July 7: One Last Prayer, Poetry Readings, Exposing Myself, New Cartoon

Holding his hands in one last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress.  It shrank, collapsed, and dwindled into a bedpost.

Having spent the day travelling and giving poetry readings, I kind of understand how Scrooge feels in the short passage above.  I do feel like I've been wandering in a world I generally don't get to wander in very often--the world of writers.  While Scrooge can't wait for his little foray into the spirit world to be over, I thoroughly enjoyed being in a land where I wasn't the plumber's son or the medical records clerk or the adjunct English professor.  For around eight hours, I was Saint Marty, the poet.

Like Scrooge, however, I know my journey must come to an end.  The Phantom must shrink.  The crowd of poetry fans must disappear.  Everything collapses and dwindles back into the normal world.  Bedposts.  Pajamas.  Infant son.  Wife.  Home, crowded with books and dirty laundry.  Even now, the poet world recedes into the realm of pleasant memory.  I know how Scrooge feels.

I enjoy giving poetry readings.  I enjoy the honesty involved.  When I read my poems, I expose parts of myself that I generally keep hidden.  There is a necessity for that kind of complete truthfulness.  For a few hours today, I was my whole self, revealing those vestigial fingers and toes of experience I usually keep tucked away from the eyes of the world.

Tonight, I have one last prayer, like Scrooge: to hold on to this poet world.  To be honest.  To expose myself.  To feel like a poet.  Each and every day.

That is Saint Marty's prayer.

Confessions of Saint Marty