October 27: "Hell," Iambic Damnation, Clouds and Stars

I suppose we all have different versions of Hell, because each person harbors a different of punishment.  For example, I can't think of a better way to spend a couple hours than reading a collection of poetry.  For someone else, those 120 minutes would seem like an eternity of iambic damnation.

Billy Collins has his own ideas about damnation . . . 

Hell

by: Billy Collins

I have a feeling that it is much worse
than shopping for a mattress at a mall,

of greater duration without question,
and there is no random pitchforking here,
no licking flames to fear,
only this cavernous store with its maze of bedding.

Yet wandering past the jovial kings,
the more sensible queens,
and the cheerless singles
no scarlet sheet will ever cover,

I am thinking of a passage from the Inferno,
which I could fully bring to mind
and recite in English or even Italian

if the salesman who has been following us--
a crumpled pack of Newports
visible in the pocket of his short sleeve shirt--
would stop insisting for a moment
that we test this one, then this softer one,

which we do by lying down side by side,
arms rigid, figures on a tomb,
powerless to imagine what it would be like

to sleep or love this way
under the punishing rows of fluorescent lights,
which Dante might have included
had he been able to lie on his back between us here today.

Dante starts his descent into the Inferno with these lines:

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

I am a little past midway on my journey of life, and I frequently feel lost within a forest dark.  Of course, the poet Virgil doesn't make house calls anymore, so I don't have a spirit guide to bring me back to the straight and narrow path.  I just have to keep keep stumbling along until I find my way.

With my wife's emergency surgery on Friday, I have found myself completely exhausted these last couple of days.  All I want to do is grab a pillow and blanket, put an old movie on Netflix, and go to sleep.  I have been able to take one or two naps, but not enough to feel completely restored.

If you're wondering what my version of Hell would look like, you probably can make some educated guesses.  Certainly, it involves sleep deprivation.  Adam Sandler movies 24/7.  Liver and onions for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  The Felon in Chief as President of the United States.  And a distinct lack of poetry (or only poetry written by the Felon in Chief).

I went for a walk this evening after I led an online poetry workshop.  The theme of the workshop was monsters, so we wrote about Bigfoot and Dracula and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.  On my stroll around the block afterward, I felt those monsters pacing me in the dark.  (It didn't help that my neighbors are fully Halloweened up with lights and inflatables and skeletons.)  

But the heavens above Saint Marty were gauzy with clouds and stars.  

August 31: "Writing in the Afterlife," Eternal Punishment, Fluffing Clouds

I grew up with a Catholic concept of the afterlife:  Heaven, Hell, Limbo, Purgatory.  If you've read Dante's The Divine Comedy, you know what I'm talking about.  Of course, other world religions and mythologies have versions of the afterlife, as well.  Most of them involve places of eternal punishment and eternal reward.  

Billy Collins has his own poetic version of what comes after breath and heartbeat . . . 

Writing in the Afterlife

by: Billy Collins

I imagined the atmosphere would be clear,
shot with pristine light,
not this sulfurous haze,
the air ionized as before a thunderstorm.

Many have pictured a river here,
but no one mentioned all the boats,
their benches crowded with naked passengers,
each bent over a writing tablet.

I knew I would not always be a child
with a model train and a model tunnel,
and I knew I would not live forever,
jumping all day through the hoop of myself.

I had heard about the journey to the other side
and the clink of the final coin
in the leather purse of the man holding the oar,
but how could anyone have guessed

that as soon as we arrived
we would be asked to describe this place
and to include as much detail as possible—
not just the water, he insists,

rather the oily, fathomless, rat-happy water,
not simply the shackles, but the rusty,
iron, ankle-shredding shackles—
and that our next assignment would be

to jot down, off the tops of our heads,
our thoughts and feelings about being dead,
not really an assignment,
the man rotating the oar keeps telling us—

think of it more as an exercise, he groans,
think of writing as a process,
a never-ending, infernal process,
and now the boats have become jammed together,

bow against stern, stern locked to bow,
and not a thing is moving, only our diligent pens.

I wouldn't mind if the afterlife was a lot like today.  Sleeping in.  Leisurely breakfast of leftover prime rib on toast.  A walk with my wife and dog.  Cleaning the house (I'm not against a little work in Heaven--polishing stars, fluffing clouds, etc.).  Playing the pipe organ for Mass (no harps or lyres for me, please).  An evening of dinner and a movie with some best friends.  It was kind of perfect.

But I know that perfection for me is not perfection for everyone.  For example, Billy Collins' vision of the afterlife seems far from perfect--ankle-shredding shackles, an eternal sulfurous river of boats, rat-happy water, and a logjam of naked, suffering souls.  The one part of Collins' life-after-death that I wouldn't mind:  the writing.  The poem makes it into a kind of purgatory, scribbling away for eternity.  To others, that may sound like Hell (or at least Purgatory).  To me, it sounds like paradise.

Often, when priests or pastors begin their sermons during worship services, I take out my journal and pen.  For the next 15 or so minutes, I scribble away on a blog post or new poem or essay.  I've always thought of writing as a form of prayer.  Some of the shit that comes out on the page seems divinely inspired.  In fact, I believe that the best poems I write are all gifts from my Higher Power, however you want to define it.  

So, after I die, if I'm trapped naked in a boat with my journal and writing utensil (hopefully a fountain pen), that will be a really, really great afterlife.

In the meantime, Saint Marty will just keep writing poetry here on Earth.  Call it practice.  Hopefully, the River Styx has a few nice waterfalls to describe.

February 27: Poet of the Week, Robert Morgan, "Holy Cussing"

My son hits me every time he hears me swear.  Doesn't matter whether I say "hell" or "shit" or [insert your favorite curse word here], if my son is within earshot, I know I will quickly feel a hard slap on my arm or back or whatever part of my body is within reach.  It's not a love tap.  It stings for a good half hour afterward.

I enjoy swearing.  I know it's nothing to be proud of, but a good curse word at just the right moment gives me a great deal of pleasure.

Robert Morgan, the Poet of the Week, knows a thing or two about swearing.

Saint Marty better get his ass moving now.  He has a class to teach tonight.  Son of a bitch.

Holy Cussing

by:  Robert Morgan

When the most intense revivals swept

the mountains just a century ago,

participants described the shouts and barks

in unknown tongues, the jerks of those who tried

to climb the walls, the holy dance and laugh.

But strangest are reports of what was called

the holy cuss. Sometimes a man who spoke

in tongues and leapt for joy would break into

an avalanche of cursing that would stun

with brilliance and duration. Those that heard

would say the holy spirit spoke as from

a whirlwind. Words burned on the air like chains

of dynamite. The listeners felt transfigured,

and felt true contact and true presence then,

as if the shock of unfamiliar

and blasphemous profanity broke through

beyond the reach of prayer and song and hallo

to answer heaven's anger with its echo.

July 24: "Hell," Billy Collins, Bed

I'm looking forward to going to bed tonight.  The cool covers and pillows.  The fan blowing across us like some lost Alberta clipper.  Darkness, and the warmth of my wife's hand on my arm or shoulder.  That sounds like paradise to me right now.

Which explains why the poem below appealed to me tonight.  It's a hell of a poem (incredibly labored pun intended), and it touches upon many of Billy Collins' favorite subjects--the collision of poetry with life and love and the ridiculous.  And it has that breathless moment at the end when the poem opens up like a chrysalis.

Saint Marty would kill to write a poem like this.

Hell

by:  Billy Collins

I have a feeling that it is much worse
than shopping for a mattress at a mall,

of greater duration without question,
and there is no random pitchforking here,
no licking flames to fear,
only this cavernous store with its maze of bedding.

Yet wandering past the jovial kings,
the more sensible queens,
and the cheerless singles
no scarlet sheet will ever cover,

I am thinking of a passage from the Inferno,
which I could fully bring to mind
and recite in English or even Italian

if the salesman who has been following us--
a crumpled pack of Newports
visible in the pocket of his short sleeve shirt--
would stop insisting for a moment
that we test this one, then this softer one,

which we do by lying down side by side,
arms rigid, figures on a tomb,
powerless to imagine what it would be like

to sleep or love this way
under the punishing rows of fluorescent lights,
which Dante might have included
had he been able to lie on his back between us here today.

What fresh hell is this?

February 4: Speaking Comfort, Weary Journeys, New Cartoon

"Jacob," he said, imploringly.  "Old Jacob Marley, tell me more.  Speak comfort to me, Jacob."

"I have none to give," the Ghost replied.  "It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men.  Nor can I tell you what I would.  A very little more, is all permitted to me.  I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.  My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house--mark me!--in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!"

Marley paints a pretty dreary picture of the afterlife in this passage.  Endless wandering.  Weary journeys.  No comfort.  It's an eternal fate nobody would want.  It certainly shakes Scrooge, considering the fact that Marley intimates Scrooge's punishment will be much worse.

No one likes to think of death or what comes after death.  It's not a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.  When I was young, I once saw my mother reading a book about Purgatory.  If I remember correctly, the book consisted of visions of Purgatory that various Catholic saints and holy people had described.  It was pretty horrific.  Lakes of fire.  Molten lead being poured into mouths.  Dante didn't have anything on these visions.

I guess not too many people like to think of an afterlife that includes any kind of punishment.  It doesn't go along with the idea of a loving and forgiving Supreme Being.  I will admit that I don't care much for the thought of swimming through lava or eating cotton balls (I hate the way they squeak against my teeth!).  However, the images and stories of punishment in the afterlife have persisted throughout history.

Maybe the reason for Purgatory and Hell, eternal punishment, is to frighten human beings into being better people.  It seems to work for Scrooge.  Whether you subscribe to these beliefs or not,  you have to admit that the situation Jacob Marley's ghost describes is pretty terrifying.  It's enough to scare the shit out of me.  I know I'm not sticking to the narrow limits of my money-changing hole, or any of my holes, for that matter.  Chains and weary journeys are not for me.

Saint Marty's not speaking of comfort today.  He's speaking of avoiding lava and chains and cotton balls.

Confessions of Saint Marty