July 25, 2025: “My Father Speaks to Me from the Dead,” Day Off, “Why I Swore Off Porn”

I’m not sure I’d want to speak with ghosts.  I think it would be either really terrifying, or really annoying.  There are always things left unsaid when a person passes—unspoken “goodbyes” or “I loves yous” or “Don’t forget to unplug the toasters.”  I’m just not sure I’d want to be the conduit for all those messages from the beyond.

Sharon Olds’ has a close encounter with her father’s ghost . . . 

My Father Speaks to Me from the Dead

by: Sharon Olds

I seem to have woken up in a pot-shed, 

on clay, on shards, the glitter paths 

of slugs kiss-crossing my body. I don't know 

where to start, with this grime on me. 

I take the spider glue-net, plug 

of the dead, out of my mouth, let's see 

if where I have been I can do this. 

I love your feet. I love your knees, 

I love your our my legs, they are so 

long because they are yours and mine 

both. I love your—what can I call it, 

between your legs, we never named it, the 

glint and purity of its curls. I love 

your rear end, I changed you once, 

washed the detritus off your tiny 

bottom, with my finger rubbed 

the oil on you; when I touched your little 

anus I crossed wires with God for a moment. 

I never hated your shit—that was 

your mother. I love your navel, thistle 

seed fossil, even though 

it's her print on you. Of course I love 

your breasts—did you see me looking up 

from within your daughter's face, as she nursed? 

I love your bony shoulders and you know I 

love your hair, thick and live 

as earth. And I never hated your face, 

I hated its eruptions. You know what I love? 

I love your brain, its halves and silvery 

folds, like a woman's labia. 

I love in you 

even what comes 

from deep in your mother—your heart, that hard worker, 

and your womb, it is a heaven to me, 

I lie on its gentle hills and gaze up 

at its rosy vault. 

I have been in a body without breath, 

I have been in the morgue, in fire, in the slagged 

chimney, in the air over the earth, 

and buried in the earth, and pulled down 

into the ocean—where I have been 

I understand this life, I am matter, 

your father, I made you, when I say now that I love you 

I mean look down at your hand, move it, 

that action is matter's love, for human 

love go elsewhere.

I have had dreams/visions, like Olds, of waking up in strange places and speaking with a long-dead loved one—most of the time, one of my sisters or my mother.  I’ve found those dreams both comforting and disturbing, depending on the loved one’s words.

I always feel surrounded by my dead.  In fact, I sometimes talk to them.  Not in the Whoopi Goldberg Ghost way.  I just have one-sided conversations with them when I’m struggling with a decision.  My mother and older sister were always sounding boards for me when I needed advice.  

I do believe in ghosts/spirits/souls.  From a Christian standpoint, I was brought up to believe we all have souls that survive our fleshly time on this planet.  From a Stephen King fanboy standpoint, I will never knowingly step foot in a haunted house.  From a metaphysical standpoint, I have experienced moments of intense connection with the spirit of a place/person.  (I defy anyone to visit the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor and not feel the weight of all the lives that were lost there.)

The image of my dearly departeds constantly floating near me gives me pause.  Think about everything you do on a daily basis.  Would you want your mother or father to witness all the things you do in a 24-hour period?  As a teenage boy, I couldn’t imagine my maternal grandmother watching me at night in my bedroom.  The very thought was enough to make me celibate.

Nowadays, I’m comforted by the growing list of ghosts who surround me daily.  (As you get older, more and more ghosts join that throng.)  It’s like I have my own team of angelic lawyers to argue my case with the Almighty.  If I’m doing something that requires privacy, I figure my dead are smart enough to practice some otherworldly discretion.

I took the day off work, so I’ve had a lot of time to write and think today, which can be both good and bad.  I worked on my poetry manuscript, and I practiced church music for this weekend.  At the entrance to one of the churches, there’s a lovely flower garden with statues of angels and Jesus and Mary.  The temperature was close to 90 degrees, and blooms were vibrant and fragrant.  I stood outside for several minutes, just inhaling and thinking how much my mother would have loved the scene.  It almost felt like her ghost was standing right beside me, admiring the orange and while petals.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem about good and bad choices, based on the following two prompts from The Daily Poet:

July 24:  Write a poem in which the title begins with “Why.”  Examples:  “Why I’d Like to Meet My Maker,” “Why I Would Never Dye My Hair.”  In her poem “Why She Would Take Off Her Shoes Before Jumping From the Golden Gate Bridge,” Annette Spaulding-Convy writes:  Maybe the water / / is a temple and She doesn’t want / / to bring the road’s dirt / / inside.  Push to move past expected responses to strange and imaginative ones.  For extra credit, compose your poem in couplets.

July 25:  Write a poem wherein you swear off something or someone.  Examples:  caffeine, booze, porn, Sex in the City reruns, a toxic boyfriend or girlfriend, a drug-addicted child.  Tell us specifically (with concrete images) why you are saying goodbye to a bad habit or toxic alliance, then show us how your decision will change your life for the better.

Why I Swore Off Porn

by: Martin Achatz

It was challenging in high school, like getting

someone to buy me beer from White’s Liquor Pantry.

The girls always looked sad, as if

Charlotte hadn’t saved Wilbur in the end.

And the guys always looked like Darren Vanhoff

who tried to drown me in swim class.

There were too many grammar errors—

modifiers dangling in inappropriate places.

Princess Leia, in her metal bikini, strangled

Jabba the Hutt with her BDSM chains.

They’re aren’t many good words that rhyme

with it:  corn, shorn, mourn, forlorn, 

and Gorn, that lizard man Captain Kirk

fought in between getting it on with all

those alien pole dancers in sequins, 

trying to save their worlds from oblivion.

Everyone in the pictures and videos have

mothers, fathers, little brothers, maybe goldfish.

Hi, my name is Martin, and my turn-ons are someone

washing my dinner dishes, afternoon naps, salted caramels.

July 18, 2025: “The Ferryer,” Day Off, “Bussing Tables at the Elks Club Fish Fry: A Love Story”

I took the day off work.  

That doesn’t mean I slept in or sat on my couch all day, napping and watching reruns of Northern Exposure.  No, I took my puppy for a few walks, read a book, wrote some poems and blog posts, practiced some church music.  My daughter messaged me at one point, and we had a lovely text conversation, catching up on her new life downstate.  (Yes, I did cry a little after the conversation ended.)

So, you see, even if I’m not officially working, I still work.  Tomorrow I plan to mow my lawn and work on a new poem.  I’ll probably end up doing a couple loads of laundry, too.  

Sharon Olds writes about a job her dead father works . . .

The Ferryer

by: Sharon Olds

Three years after my father's death
he goes back to work. Unemployed
for twenty-five years, he's very glad
to be taken on again, shows up
on time, tireless worker. He sits
in the prow of the boat, sweet cox, turned
with his back to the carried. He is dead, but able
to kneel upright, facing forward
toward the other shore. Someone has closed
his mouth, so he looks more comfortable, not
thirsty or calling out, and his eyes
are open—under the iris, the black
line that appeared there in death. He is calm,
he is happy to be hired, he's in business again,
his new job is a joke between us and he
loves to have a joke with me, he keeps
a straight face. He waits, naked,
ivory bow figurehead,
ribs, nipples, lips, a gaunt
tall man, and when I bring people
and set them in the boat and push them off
my father poles them across the river
to the far bank. We don't speak,
he knows that this is simply someone
I want to get rid of, who makes me feel
ugly and afraid. I do not say
the way you did. He knows the labor
and loves it. When I dump someone in, he 

does not look back, he takes them straight
to hell. He wants to work for me
until I die. Then, he knows, I will
come to him, get in his boat
and be taken across, then hold out my broad
hand to his, help him ashore, we will
embrace like two who were never born,
naked, not breathing, then up to our chins we will
pull the home blanket of earth and
rest together, at the end of the working day.

I read this poem and think to myself, Jesus, even when you die you still have to work!

I like being busy and productive.  There’s a difference, however, between working a midnight shift at Walmart and pursuing a dream.  Since I was very young, I’ve wanted to be a successful, published author.  I majored in English as an undergraduate (along with computer science and math); received advanced degrees in both fiction and poetry writing; and published two collections of poems (so far).  I’ve also been writing this blog for over ten years, and I currently receive approximately 150,000 to 250,000 page views a day.  (On Wednesday, my page views were 1.3 million for the day.)  

I work hard on my writing—at least two or three hours a day, usually more.  But it doesn’t feel like work.  I enjoy sitting down with my journal or laptop.  It doesn’t stress me out like, say, correcting a pile of student papers or practicing music for church. Language has always been my friend, confidant, and therapist. 

There was a time when writers had patrons—wealthy landowners or royalty. Patrons supported the writers financially, and all the writers had to do was . . . write.  An amazing concept, I know.  Rewarding people for doing what they’re really good at.  That doesn’t mean I want to go back in time to Elizabethan England.  (Not a big fan of bubonic plague.)

But I also don’t want to work shitty jobs until the day I die.  (I’ve had my share of occupations that really didn’t suit me—plumber’s apprentice, busboy, medical records clerk.)  Eventually, I’d like not to have three to five jobs at the same time.  I don’t want to be physically and mentally exhausted at the end of every day.  I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

So, if any of my disciples knows a rich person with a penchant for literature, send them my way.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for today about a shitty job I once had, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet . . . 

On this date in 1955, Weldon Kees’ Plymouth Savoy was found on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge, the keys in the ignition.  Though he’d talked of starting a new life in Mexico, most presumed suicide.  Since that day, Kees has increasingly become a cult figure among poets, his poems admired for their earnest intensity and their facility with everyday speech.  In one of his poems, Kees describes corporate jobs as Siberias with bonuses, places where the fire roared and died.  Do you now have or did you once have a job where the phoenix quacked like a goose?  What were your duties?  What specifically about the job made you long to call in sick?  Write a poem in everyday speech about a job you once had.

Bussing Tables at the Elks Club Fish Fry: A Love Story

by: Martin Achatz

Every Friday night, I came home smelling

like the sea and cigarette smoke,

pockets crammed with my share

of tip money—sweaty quarters,

bitter dimes, dollar bills wadded

up like old Kleenexes.  Enough to put

a couple gallons of gas in my tank

with a little left over for a bag

of weed.  It wasn’t glamorous work,

scraping shrimp tails, baked potato

scraps, cod skins, butts and ashes

into garbage cans, wiping down

tables slick with grease and melted

butter.  For at least two days after a shift,

I could still smell work on my skin,

as if I was a walking can of tuna.

I dated the dishwasher for a while,

although the relationship was doomed

from the start, both of us fresh out

of high school, too shy for anything

more than quick pecks, chapped 

lips pressed against chapped lips,

in the walk-in freezer when the cook

ran low on filets or French fries.

I broke up with her after I dreamed

one night she was a mermaid swimming

in a pool of tartar sauce.  I still can’t eat

at Red Lobster without thinking

of her breasts cupped in seashells,

hair wild with kelp and ocean waves.

August 9: "The Flying Notebook," Day Off, Pope

Took the day off from work.  That doesn't mean I didn't do any work.  I ran some errands, picked up some medications, and practiced music at three different churches for this weekend's worship services.  That was all in the morning.

In the afternoon, I took my kids blueberry picking.  Yeah, I know that it's a little late for blueberries, but one of my best friends owns property by Lake Superior that is literally crowded with blueberry bushes.  She let us show up with our picking buckets and even drew a map for us, indicating the best places for pick.

It was a cool day, a little rainy.  For two hours, my daughter, son, and I picked.  We came away with several pints of blueberries.  Plus, we had a great time together, laughing, telling jokes, enjoying just being together.  For dinner when we got home, my wife made blueberry pancakes from our bounty.

I may write a poem about today, but I didn't even take my notebook out of my bag today.  Maybe it misses me.

Billy Collins writes about the secret life of his notebook . . . 

The Flying Notebook

by: Billy Collins

With its spiraling metal body
and white pages for wings
my notebook flies over my bed while I sleep—
a bird full of quotations and tiny images
who loves the night’s dark rooms,
glad now to be free of my scrutiny and my pen point.
Tomorrow, it will go with me
into the streets where I may stop to look
at my reflection in a store window,
and later I may break a piece of bread
at a corner table in a restaurant
then scribble something down.
But tonight it flies around me in circles
sailing through a column of moonlight
then beating its paper wings even more,
once swooping so low
as to ripple the surface of a lake
in a dream in which I happen to be drowning.

I don't go anywhere without my notebook/journal.  It goes to work with me.  On vacation with me.  It's gone to see movies and plays and concerts with me.  A couple of times, it's slept with me at night.  (In my defense, I was working on a new poem and fell asleep.  I think I actually slept ON it.)  It's been on beaches and bridges, rooftops and mountaintops.

So, you see, I get where Collins is coming from.  A writer's notebook has a pretty exciting existence.  If I ever make it to Rome in my life, it might even meet the pope.

Saint Marty didn't take his notebook blueberry picking today, though.

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.

June 7: "Angler," Day Off, "Revision"

Billy Collins goes fishing . . . 

Angler

by: Billy Collins

Alone

with my thoughts

I spent the day

in the stream

of consciousness.

Had a day off from the library.  That doesn't mean I did nothing.  It's nearly impossible for me to remain idle, floating in my own stream of consciousness, to borrow Collins' image.

Currently, I'm working on final revisions of a manuscript that has been over 20 years in the making, from the time I was first married until now.  That's two kids, several cars, an MFA, a dog, a pandemic, six deaths (one brother, two sisters, both parents, and a best friend) later.

I'm also writing final poems for a second manuscript.  This one has had a much shorter gestation--about three or so months.  I started this book because I needed a break from the magnum opus I described in the previous paragraph.

Now I find myself in the strange position of having two almost done manuscripts.

I'm sure by now some of you are asking yourselves why it has taken me so long to complete the first manuscript.  I can't answer that question easily.  I tinker and revise poems endlessly, never really satisfied with the outcomes.  Poet Paul Valery said, "A poem is never finished, only abandoned."

Saint Marty has reached the abandonment stage.

Revision

by: Martin Achatz

is all about friction,

rubbing words together

until they smoke, spark,

ignite and change states:

solid to liquid to heartbreak.

April 6: Gratitude Thirty-Three, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

Today, I am grateful for a quiet, restful afternoon.

After church this morning, my family and I went out to lunch with my sister.  It was a lovely time.  Unrushed.  Relaxed.  We laughed and ate.  Didn't talk about lost jobs or bills or snow.  I had a sangria.  Afterwards, we ran a few errands.  My daughter went to Bath & Body Works with her aunt and got a whole lot of stuff 13-year-old girls love.

Of course, I had work I should have been doing.  Grading.  Reading.  Writing.  I decided to indulge in a little "me" time instead.  I'm experiencing a little guilt now for the time I've wasted.  However, I feel sane.  More sane than I've felt in a very long time.  All of my problems are still there, waiting for me.  But, just for one afternoon, I took a break from worry.

Two years ago, I had other worries.

April 6, 2012: Uncle Scrooge, Gay and Light of Heart, Day Off

"A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew.  "He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless.  Uncle Scrooge!"

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time.  But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew, and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

Scrooge loves visiting his nephew Fred's Christmas party with the Ghost of Christmas Present.  He plays the games, dances, laughs--even though he's not really there.  He's just a phantom, and yet he feels more alive than he has felt in his adult life.  Scrooge is learning about the joy of family, friends, and Christmas.

I'm not working today.  At present time, I'm sitting in my living room, watching my three-year-old son.  He's currently enthralled with Curious George on PBS.  In a little while, I'm going to hop in the shower, and then we'll be off to Wal-Mart for some grocery shopping.  My son has already had several tantrums this morning because I won't let him play games on my iPad.  These quiet moments at home--even with my son screaming "I want to play on iPad!!!"--are what I miss most when I'm at work.

I know I'm missing a lot in my son's life by working as much as I do.  I can't change my work hours right now, however.  We're barely able to pay our bills with what I earn.  If I cut back on overtime or work days, we'd be sunk.  So, I'm like the phantom Scrooge, enjoying stolen mornings of pleasure.  Like Scrooge, I laugh, play games, and dance.  And I wear my son's firefighter's hat.  Backwards, so that I look like a pirate, according to my son.

Gay and light of heart, Saint Marty is enjoying this scene, before it passes away in a breath.


Ahoy, matey!

Confessions of Saint Marty

July 7: Classic Saint Marty, Fear and Loathing and Saints, New Cartoon

Yes, I'm actually taking it easy today.  I went for a four mile run a little while ago, and that is the most energy I will expend for the rest of this Sunday.

I'm going to bring you another classic Saint Marty this afternoon.  This particular post ran on March 16, 2010.  It was one of the first posts I wrote, back when this blog was called Feasts and Famines.

Saint Marty hopes you enjoy this rerun, titled...

March 12, 13, 14:  Fear and Loathing and Saints

Friday night, I finished my weekly household chores late. It was nearly 10 p.m. by the time the toilet and shower were scrubbed; tables, chairs, and shelves were dusted; and rugs were vacuumed. I sat down on the couch, grabbed the remote, and turned on the TV for a little channel surfing.

I enjoy the time immediately post-cleaning because, for a few short hours, everything is in order and I feel like I've gained control of my life. It lasts until Saturday morning when my 17-month-old son wakes up and starts dragging toys out of toy bins and clothes out of laundry baskets. But, on Friday nights, I can sit and revel in the tracks left by the vacuum cleaner on the freshly vacuumed carpets and the heavy scent of lemon Pledge in the air.

I started flipping through the channels, not really expecting to find anything more satisfying than the deep blue water of my clean toilet bowl. I stopped on a station that featured a ten- or eleven-year-old girl in what seemed to be in the throws of demonic possession. She was pounding the kitchen table with her fists, screaming at her parents. The camera cut to the girl's siblings huddled on the stairs, listening to their sister's threats of violence and murder. A voice-over said something like, "As soon as Jamie returned home, she started hearing the voices and seeing the evil spirits again." I stopped and continued to watch, thinking it was some news program that was going to show a ritual exorcism.

The girl's behavior was absolutely terrifying, and the mother and father just sat and listened to her rant and growl. At one point, the youngest sibling, who couldn't have been more than seven or eight, became so upset and scared that she started pulling her own hair out in clumps. The mother held the little girl and rocked her, crying and saying, "Please don't hurt yourself like that."

I waited for a priest or minister to enter the scene and start unpacking Bibles and holy water and crucifixes. It turns out, however, that I had stumbled upon 20/20, and the story was on young children with schizophrenia. Now, little Linda Blairs puking pea soup I can handle; children with mental illnesses, that's something totally different.

You see, when my wife was diagnosed with bipolar, I did a lot of reading about the disease. I read memoirs and textbooks and Websites. I pored over pamphlets given to us by doctors. I suppose it was my way of trying to gain a little control over a situation in which I felt helpless, like running the vacuum cleaner over a bed of hot coals so I wouldn't burn my feet. Futile, but a least I was doing something.

One of the things that frightened me the most was the question about relatives. All of the psychiatrists and therapists, all of the literature, pointed to the genetic link. Beth had an uncle and great aunt with bipolar. Therefore, she was probably suffering from the same disease. It runs in the family, like red hair or being a fan of Michael Bolton.

Ever since that time, I've watched my daughter, who, at nine, resembles my wife's childhood photographs so much it's hard to tell them apart. I've read stories and articles about children with bipolar, about the wild moods, the depressions and manias. One little boy I read about was so tired of being unstable that he wrote his parents a suicide note when he was eight. Eight years old. Instead of playing Pokemon and watching Harry Potter movies, he was jumping out of second story bedroom windows.

I watch my daughter for signs that the helix of her DNA has shifted. When she pulls her hair because she can't play a chord for her piano lesson correctly, when she throws herself on the floor screaming because she doesn't want to take a bath, when she sits in her closet to give herself time to control her anger, I wonder if I'm witnessing normal, nine-year-old hormones or symptoms of something more serious. I have learned to deal with and accept my wife's illness. I don't know if I could do the same for my daughter.

I often wonder how the parents of saints managed their children's holiness. I'm here to tell you that if my daughter told me she was talking to the Virgin Mary, holding an actual conversation with a glowing woman in blue robes, I'd have that child in the ER within the hour. As I watched 20/20, I thought that schizophrenia in a child could easily disguise itself as saintliness or demonic possession. As a father, I wouldn't want any of those options for a child of mine.

At the end of 20/20, one of the children became so dangerous to herself and her family that her parents had to commit her to a long-term treatment facility. I watched the mother cling to her daughter, weeping, saying over and over, "Mommy will call you. Mommy will call you." She wouldn't let go.

I wish I could stop being on the look-out all the time with my daughter. I wish I could somehow lock my fear in a safe and hide it far under my bed, among the dust bunnies and shoe boxes full of my daughter's kindergarten paintings. I wish I could look into her eyes and not wonder if I'll ever see a stranger looking back at me. I wish and hope I never have to let go.

Confessions of Saint Marty

June 23: Day Off, New Poem, "Apology," New Cartoon

Yes, I've taken it easy today.  Went swimming with the kids.  Went for a run.  I'm currently watching the movie Wreck It Ralph with my daughter.  It's been a really nice respite from the crap of the past week.

I do have a new poem tonight.  It's about apologies and the space they inhabit in the universe.  I'm not sure how good it is, or if it's even done yet.  But I did promise you, my disciples, a new poem, even if it sucks.

And Marty is a saint of his word.

Apology

I'm
between
the silver and kiss
lips pressed against His cheek
of sand, tilapia, unleaven
under the olives and moon
between 
the whip
flesh raw as pomegranate seed
thorn, spike, spear
mud of dark cabernet
between
the limb, rope
the climb and final air
between
the leap
gravity
a field of blood
sorry.

Confessions of Saint Marty

April 6: Uncle Scrooge, Gay and Light of Heart, Day Off

"A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew.  "He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless.  Uncle Scrooge!"

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time.  But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew, and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

Scrooge loves visiting his nephew Fred's Christmas party with the Ghost of Christmas Present.  He plays the games, dances, laughs--even though he's not really there.  He's just a phantom, and yet he feels more alive than he has felt in his adult life.  Scrooge is learning about the joy of family, friends, and Christmas.

I'm not working today.  At present time, I'm sitting in my living room, watching my three-year-old son.  He's currently enthralled with Curious George on PBS.  In a little while, I'm going to hop in the shower, and then we'll be off to Wal-Mart for some grocery shopping.  My son has already had several tantrums this morning because I won't let him play games on my iPad.  These quiet moments at home--even with my son screaming "I want to play on iPad!!!"--are what I miss most when I'm at work.

I know I'm missing a lot in my son's life by working as much as I do.  I can't change my work hours right now, however.  We're barely able to pay our bills with what I earn.  If I cut back on overtime or work days, we'd be sunk.  So, I'm like the phantom Scrooge, enjoying stolen mornings of pleasure.  Like Scrooge, I laugh, play games, and dance.  And I wear my son's firefighter's hat.  Backwards, so that I look like a pirate, according to my son.

Gay and light of heart, Saint Marty is enjoying this scene, before it passes away in a breath.



Ahoy, matey!