember what the city has to offer:  human companionship, major-league baseball, and a clatter of quickening stimulus like a rush from strong drugs that leaves you drained.  I remember how you bide your time in the city, and think, if you stop to think, "next year . . . I'll start living; next year . . . I'll start my life."  Innocence is a better world.

I love that Annie Dillard says that self-consciousness is a glimpse of "the novelist's world, not the poet's."  The novelist, with a wider canvas and more space and time, lives in a fictional city, surrounded by faces and storefront windows.  More opportunity for reflections.  The poet, however, lives in a cave on top of a mountain.  In a tent on the edge of a volcano.  In a cabin on the banks of Tinker Creek.  Singular.  Alone.  Innocent.

I think I spend way too much time worrying about people's opinions of me.  In the medical office where I work, I feel scrutinized.  Constantly.  How many phone calls I answer.  How many patients I register.  How much money I collect.  How many registration forms I scan.  How much time I spend answering, registering, collecting, and scanning.  At the university, I get observed by a full-time professor every fall; evaluated by students at the end of every semester; ranked by another group of full-timers every winter.  Someone is looking over my shoulder all day, every day.

I think that's why I write poetry.  The un-self-consciousness of it.  I don't have to think about other people.  It's just me and a pen and my journal.  That doesn't mean that audience never crosses my mind.  Of course, I want to publish.  However, I do not live in a poetic city.  I live in a poetic monastery.  A poetic Fortress of Solitude.  It's a smaller, more insulated place.  Poets are fearless.  No subject is too scary or dangerous or outrageous.

It is Friday.  I have a whole weekend of not worrying about work or teaching.  Nobody staring me down.  No cross-examinations.  Tomorrow morning, I will simply get up, go to McDonald's with my wife and son and sister, and do exactly what I want.  I will blog.  Read.  Maybe work on a new poem or draw a cartoon.

Saint Marty is living large and free and fearless for the next three days.

Terry Godbey is pretty damn fearless, too...

Descent

by:  Terry Godbey

          . . . imagine the eyes staring back
               ---Newsweek article on Andrea Yeats
                         July 2, 2001

Was it like gazing into an aquarium,
looking into their eyes,
tendrils of hair still swaying,
as the bubbles stopped,
their legs quit kicking.
Nothing could stop her
as she drowned her five children
one by one, last night's boats
and ducks bobbing nearby,
after sending her husband
off to work with a kiss.
Did she tell the boys she was doing it
for their own good, that worn phrase
from every mother's lexicon,
or was she silent,
though they surely weren't?
As she wrestled
the 7-year-old into the tub
next to his baby sister,
he must have screamed Mommy, no!
but the woman who read him stories
and kissed his skinned knees
was as irretrievable
as his little brothers, lined up on the bed
like dolls.  He must have seen
that her eyes, floating above him,
were already dead.

Somebody's always watching....