October 10: Quick Post, Long Day of Teaching, Sleep

A quick post to let you know that I'm still alive.

Just finished a long day of teaching.  I am now watching American Horror Story with my daughter, trying to shake off a mild case of exhaustion.  My mind and body are tired.  I'm ready for the weekend.

This semester, for some reason, has been particularly taxing.  I can't seem to accomplish half the tasks I set out to get done in a day.  I can barely keep my eyes open when I get home.

I'm waiting for the weekend.  For some rest.

Saint Marty is thankful for sleep.

October 7: A Blessed Life, Panic and Doubt, Classic Saint Marty, "The Omelet"

Can I tell you that I've had a really great birthday weekend?

Last night, I took my son to see The House with the Clock in Its Walls, which was surprisingly good.  My son has been talking about this movie since the first trailers came out.  Jack Black is always entertaining, even in bad films.  He has a similar kind of manic energy that Robin Williams and John Belushi had.

This morning, I went to two church services.  One of my good friends invited me to the 9 a.m. worship at her church.  She and her son play in the praise band.  It was like a Christian rock concert, replete with lights, fog, and banging loud music.  My son loved it.  Then, I went to the worship service at my wife's church for World Communion Sunday.  Different vibe, but still inspiring.

Now, I'm getting ready for the coming week.  Something happened a little while ago that is sort of playing on a loop in my head right now.  Can't turn it off, and it's bringing me down.  The past (especially a fairly traumatic time from the past) has a way of popping up every once in awhile to haunt you.  Don't worry.  I'm not in harm's way.  I just can't push it out of my mind, and it's making me crazy.

I know that I lead a blessed life.  I know that.  My health is pretty good.  My kids are smart and beautiful.  My wife just threw me a great surprise birthday party.  I have jobs that pay the bills (for the most part).  Lots of friends who care about me.

Yet, memory has a way of triggering the worst kinds of moods.  I don't know if it's post traumatic stress or what.  I have never had a positive memory trigger, been overcome and obsessed about the best times of my life.  The births of my daughter or son.  My wedding day.  Being named Poet Laureate.  No, my memory triggers fill me with panic and dread.  They sit in the pit of my stomach, perch on my forehead.  Caw and screech and growl.  That's what I'm experiencing right now.

My sister is cooking prime rib for me tonight.  Mashed potatoes.  Dinner rolls.  And tapioca pudding.  My favorite things.  I'm trying to push this wave of anxiety away and enjoy this family birthday dinner.  It's getting easier.  I spoke with my wife about it a little while ago, and she was able to make me less anxious.

Now, you disciples reading this are probably thinking that I'm a basket case.  Confession:  I frequently am.  I can go from panic to self doubt to Hershey kisses to panic in the space of about five minutes.  This is normal for me.

A year ago, I was also celebrating my birthday and counting my blessings.  No panic involved . . .

October 7, 2017:  Silent Film, Richly Blessed, This Little Light

The guards drew together instinctively, rolled their eyes.  They experimented with one expression and then another, said nothing, though their mouths were often open.  They looked like a silent film of a barbershop quartet.

"So long forever," they might have been singing, "old fellows and pals; So long forever, old sweethearts and pals--God bless 'em--"

Have to apologize for my absence last night.  I was not bunkered down, waiting out a fire-storm.  I was at the monthly poetry workshop I lead at the Joy Center in my home town of Ishpeming, right in the heart of the Upper Peninsula.  There were lots of old pals and colleagues there.  We wrote about ghosts, watched one of my favorite haunted house movies (The Changeling), and ate.

You know, I have realized this Saint Marty's Day that I have been richly blessed this year.  So much good has happened in my life.  If I were in a silent film of a barbershop quartet, the subtitles would probably be the lyrics of "This Little Light of Mine" or Pharrell Williams' "Happy."

I know I'm sounding very Up With People, but I have been very lucky this year, connecting with new friends and reconnecting with old ones.  That has been one of the greatest blessings of being chosen Poet Laureate.  I get to go places, read poems, talk about poetry, and meet wonderful people all over the Upper Peninsula.

Of course, there are still troubling things happening in the world--locally, nationally, and internationally.  So much division and strife.  These last couple days, there was a registered nurses' strike at the local hospital.  Good people, walking a picket line to make the community a better, safer, healthier place.  And, of course, there was Las Vegas this week.  Donald Trump.  Brexit.  North Korea.  There are plenty of things to worry about, and I'm not ignoring them.

However, for today, I'm going to watch my silent film, read the subtitles, hum a song.

Sing with Saint Marty:  "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..."

And a happy poem for this evening.  I swear. . .

The Omelet

by:  Martin Achatz

The Omelet

I had an omelet this morning,

With scallions and mushrooms and grated

Monterey Jack cheese.  It was so good

I wanted to take a picture of it,

Wanted to fall on my knees, right there

In the crowded dining hall, and say

A rosary for it.  I wanted to push

My way back into the kitchen,

Worship at the feet of Ruth, the aproned

Chef who had created it

In less than two minutes, scraping

Her spatula back and forth over

Her hot, stainless steel palette.

Watching her create that omelet made me

Believe in the Book of Genesis,

That God could create the world

In six days flat and then sit back

And view us like a National Geographic

Special on Sunday morning.

Seeing Ruth work, I couldn't understand

How people denied the existence of God:

Here she was, serving up two-minute

Breakfast miracles for everyone.

If I could serve this omelet

To the entire Middle East, the suicide

Car bombings, the need for guns,

Missiles, and armies would vanish

In a single bite.  An Omelet Peace

Accord would take place, the entire

Planet joining hands to sing

Psalms and dance with timbrels and drums.

Yes, the omelet was that good.

When I go to church this coming Christmas,

While the congregation kneels,

Gives thanks for a baby

Served up with a side of hay

In a manger, I will give thanks

For scallions and mushrooms

And Monterey Jack cheese, for folded and melting

Frankincense, gold, and myrrh.

Two of the biggest blessings in my life . . .

October 6: June Jordan, "Poem about My Rights," Bullies Are Winning

Poem about My Rights

by:  June Jordan

Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear

my head about this poem about why I can’t

go out without changing my clothes my shoes

my body posture my gender identity my age

my status as a woman alone in the evening/

alone on the streets/alone not being the point/

the point being that I can’t do what I want

to do with my own body because I am the wrong

sex the wrong age the wrong skin and

suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach/

or far into the woods and I wanted to go

there by myself thinking about God/or thinking

about children or thinking about the world/all of it

disclosed by the stars and the silence:

I could not go and I could not think and I could not

stay there

alone

as I need to be

alone because I can’t do what I want to do with my own

body and

who in the hell set things up

like this

and in France they say if the guy penetrates

but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me

and if after stabbing him if after screams if

after begging the bastard and if even after smashing

a hammer to his head if even after that if he

and his buddies fuck me after that

then I consented and there was

no rape because finally you understand finally

they fucked me over because I was wrong I was

wrong again to be me being me where I was/wrong

to be who I am

which is exactly like South Africa

penetrating into Namibia penetrating into

Angola and does that mean I mean how do you know if

Pretoria ejaculates what will the evidence look like the

proof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on Blackland

and if

after Namibia and if after Angola and if after Zimbabwe

and if after all of my kinsmen and women resist even to

self-immolation of the villages and if after that

we lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they

claim my consent:

Do You Follow Me: We are the wrong people of

the wrong skin on the wrong continent and what

in the hell is everybody being reasonable about

and according to the Times this week

back in 1966 the C.I.A. decided that they had this problem

and the problem was a man named Nkrumah so they

killed him and before that it was Patrice Lumumba

and before that it was my father on the campus

of my Ivy League school and my father afraid

to walk into the cafeteria because he said he

was wrong the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong

gender identity and he was paying my tuition and

before that

it was my father saying I was wrong saying that

I should have been a boy because he wanted one/a

boy and that I should have been lighter skinned and

that I should have had straighter hair and that

I should not be so boy crazy but instead I should

just be one/a boy and before that         

it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for

my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me

to let the books loose to let them loose in other

words

I am very familiar with the problems of the C.I.A.

and the problems of South Africa and the problems

of Exxon Corporation and the problems of white

America in general and the problems of the teachers

and the preachers and the F.B.I. and the social

workers and my particular Mom and Dad/I am very

familiar with the problems because the problems

turn out to be

me

I am the history of rape

I am the history of the rejection of who I am

I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of

myself

I am the history of battery assault and limitless

armies against whatever I want to do with my mind

and my body and my soul and

whether it’s about walking out at night

or whether it’s about the love that I feel or

whether it’s about the sanctity of my vagina or

the sanctity of my national boundaries

or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity

of each and every desire

that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic

and indisputably single and singular heart

I have been raped

be-

cause I have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age

the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the

wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic

the wrong sartorial I

I have been the meaning of rape

I have been the problem everyone seeks to

eliminate by forced

penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/

but let this be unmistakable this poem

is not consent I do not consent

to my mother to my father to the teachers to

the F.B.I. to South Africa to Bedford-Stuy

to Park Avenue to American Airlines to the hardon

idlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in

cars

I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name

My name is my own my own my own

and I can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this

but I can tell you that from now on my resistance

my simple and daily and nightly self-determination

may very well cost you your life

___________________________

I have a poem today about anger and the voice of the disenfranchised.  This stuff is on my mind.  Has been for the last week or so, watching the proceedings in the Senate.  When the people who aren't supposed to speak up open their mouths, there's always a concerted effort to silence them.

That's what we're seeing right now, and it makes me quite sad.

Instead of getting angry at me for writing this post, for opening my mouth, think about this:  the people who shouted the loudest, had the reddest faces, cried "foul," pointed fingers are the ones who are probably going to get their way today.

Silence is not the answer, it seems.  Polite dialogue and discourse can't be heard when someone is screaming in your face.  The bullies are winning.

Saint Marty raises his voice today to say things have to change.  Maybe he should say it this way:  "THINGS HAVE TO CHANGE!!!!"

Did you hear that?

October 6: Midnight Aloft--Thunder and Lightning, Susan Collins

The Main-top-sail yard - Tashtego passing new lashings around it.

"Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty too much thunder up here. What's the use of thunder? Um, um, um. We don't want thunder; we want rum; give us a glass of rum. Um, um, um!"

Okay, let's get this out of the way:  this chapter is incredibly racist.  No gettin' around it.  Racist in the way that the depiction of Native Americans in Disney's Peter Pan is racist.  Of course, you must put this in context.  Melville is writing at a very unenlightened time.  The plights of African Americans and Native Americans were not in people's consciousness at the time Moby-Dick was written.  That is not an excuse.  It is an explanation.

Now, had Moby-Dick been published in 2018, I would venture to say that it would not be received with rapturous reviews.  In fact, it would probably not even see the light of day.  Perhaps Melville would have self-published it as an e-book.  It's difficult to get around its inherent racism.

Today, in Washington, D. C., it seems that the Republican members of the Senate are not going to have a problem embracing unenlightenment.  I spent a good 40 minutes yesterday afternoon watching Republican Susan Collins (a senior-ranking senator) justify her decision to vote for the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a Justice of the Supreme Court.  Collins was considered a swing vote.  She swung alright, or should I say all right.  Her speech, in turns, made me angry, sad, indignant, and angry again.  It was an example of the worst kind of partisan politics that I've witnessed in the last couple years.

The part of Collins' speech that struck me hardest was when, almost in the same breath, she spoke of her compassion for Christine Blasey Ford, saying that she believed Dr. Ford was the victim of sexual assault.  Then Collins quickly pivoted, questioning the details and substance of Ford's story.  It was almost as if I was listening to Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell in drag.

In a time when there is such a spotlight on sexual assault and discrimination in this country (and across the globe), the vote today, which I'm positive will result in Brett Kavanaugh getting a life-time appointment to the Supreme Court, is evidence of how much things really HAVEN'T changed.  Rich, white men are still calling the shots, putting a privileged white frat boy on the bench in the highest court of the land.

Now, if you're reading this post and thinking, "Kavanaugh was cleared by the FBI investigation," let me point out that the investigation lasted a total of four or five days, and dozens of potential witnesses were not interviewed.  Dr. Ford passed a polygraph test.  Brett Kavanaugh NEVER took a polygraph test.  And, if that isn't enough to convince you that Kavanaugh doesn't belong on the Supreme Court, let me remind you of his deportment when he was being questioned last week.  He cried, yelled, spoke of having a vendetta against Democrats and the Clintons.  His testimony itself proves his inability to remain calm, level-headed, and impartial.  That alone should disqualify him for the job he wants so badly.

Yes, I'm angry.  We are not in the 1860s or '70s.  Moby-Dick contains elements of horrible racism.  And Susan Collins and Brett Kavanaugh are proof that rich, white men are STILL in power, as they have been practically since the founding of the United States.

I am not proud of my country at this moment.  When "The Star Spangled Banner" is played, I don't feel like rising and removing my hat.  Go ahead and post angry comments to/about me, if you want.  I honor the American men and women who have fought and died for the preservation of democracy and freedom in the world.  Unfortunately, the people in power in Washington, D. C., right now are conflating patriotism with these higher ideals.  They aren't honoring our veterans.

I feel like I need to apologize for my country all the time now, because of the decisions being made by its President, senators, and representatives.  Now, it seems, I may have to apologize for the Supreme Court, as well.

Saint Marty is thankful this morning for Senator Susan Collins because she cast a huge, glaring light on all that's wrong with the United States at this moment.