March 24, 2025: "Station," Daily Magic, "You Can't Get Blood from a Turnip"

I never go anywhere without my journal and fountain pens, because you just never know when a poem might magically materialize in front of your eyes.  It could be a fingernail of moon in a morning sky.  Or a blueberry pancake made with last summer's berries that still taste of sun and sand.  Or an angel buried in snow up to its wings.

Sharon Olds conjures poems out of thin air . . . 

Station

by: Sharon Olds

Coming in off the dock after writing,
I approached the house,
and saw your fine grandee face
lit by a lamp with a parchment shade
the color of flame.

An elegant hand on your beard. Your tapered
eyes found me on the lawn. You looked
as the lord looks down from a narrow window
and you are descended from lords. Calmly, with no
hint of shyness, you examined me,
the wife who runs out on the dock to write
as soon as one of the children is in bed,
leaving the other to you.

                                            Your thin
mouth, flexible as an archer’s bow,
did not curve. We spent a long moment
in the truth of our situation, the poems
heavy as poached game hanging from my hands.

I love this image of a young Olds sneaking away to write poems at the end of the day, after her kids are in bed and the world is drifting into night.  Gone are the days where rich patrons simply paid poets to write, providing money and housing and such.  Instead, poets are busy parents and professors and doctors and insurance adjusters.  As Olds describes, poets cobble together writing times from stolen moments.

Me?  I think about poetry all the time.  Sort of the same way that my dad, who was a licensed plumbing contractor for close to 70 years, always noticed bathroom fixtures and faucets and copper or lead piping.  If you’re passionate about what you do, you will bring that passion to almost every other aspect of your life.  So, when I see a spiderweb in the corner of a room, my first impulse isn’t to grab a broom or dust cloth and eliminate it.  My first impulse is to stare at it, take a picture of it, take out my journal and write about it.  

I see a muddle puddle rainbowed with and oil slick, and there's a poem.  Snow melting to reveal piles of dog shit in the backyard:  poem.  First dandelion in the spring:  poem.  A wonderful piece of pecan pie:  poem.  An eagle crashing into Lake Superior to snatch a fish:  poem.  Every breath of every day:  poems and poems and poems.

For me, poetry is the magic that fuels my waking (and sometimes sleeping) hours.  I can't imagine a day without it.  Neither can Olds.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight that is a little tricky (pun intended), based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

On this day in 1874, magician Harry Houdini was born.  Write a poem about a magician's trick or a poem where you are the magician or magician's assistant.  Think of all the details that make up a magic show--the bunny in the hat, the doves, the sawing in half of a body, the lights, the smoke, the effects--and include your favorite details in your poem.

You Can't Get Blood from a Turnip

by: Martin Achatz

my dad used to say when I was

a kid, usually if I asked for money

or something too extravagant for him

and my mom to get me.  I once wanted

a kit of magic, tricks that included

a plastic top hat with secret compartments,

handkerchiefs that tied themselves in knots,

a finger guillotine that never amputated

thumb or pinkie despite its razored edge.

No rabbit--just a stuffed toucan, spring-

loaded, that jumped out of the hat

like it was escaping a circle of hell

where toucans were forced to eat

sins until their stomachs bloated,

feathers smoked, bills melted like

popsicles on a July afternoon.

                         I never got my top hat with 

toucan and Chinese rings the joined,

unjoined the way my brother coupled,

uncoupled with girls as easy as breathing.

My dad shook his head when I complained

about the lack of magic in my life, intoning

that phrase about root vegetables and bodily fluids,

as if that explained all the injustices of the world.

March 22, 2025: "The Sisters of Sexual Treasure," Worst, "True or False"

We all create our own versions of the truth.  That's just the way the human mind works.  My truth is different from your truth is different from Donald Trump's truth.  Okay, Donald wouldn't recognize the truth if it walked up and bit him in the ass, so perhaps that's not a good comparison.  But you understand what I mean.  Truth is a slippery creature.

Sharon Olds writes discuses some truths about her sister and herself . . . 

The Sisters of Sexual Treasure

by: Sharon Olds

As soon as my sister and I got out of our
mother's house, all we wanted to
do was fuck, obliterate
her tiny sparrow body and narrow
grasshopper legs. The men's bodies
were like our father's body! The massive
hocks, flanks, thighs, male
structure of the hips, knees, calves–
we could have him there, the steep forbidden
buttocks, backs of the knees, the cock
in our mouth, ah the cock in our mouth.
                       Like explorers who
discover a lost city, we went
nuts with joy, undressed the men
slowly and carefully, as if
uncovering buried artifacts that
proved our theory of the lost culture:
that if Mother said it wasn't there,
it was there.

Basically, Olds and her sister are rebelling against their upbringing--religiously strict (both her parents being "hellfire Calvinists"), sheltered, sexually repressed, emotionally and physically abusive.  Once they are freed from those shackles, they wallow in all the behaviors that their mother and father discouraged.

I don't think I ever rebelled as strongly against my upbringing.  Sure, I stopped attending Mass for a few years after I graduated from high school.  Yes, I may have consumed more than my fair share of illicit substances during that time (mainly weed).  No, I didn't go sexually crazy.  (Given the opportunity, I probably would have.)  Compared to Olds girls, my initial forays into adulthood were pretty tame.  Boring even.

Of course, that’s how I remember that time in my life.  Someone else who knew me in my undergraduate days may have totally different recollections.  Perhaps I was completely out of control.  Maybe I was a complete dick to some people.  Or, conversely, perhaps I was the model student, non-confrontational and hardworking.  (I did graduate summa cum laude, so . . . there is that.). My guess is that I was somewhere in between those two polarities.  

My point is that memory, I think, is a combination of truth and wishful thinking.  Verifiable fact and exaggeration/outright lies.  I truly believe that Donald Trump, as he’s standing in front of a microphone, actually believes the shit that is coming out of his mouth.  In his addled mind, he thinks he’s the best President of the United States since Abraham Lincoln.  Hell, he probably thinks he’s better than Abe.  If you tell lies about yourself your whole life, eventually, you’re going to have a hard time sifting fact from fiction.

I’m not saying life is a True/False quiz.  Far from it.  Life (and memory) are more nuanced than that.  There’s all kinds of gray areas, and it’s in those spaces that we all exist.  We’re the greatest poets in the world, AND the shittiest poets in the world.  The best President of the United States, AND the worst President of the United States.  Mike Brady, AND Al Bundy.  We’re the best AND worst versions of ourselves, depending on the day, time, and circumstance.

Currently, I’m the worst blogger in the world.  AND the best.

Saint Marty wrote this poem tonight about the unreliability of memory, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem where every line but one is a lie.  See what amazing stories you can make up, then offer one interesting thing that actually happened to you.  Allow yourself to be as creative as you can without sounding as if you're lying.  For example, instead of saying, "I was once a movie star" maybe write that you were an extra in the movie Forrest Gump.  Remember to include specific details in your lies so they seem more realistic.

True or False

by: Martin Achatz

A tarantula once bit my toe,

and it swelled to the size 

of an Anjou pear.  I ate a pickled

mouse on a dare after smoking
16 ounces of Nicaraguan weed

at a friend's Halloween party.

I shoveled manure on a dairy

farm an entire summer, wallowed

knee-deep in its sweet perfume,

held it in my hair, on my skin

the way my first girlfriend's neck

held Love's Baby Soft so strong
it blinded me when I pressed

my mouth to her nape, tasted

her on my tongue all day long like

bubblegum.  I found a six-foot snake

in my toilet bowl one morning, coiled

so neatly it could have been

a green electrical cord hanging

above my dad's work bench.

My brother shot a deer on Thanksgiving.

It was so big, after he gutted it,

he stuffed me inside its chest

cavity the way Han shoved Luke

inside the belly of the Tauntaun.

It smelled like summer blueberries 

and blood.  When I was 13, I spent

two or three days in a coma--I don't

remember exactly how long.  What I do

remember:  a nothing like a snow

storm, being erased, swallowed,

as if God made a mistake

on a pop quiz and was changing

his answer from True to False.

March 18, 2025: “Indictment of Senior Officers,” Boring, "Nothing Happened Today"

There are some days where I struggle to find anything to write about in my blog posts.  I literally sit and stare at my blank laptop screen, trying to conjure up any kind of interesting idea or anecdote.  I don’t always succeed

Hence, I sometimes don’t post for a few days and search for anything of note to discuss.  Recently, it’s been Agent Orange and his band of Merry Pranksters who’ve distracted me.  It always seems like people in power (however stupid or morally bankrupt those people are) inflict abuse on the less fortunate.

Sharon Olds writes about the abuse of power . . . 

Indictment of Senior Officers

by: Sharon Olds

In the hallway above the pit of the stairwell
my sister and I would meet at night,
eyes and hair dark, bodies
like twins in the dark. We did not talk of
the two who had brought us there, like generals,
for their own reasons. We sat, buddies in cold
war, her living body the proof of
my living body, our backs to the mild
shell hole of the stairs, down which
we would have to go, knowing nothing
but what we had learned there,

                                                    so that now
when I think of my sister, the holes of the needles
in her hips and in the creases of her elbows,
and the marks from the doctor husband’s beatings,
and the scars of the operations, I feel the
rage of a soldier standing over the body of
someone sent to the front lines
without training
or a weapon.

It's a pretty dark poem, written by Olds right as the United States was recovering from Watergate and the Vietnam War.  The President of the United States had been forced to resign, and the AIDS epidemic was in the wings, waiting to show its fatal face.

I don't remember much of those days.  I was fairly young and too wrapped up with my own dramas.  Puberty does that to you.  My memories are simply flashes, like a slide show running so fast the images all blur together.  I survived the Reagan years.  The first presidential candidate I voted for was Michael Dukakis.  My first kiss was so unremarkable that I've forgotten the name of the owner of the lips.  

You see what I mean.  Memory is a slippery thing, always swimming downstream on the way to an ocean or sea.  So I'm not sure how accurate my childhood recollections are.  I can barely remember what I had for dinner last night, let alone the name of my kindergarten teacher or first grade crush.

I do remember the guy who used to beat me up on a frequent basis in second grade.  (I eventually beat the shit out of him, and he left me alone after that.)  And I remember my second grade teacher who took pleasure in humiliating me in front of my classmates.  I could tell you about the person who used to take pleasure in holding me underwater in freshman swim class, and I know the days my brother and two sisters died.

I guess trauma and cruelty stick with me more than simple, daily pleasures.  I think that's what Olds' poem is getting at.  Pain (physical, emotional, and spiritual) leaves scars that don't heal.  Maybe that's why a boring day, like today, when nothing too damaging occurred to me (on a personal level--I'm not talking the horror show in Washington, D. C.), doesn't really take up too much space in my brain.  

I guess you could call my current state being and nothingness.  (Look it up.  It's an allusion.)

Saint Marty wrote a poem for today about absolutely nothing, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet . . . 

In a memorable Seinfeld episode, it’s proclaimed that Seinfeld is “a show about nothing.”. Of course, everything is about something, so for this expertise, write a poem about nothing—a poem where nothing fantastic happens.  Make sure to focus on the particulars of this regular day where nothing out of the usual happens.  Focusing on the specific details will help to ensure that your poem connects with its audience.

Nothing Happened Today

by:  Martin Achatz

I ate two hardboiled eggs and kumquats

for breakfast  The kumquats made my ears

ring and jaw ache from the sour.  I answered

an email from one of my students whose car

ran out of gas on the way to school for the third

time this semester, plus he's had two bouts

of food poisoning.  Salad for lunch--spinach, 

flax seeds, boiled chicken, shredded cheddar.

Watched the sky change from blue to gray

to black to gray, as if it couldn't make up

its mind.  A writer friend stopped by 

my office to give me a copy of her new

book--poems about growing up during

Adolf Hitler's rise to power.  She weeps

every night watching the news now.

I read a Mary Oliver poem, and a Sharon

Olds and a Joy Harjo because they were

beautiful.  Ate Chinese, drank beer for 

dinner with some old friends, decided

not to have a second beer since

I had to drive home and it was getting

dark.  Took my Australian shepherd

for a walk, let her bark at passing

cars and a squirrel tightroping

across a power line.  Changed into

my pajamas, sat down with my journal,

took out my fountain pen, write at the top

of a blank page "Nothing Happened Today."

March 17, 2025: "The Couple," Saint Patrick’s Day, "Reek Sunday on Croagh Patrick"

Yes, it is Saint Patrick’s Day.  No, I didn’t drink green beer or eat corned beef and cabbage, and I completely forgot to wear any green clothing.  (I was saved by the fact that my winter coat is green, and there was a splash of green in my socks.). 

These days, I’m just completely distracted by social media posts and news reports about the latest Agent Orange idiocy.  Just this afternoon, I saw a car pulled over to the side of U.S. 41 driving home.  Behind that car was a State Police cruiser, and behind the State Police cruiser were two vehicles marked “Border Control.” Yes, even the Upper Peninsula of Michigan isn’t immune to the three-ring circus of the Oval Office.  

Mostly, I’m worried about the future of my kids.  I was speaking to my daughter the other day, and she said how terrified of the government she is.  The world they’re going to inherit is going to be vastly different from the world I inherited from my parents.

Sharon Olds writes about the relationship between her son and daughter . . .

The Couple

by:  Sharon Olds

On the way for the country, they fall asleep

in the back seat, those enemies,

rulers of separate countries, sister and

brother.  Her big hard head

lolls near his narrow oval skull

until they are crown to crown, brown

hair mingling like velvet.  Mouths

open, the rosebud and her cupid’s bow,

they dream against each other, her calm

almond eyes and his round blue eyes

closed, quivering like a trout.  Their toes

touching opposite doors, their hands in

loose fists, their heads together in

on consciousness, they look like a small

royal bride and groom, the bride still a

head taller, married as children

in the Middle Ages, for purposes of state,

fighting all day, and finding their only

union in sleep, in the dark solitary

power of the dream—the dream of ruling the world.

All siblings have their differences.  I had three brothers and five sisters growing up.  Three of those siblings have died in the past ten years.  My two remaining brothers are Trumpers.  My sisters align more with my cultural and political standpoints.  Not completely, but close enough.  I love my siblings, but I don’t get along with all of them. 

My son adores his sister, and the feeling is mutual.  Sure, they have their disagreements.  There have been blowups between them, but those storms don’t last very long.  Then they’re back gaming together online at night.  My son can be quite . . . passionate and mercurial with his emotions.  My daughter, on the other hand, takes after me—always thinking things through, trying to see an issue from all sides.

I know that my daughter and son love each other.  Long after I’m gone, when I’m just a forgotten book in the library, they will be close friends.  I’m sure of that.  From the beginning, my son has cherished his sister’s attention.  My daughter waited eight years for her brother, and she has adored him since the day she first held him as an infant.

So, no matter what happens in the United States—whether the constitutional democracy is preserved or an Orange dictatorship prevails, my kids will have each other’s backs.  That gives me comfort as this country edges closer and closer to a Margaret Atwood dystopia.  My daughter and son are going to be alright.

Maybe we can just pray to Saint Patrick, asking him to drive the snakes out of the White House and Congress.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem in celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, write a poem about Ireland or something Irish.  It can be Delaney's Bar or the Book of Kells, Guinness beer or a Celtic cross.  If you're Irish yourself, explore your own heritage.  But even if you're not Irish, make sure to include images of Ireland and Irish culture.  You can start the poem with the line, The last time I was in Ireland or I've never been to Ireland, but . . .

Reek Sunday on Croagh Patrick

by: Martin Achatz

Thousands climb to the summit

every July, some barefoot to atone

for that one-night stand in college

and the abortion after, or the cheeseburger

eaten on Good Friday when Christ

hung on the cross like a graduation

picture.  Even Saint Patrick fasted

forty days at the top, tortured by

a murder of demonic birds, a female

serpent named Corra offering him

colcannon, barmbrack, soda bread

salty as tears.  My friend scaled

Croagh Patrick in her sandals,

her feet already hard as diamonds, 

not seeking forgiveness or penance,

but simply to breathe the holy air,

touch with her toes the hungry stones.

This was before she got sick and needed

a miracle, when her life seemed

endless as the summer solstice.

She sat, read Seamus Heaney poems

to the grasses and winds, felt

displaced in time, Corra coiled

around Patrick's naked body, testing

his faith with her forked tongue,

both of them robed in sunlight.

My friend brought me a rock

from that sacred place, on its surface

a smudge of mineral, maybe hematite

or copper, in the shape of a figure

(Adam?  Bigfoot?  Patrick?) strolling

like a prayer toward God's distant eardrum.