November 19: "Promenade," Bigfoot Poem, Normal

I don't mind being strange.  Don't mind if people stare at me because I'm being too loud or too friendly or too anything.  I've never really been the posterchild for "normal."  Instead, I write poems about cryptids and immortal jellyfish.  

Billy Collins takes his bird for a walk . . . 

Promenade

by: Billy Collins

As much as these erratic clouds keep sweeping

this way and that over the roof 

of this blue house bordered by hedges and fruit trees,

and as much as the world continues to run

in all directions with its head in its hands,

there is one particular robin who appears

every morning on a section of lawn

by the front door with such regularity

he could be a lighthouse keeper or a clock maker.

He could be Immanuel Kant were he not so small

and feathered, whom the citizens set their watches by

a he walked through town with his hair curled.

It takes a lot to startle this bird--

only a hand clap will make him rise

to one of the low branches of the nearby apple tree.

So I am wondering if he would allow me

to slip a small collar around his neck

and take him for a walk, first around the house

then later, when more trust has been gained,

into town where we would pass the locals 

with their children and orthodox dogs in tow,

and I would hold the robin lightly by a string

as we waited to cross the street, then he would hop

off the curb and off we would go

not caring about what people were saying

even when we stopped at a store front

to admire our strange reflections in the window.

I really don't know what "normal" is.  Some people think voting for a convicted felon to be President of the United States is normal.  Or appointing a person who was investigated for sex trafficking to be Attorney General.  Normal is in the eyes of the beholder.

I am sitting in my living room at the moment.  The Christmas tree is glowing in the corner.  Everyone else has gone to bed.  It's raining, and the trees are gauzed with fog.  It's been a day fraught with meetings and grading and teaching.  I haven't really had any downtime until now.  

All that is normal for me.

So is writing a Bigfoot poem.  Putting up Christmas decorations the day after Halloween.  Getting up at 5 a.m. to catch the livestreamed announcement of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Watching the same movie every night for three months straight.  Eating warm tapioca pudding.

This weekend, I ran into an acquaintance I hadn't seen in several years. I made an off-handed comment to her about the last couple weeks being particularly difficult for a lot of people.  My acquaintance looked genuinely confused.  When I mentioned the election, she smiled and said, "I think you and I are on opposite sides on that, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends."

I agree with my acquaintance.  I can still be friends with people who hold different political and social ideals.  My father was a lifelong Republican and member of the John Birch Society.  We couldn't have been more different, and yet we still loved each other.  (That doesn't mean we got along 100% of the time.  Ours was problematic relationship.)

Here are some other things that SHOULD be normal in the United States:  kindness, compassion, acceptance, charity, tolerance, respect, courtesy, equality, love.  Unfortunately, over half the people in this "Christian" country think otherwise.  Hate has become as normal as grass or snow.  One way or the other, you're eventually going to step in it.  

Buckle up, disciples.  It's gonna be a bumpy four years.

Saint Marty may make drinking a glass of wine every night his new normal.

November 18: "Lesson for the Day," Orange Pancake, Laughter and Beauty

So, it was a long day, and I needed a laugh tonight.

Billy Collins made me laugh with this poem . . .

Lesson for the Day

by: Billy Collins

I didn't know Marianne Moore

had written a little ode to a steam roller

until this morning.  She has it walking

back and forth over the particles it has crushed.

She must have watched a lot of cartoons.

She also compares it to a butterfly unflatteringly.

I like it better when she speaks to a snail.

It's pleasurable to picture her in a garden

bending forward in her dated black clothes

and her tilted black triangle of a hate,

as she seriously addresses the fellow curled in its shell.

But when I see her standing before the big drum

of a steam roller and saying not very nice things,

only one eventuality every comes to mind,

for I, too, am a serious student of cartoons.

And no one wants to avoid seeing

a flattened Marianne Moore hanging out to dry

on a clothesline or propped up

as a display in a store window more than I.

It's a surreal image, right out of a Road Runner cartoon--Wile E. Coyote falling victim to one of his traps and being flattened by a boulder or anvil.  It happens over and over.  I used to watch those Looney Tunes religiously every Saturday morning with a bowl of Lucky Charms in my lap.

So a flattened Marianne Moore hanging on a clothesline is pretty dang funny to me.  Sure, I know those cartoons are incredibly violent and have fallen out of parental favor, but I literally grew up with them.  They defined my childhood.  

Tonight, upon reading the above poem, I thought about other people I'd like to see flattened by a steam roller.  Of course, the top of that list is the Felon in Chief.  I'd love to see him reduced to a two-dimensional orange pancake.  (Don't misinterpret what I'm saying.  I am not advocating violence against the man.  I just find pleasure in picturing him as a crepe.)  

Sometimes, I have to embrace the absurd in order to cope with a world that seems to be falling apart.  I also embrace beauty, and, now that the holiday season is fast approaching, all I have to do is go for a walk to find it.  Tonight I noticed a beautiful light display across from my daughter's apartment, and it was a blessing.

Laughter and beauty.  That's all Saint Marty has to offer tonight.

November 17: "Report from the Subtropics," Up North, Humility

Days and nights are definitely getting cooler in my neck of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Most mornings, there's a rime of frost on the grass and rooftops.  At dusk, when the sun disappears, breath fogs the air.  And retirees fly to the subtropics for the winter.

Billy Collins has a close encounter with birds with long, white necks . . .

Report from the Subtropics

by: Billy Collins

For one thing, there’s no more snow
to watch from an evening window,
and no armfuls of logs to carry into the house
so cumbersome you have to touch the latch with an elbow,

and once inside, no iron stove like an old woman
waiting to devour her early dinner of wood.

No hexagrams of frost to study
on the cold glass pages of the bathroom.

No black sweater to pull over my head
while I wait for the coffee to brew.

Instead, I walk around in children’s clothes—
shorts and a tee shirt with the name of a band
lettered on the front, announcing me to nobody.

The sun never fails to arrive early
and refuses to leave the party
even after I go from room to room,
turning out all the lights, and making a face.

And the birds with those long white necks?
All they do is swivel their heads
keeping an eye on me as I walk along,
as if they all knew my password
and the name of the little town where I was born.

I've only traveled to the subtropics a handful of times for the winter, and only for a couple weeks at most.  Yes, I walked around in shorts and tee shirt in January, like a little kid on a summer day, and, indeed, there were birds with long, white necks watching me like grandparents, knowing every one of my moves before I made them

But I'm not in the subtropics now, nor do I have any plans to travel to the subtropics any time soon.  So this blog post is my report from Up North.  (And when I use the term "Up North," I'm not talking about anywhere below the Mackinac Bridge.  If you don't know what over 300 inches of snow looks like, you are not Up North.)

I took my puppy for several long walks today, and I went grocery shopping.  This evening, I facilitated a Zoom poetry workshop.  It was one of those nights where nothing seemed to click with me.  Writing was a struggle.  Before I read aloud what I managed to scribble in my journal, I invoked the spirit of my good friend, Helen.  I said, "I give myself permission to write absolute shit."

After I finished reading my efforts, one of the other poets at the workshop said, "That wasn't shit."

Perhaps I was being too hard on myself.  I do that frequently.  However, I come from a family of nine kids, and my parents taught me the value of hard work.  I was never allowed to be on a pedestal for very long.  Somebody always came along and kicked it out from underneath me.  Translation:  you're no better than anyone else.

Humility is an important virtue.  In fact, I would venture to say that it's one of the most important qualities a person can acquire.  I don't like people who have high opinions of themselves.  (Working in the arts, I've met a few megalomaniacs.)  Instead, I prefer kind people.  Generous people.  People who go out of their ways to make the world a better place.

Tonight, I was surrounded, virtually, by kind and generous people.  We laughed, told stories, wrote poems, and held each other up in love.  And it was really good.

That's Saint Marty's report from Up North today.  

November 16: "Carrara," Holistic Health Fair, Help or Hope

I admire all artists.  Pets.  Musicians.  Painters.  Crafters.  Chefs.  Sculptors.  Comedians.  They inspire and render the world more beautiful, even in the darkest of times.

Billy Collins reflects on marble . . .

Carrara

by: Billy Collins

The Tyrrhenian Sea was bouncing off to the right

as we headed south down the coast,

and to the left rose the Apennine mountains,

some with their faces quarried away,

from where heavy blocks of white marble

had been cut and carried down

and stacked in rows in yards along the highway.

Is anyone hiding within? I wondered,

as we passed a little Fiat

and were passed in turn by a green Lamborghini,

hiding the way Pinocchio hid inside a log--

maybe David who goes by another name,

or an anonymous girl caught dancing

or any other figure encased and yet to be revealed.

Are you in there, Dawn with your sunburst halo,

concealed from the freshly sharpened chisel?

How about you, Spirit of Revolution

waving a flag of marble

and crushing the serpent Tyranny with one foot?

Or is nobody home, no one barely breathing

in the heavy darkness of the pure white stone?

Soon, we were standing on a wide beach

where the body of Shelley had floated ashore,

and where all those questions washed away--

though later I pictured a sculptor wandering

among the blocks, hands clasped behind his back,

then deciding it was time to get to work

on a towering likeness of his favorite English poet.

I think any artist looks at a piece of marble, blank piece of paper, empty stage, stretched canvas, dormant drum and sees/hears/feels something that nobody else does.  A favorite English poet.  A "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night."  A Nutcracker.  A Girl with a Pearl Earring.  A We Will Rock You.  That's how creative minds work.  Where others see a rock. an artist will see The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.

I spent the day at a holistic health fair with an artist friend, trying to sell my poetry and meeting a whole lot of friendly people, some complete strangers and some friends (past and present).  I have no idea how the people I encountered voted in the election, although I could make an educated guess.  That's not what today was about.

Here is what it was about:  connection.  Everybody there was searching for help or hope.  Some found it in astral readings.  Some in essential oils.  And some in words.

I led a short poetry workshop at this event in the afternoon.  The audience members (one a friend I hadn't seen in almost six or seven years) put pen/pencil to work in search of small, daily wonders.  It was that simple.  Look at a blank page and see a list of miracles.

Here's what Saint Marty came up with:

Nine Ways of Looking at Wonder

by: Martin Achatz

1.

Frost on grass and roofs

in morning light,

white on white on white.

2.

A hardboiled egg

with golden heart.

3.

A sweet piece of apple

stuck between my teeth.

4.

An old friend's hug,

happy to see me

in a dark time.

5.

Pepperoni pizza

on a greasy plate,

begging for my tongue.

6.

Chocolate.

Always chocolate.

7.

A dog cutting the night

in two with his bark.

8.

A Beaver Moon

in a dawn sky,

God's bright eye.

9.

People in a room

writing poems 

about wonder.