September 22: Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

It's Sunday, and I'm just about ready to sit down at the dinner table with my family for a meal of homemade chicken noodle soup.  However, I wanted to send off a little post to my loyal disciples before I broke any bread with my loved ones.

I have a Classic Saint Marty selected for today.  This episode of Saint Marty aired originally on July 27, 2011.  Get yourself in the summer mood.  Think hot dogs on a barbecue.  Sun tan lotion.  Sand between your toes.  Insects thrumming in afternoon heat.  Then read on.

Saint Marty will be spending his evening watching shallow people rewarding one another for getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to pretend they have difficult lives.  Yes, the Emmy Awards are on tonight.

July 27, 2011:  Ice Cream, New Poem, Wallace Stevens

For what should have been a very slow day, I have been very busy.  Answering phone calls.  Stomping out small fires.  Working on a new poem.  The time has flown by.  It feels as though I haven't gotten much accomplished, however.  I have a few more hours to go.  Maybe I can finish a few more tasks.

The poem I just finished is inspired by my friend, Matt--one of the people my wife and I shared a Thai pizza with last night.  Since he's moved to Marquette, he's been trying to make whitefish-thimbleberry ice cream.  At least that's what he tells me, and I have no reason to doubt him.  It sounds a little disgusting to me.  Anyway, that detail reminded me of the Wallace Stevens poem, "The Emperor of Ice Cream."  Stevens' poem is about death.  My poem is about the exact opposite, I think.  It's about new life.  Starting over.  Food.  And ice cream.  Writing this poem made me a little hungry.

Whitefish and thimbleberry, anyone?

I've got a busy evening ahead.  I have to practice with the praise band at church.  I'm hoping to go for a run when I get home.  I have to finish the book for my Book Club get-together tomorrow night.  Too much to do, and not enough time to do it.  Time to get back to work.

Saint Marty has to read some Wally Lamb.

The New Emperor of Ice Cream

for M. G. F.

He makes whitefish-thimbleberry

Ice, a new flavor to accompany

The table of his life, set with moose,

Poetry, venison sausage, and snow.

The topography of hunger necessitates

This change of recipe from sherbets

Of his past, from caribou pancake,

From mosquito blood orange, from

All those tastes that quenched his tongue

In Juno and Phoenix, Barolo and Big Sur.

Now under Lake Superior sun, he mixes

Rock salt, fish, milk, rubus parviflorus.

Crushes.  Freezes.  Stirs.  Freezes again.

Until this roller of cigars, this whipper

Of concupiscent curds, finds his days,

His nights embroidered with cream,

With wail and want, with infant scream.

Confessions of Saint Marty