July 9: "Theme," Day Off, Dark Meditation

Billy Collins writes of age and decline . . . 

Theme

by: Billy Collins

It's a sunny weekday in early May

and after a ham sandwich

and a cold bottle of beer on the brick terrace,

I am consumed by the wish

to add something

to one of the ancient themes--

youth dancing with his eyes closed, 

for example, 

in the shadows of corruption and death,

or the rise and fall of illustrious men

strapped to the turning

wheel of mischance and disaster.

There is a slight breeze,

just enough to bend

the yellow tulips on their stems,

but that hardly helps me

echo the longing for immortality

despite the roaring juggernaut of time,

or the painful motif

of Nature's cyclical return

versus man's blind rush to the grave.

I could loosen my shirt

and lie down in the soft grass,

sweet now after its first cutting,

but that would not produce

a record of the pursuit

of the moth of eternal beauty

or the despondency that attends

the eventful dribble

of the once gurgling fountain of creativity.

So, as far as the great topics go,

that seems to leave only

the fall from exuberant maturity

into sudden, headlong decline--

a subject that fills me with silence

and leaves me with no choice

but to spend the rest of the day

sniffing the jasmine vine

and surrendering to the ivory governance

of the piano by picking out

with my index finger

the melody of "Easy to Love," 

a song in which Cole Porter expresses,

with put-on nonchalance,

the hopelessness of a love

brimming with desire

and a hunger for affection,

but met only and always with frosty disregard.

I think all poets dream of adding to the pantheon of great themes, whether it's love or death or lust or eternal beauty or headlong decline.  The difficulty is finding something new and surprising to say about any of those topics.  Otherwise, the poet risks sounding like a Robert Frost or William Shakespeare cover band.

I took today off work.  Shocking, I know.  You see, I really enjoy my job at the library, so, a lot of the time, work doesn't seem like work.  However, I've accrued quite a bit of PTO and need to use it or, literally, lose it.  So, I used some of it today.

A good portion of the morning and afternoon I spent revising poems.  I also sat at McDonald's reading and, eventually, went for a walk along the shores of Lake Superior with my wife.  It was a perfect Upper Peninsula July day, not too hot and with a robin's-egg blue sky.  The beaches were packed, and tourists were out in force.  I don't particularly care for large crowds, so I avoided the densest areas of activity.

And I did a lot of thinking about love and aging and time.  The biggies, as Collins writes.  I'm not sure any of my meditations were earth-shattering or revelatory.  They were, however, honest.  I know that I have experienced lots of love and loss in my life.  I know that my daughter, youth and hope personified, is on the cusp of leaving my close proximity to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor.  My son won't be far behind her--just a couple more years.  And I know that I've become one of the "elders" at family gatherings, even though I still feel like a teenager who knows nothing about the ways of the world.

That is what having time off does to me--it makes me contemplate the inevitability of change and my own mortality.  I know, I know.  Most people spend their days off doing fun things, like swimming or taking in a movie or having lunch with a friend.  That's not the way my mind works.  I tend to gravitate to dark meditation when I have time to kill.  What can I say?  I'm a poet.

And what has this day taught me?  I need to have a better plan for my vacation days.  Or a strong antidepressant.  Probably both.

Saint Marty is now going to watch a movie--Dead Man Walking or Terms of Endearment.  You know, something uplifting.

April 16: "4'33" by John Cage," Silence, "Pin Drop"

Billy Collins indulges in some quiet jazz . . .

4'33" by John Cage

by:  Billy Collins

As I listened,

the scales

fell from my eyes.

If you're not familiar with 4'33" by John Cage, this poem simply won't work for you.  Watch a video, and you will see someone sitting at a piano for four minutes and thirty-three seconds playing . . . absolutely nothing.  There's music sitting in front of the performer, and, every once in a while, the pianist may turn the page or lift a hand to the keyboard, but no sound is made.  Not a note.

If you've ever sat in forced silence, you know it isn't easy.  There's a human impulse to fill moments of prolonged nothing.  Almost five minutes of noiselessness is tantamount to waterboarding for some individuals.

Quiet doesn't bother me, but I'm a poet.  I need absence (of sound and people and distraction) to get words down on paper.

So, John Cage is right up Saint Marty's alley.

Pin Drop

by:  Martin Achatz

If you can

hear a pin drop,

pick up the bastard

before I step on it.

August 29: "Water Snake," Book of Genesis, Bob Ross

Mary Oliver encounters a serpent . . .

Water Snake

by:  Mary Oliver

I saw him

in a dry place

on a hot day,

a traveler

making his way

from one pond

to another,

and he lifted up

his chary face

and looked at me

with his gravel eyes,

and the feather of his tongue

shot in and out

of his otherwise clamped mouth,

and I stopped on the path

to give him room,

and he went past me

with his head high,

loathing me, I think,

for my long legs,

my poor body, like a post,

my many fingers,

for he didn't linger

but, touching the other side of the path,

he headed, in long lunges and quick heaves,

straight to the nearest basin

of sweet black water and weeds,

and solitude--

like an old sword

that suddenly picked itself up and went off,

swinging, swinging

through the green leaves.

Oliver doesn't seem to be afraid of the snake.  She gives it wide berth, but there is also a certain admiration in the way she describes its gravel eyes and feather tongue.  There's beauty in its lunges and heaves as it searches for black water.  It makes me think of the serpent in the Biblical book of Genesis, cunning and charismatic enough to convince Eve and Adam to eat the fruit.

Think about it.  If the serpent in Genesis was frightening or repulsive in any way, Eve probably wouldn't have listened to it, and we would all be skinny dipping in the Garden of Eden right now.  Instead, Eve lets the forked feather of its tongue lead her astray, and the rest, as they say, is history, if you're literal-minded, or myth, if you're a poet.

Of course, I'm a poet.  I'm supposed to spend my days looking for moments of beauty and peace and grace.  However, it doesn't always work that way for me.  Most days, I'm too busy or tired to go hunting for wonder.  Today, for instance, I taught at the university and hosted a blues concert at the library in the evening.  The musicians were friends of mine, and their music, a wonderful gift.  

On my way home, I stopped at a grocery store to purchase some Diet Coke and snacks for my son.

As I was walking into the store with my wife, I looked up into the sky.  Most of the day had been dreary and cold, with lots of gray clouds and mist.  Tonight, the clouds were dusted pink, as if the ghost of Bob Ross had brushed them with a little Alizarin Crimson and Titanium White to make them happier.  More than likely, it was simply the setting sun causing the effect, but I like to imagine Bob Ross as God with an afro, making the whole universe and everything in it just a little happier.

That was my Mary moment today.  A sky gilded with color.

Anything can be beautiful, as long as you have the right paints and attitude.

Saint Marty gives thanks for snakes and Bob Ross tonight.

March 30: Turning Into a Penguin, Healthcare Jobs, Brief History of My Time

Space time continues to bend for Arthur and Ford . . .

"Haaaauuurrgghhh . . ." said Arthur, as he felt his body softening and bending to unusual directions.  "Southend seems to be melting away . . . the stars are swirling . . . a dustbowl . . . my legs are drifting off into the sunset . . . my left arm's come off too."  A frightening thought struck him.  "Hell," he said, "how am I going to operate my digital watch now?"  He wound his eyes desperately around in Ford's direction. 

"Ford," he said, "you're turning into a penguin.  Stop that."

Again came the voice.

"Two to the power of seventy-five thousand to one against and falling."

Ford waddled around his pond in a furious circle.

"Hey, who are you?" he quacked.  "Where are you?  What's going on and is there any way of stopping it?"

"Please, relax," said the voice pleasantly, like a stewardess in an airliner with only one wing and two engines, one of which is on fire, "you are perfectly safe."

"But that's not the point!" raged Ford.  "The point is that I am now a perfectly safe penguin, and my colleague here is rapidly running out of limbs!"

"It's all right.  I've got them back now," said Arthur.

"Two to the power of fifty thousand to one against and falling," said the voice.

"Admittedly," said Arthur, "they're longer than I usually like them, but . . ."

"Isn't there anything," squawked Ford in avian fury, "you feel you ought to be telling us?"

The voice cleared its throat.  A giant petit four lolloped off into the distance.

"Welcome," the voice said, "to the Starship Heart of Gold."

Well, there you go.  Ford is a penguin, and Arthur is rapidly turning into a human version of Stretch Armstrong.  By the way, I love petit fours.  They are one of my favorite holiday treats, along with really soft sugar cookies and peanut butter buckeyes.  But I digress.

Space and time are a bitch sometimes.  Last night, I literally was thinking about a production of the musical Hairspray that I saw once in Appleton, Wisconsin.  I thought it was just a few years ago.  Imagine my surprise when I realized that it was over ten years ago.  Actually, it's approaching 15 years.  Couldn't believe it.

And, given the circumstances at work this past week, I've been also thinking about my time in the medical field.  I never thought that I would make a career in the healthcare field.  Initially, I took the job at the surgery center to fill-in for a person who was on maternity leave.  Then that person came back, and it was over.  I was in graduate school, trying to scrape together some extra cash.  Then I was offered a full-time job at the surgery center.  Then I basically became the business office manager of the surgery center.  At the same time, I was finishing school, and my wife was pregnant with our first child.

All that started over 20 years ago.  I've worked in three different medical offices--outpatient surgery, cardiology, and medical records.  In the summers during my graduate school days, I cleaned patient rooms and doctor's offices and operating rooms.  I guess you could say that healthcare has been the career that I never really wanted.  I just sort of stumbled into it and stayed there.  For a long time.  Longer than I realized.  Amazing.

Time has a way of running away from you, like a giant petit four.  One day you're a fill-in employee for a pregnant woman, and, twenty years later, you're a displaced healthcare worker in search of a computer station.  I don't like to say that the best is behind me.  I'm not that fatalistic.  Life has a way of taking unexpected turns.

Twenty years ago, I would never have thought I would call myself a poet.  Now, if someone were to ask me what I do, my answer would be, "I'm a poet."  That's how I identify.  Sure, I have jobs in the medical field and higher education to supplement what I do.  But poetry is my thing.  And I'm good at it, I think.  It's the thing that makes me feel good about myself.  An unexpected turn.

Gone are the days when poets could make a living being poets.  I think that died around Shakespeare's time.  Robert Frost taught and raised chickens.  William Carlos Williams was a doctor, scribbling poems about red wheelbarrows on prescription pads in between patient appointments.  Wallace Stevens sold insurance.  The poets I personally know are artists with galleries, environmental activists, teachers, musicians, and music teachers.  These are my people.

That is the brief history of my time for this morning. Thank you, Stephen Hawking.  It's been a 20-plus year journey.  The universe is open and expanding, always.  So am I.

If you're looking for Saint Marty, just look for the second star on the right, and head straight on till morning.