January 31, 2025: "The Takers," Sticky Situations, "Hypoglycemia"

I think there's always conflict between siblings, some of it pretty innocent (Mom always liked you best!) and some of it more serious (I don't want you in my life anymore!).  That's the nature of close bonds--the people we love the most can hurt us the most.

Sharon Olds writes about her sister . . . 

The Takers

by: Sharon Olds

Hitler entered Paris the way my

sister entered my room at night,

sat astride me, squeezed me with her knees,

held her thumbnails to the skin of my wrists and

peed on me, knowing Mother would

never believe my story.  It was very

silent, her dim face above me

gleaming in the shadows, the dark gold

smell of her urine spreading through the room, its

heat boiling on my legs, my small 

pelvis wet.  When the hissing stopped, when the 

hole had been scorched in my body, I lay

crisp and charred with shame and felt her

skin glitter in the air, her dark

gold pleasure unfold as he stood over

Napoleon's tomb and murmured This is the

finest moment of my life.

I'm not going to discuss my relationships with my siblings.  As I said above, the nature of close bonds is that people we love deeply can cause us great joy and great pain.  It's what we do with that joy or pain that makes the difference.  Sometimes estrangement happens.  Sometimes reconciliation.  And sometimes not.

One of my greatest joys as a father is the closeness I see between my daughter and son.  The support each other, enjoy each other, and love each other.  Deeply.  Have they had their differences?  Sure.  Yet, I know they have each other's backs, and I have doubt that, long after I've left this life, they will be the best of friends.  

That's gives me great hope.  If nothing else, I've been a part of making two great, loving kids who are turning into two great, loving adults, even in the stickiest of life's struggles.

Saint Marty wrote a poem tonight about a sticky situation, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

In 1930, Scotch Tape was invented.  Write a poem about a sticky situation you or someone your know has been in.  Make sure to be specific with details and images.  Once the poem is completed, cut up the poem into individual lines and use scotch tape to tape it back together, but in a different order.

Hypoglycemia

by: Martin Achatz

Sticky with sun and sweet,

unsure where I was, who

knew I was a queen that day,

if this was why workers flew

with gold dust and petals

down my throat, and I wondered

that maybe, just maybe, they,

when they found a spot rich

in my mouth, my face

starving for their royal jelly,

summer thick on my tongue,

why scouts danced in the hive

8 miles to forage pollen, nectar.

I was grass beneath my head.

I wake to the taste of bees.

January 30, 2025: "My Father's Breasts," Small Moments, "Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes"

A busy day, but a good one, full of small moments of joy.

Sharon Olds writes about an instant of contentment . . .

My Father's Breasts

by: Sharon Olds

Their soft surface, the polished silk of the hair

running down them delicately like

water.  I placed my cheek--once,

perhaps--upon their firm shape,

my ear pressed against the black

charge of the heart within.  At most

once--yes when I think of my father

I think of his breasts, my head resting 

on his fragrant chest, as if I had spent

hours, years, in that smell of black pepper and

turned earth.

Olds' relationship with her father was complicated, full of cruelty, violence, and alcoholism.  She did not have a happy childhood.  Yet, even with a person who caused her so much anguish, Olds finds a moment of tenderness and almost love, her laying her head on her father's bare chest, listening to the "black / charge of the heart within."

Today wasn't special for me in any way.  I worked at the library.  Taught two classes.  Met with a student.  Plugged away at various projects.  Went for a walk when I got home.  Took a nap.  An accumulation of small, simple things.

But my teaching today felt good.  The students were engaged, and I may have actually helped a couple of them.  

And my work at the library was productive, inching closer and closer to finishing a huge report that I need to submit to the NEA.

My walks across the college campus were pleasant, full of sun and 40-degree warmth.  

My puppy kissed my face on the drive home over and over and over.  A bounty of love.

My nap after dinner was deep and sustaining.  I woke after a couple hours, relaxed and unworried.

All of these small moments of pleasure add up to a pretty damn good day.  Will tomorrow be the same?  No guarantees.  However, I can put my head on my pillow tonight not feeling that I've let the world down.  That's a win.

Saint Marty wrote a poem today about the important of moments of joy, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Spend a few minutes eavesdropping on a conversation today.  Make sure to have your notebook with you while you listen, writing down exact quotes.  Use these notes to write a poem with the conversation, lines, or images you heard woven into it.  The poem can be about the conversation the people were having or a completely different topic.  If you are not near anyone today, think about a conversation you once had or make something up.

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

by: Martin Achatz

I wanted to kill myself

the girl behind me said

as I was walking across

campus.  The girl's friends

all laughed, a gaggle 

of them.  All I wanted

the girl continued

was ice cream cone cupcakes

for my birthday.  Her

friends responded communally

with sounds almost 

sexual--groans and one

Oh yes.  The girl had

them in her palm.

I mean, she said,

whoever thought of

cooking a cupcake in

an ice cream cone was

a fucking genius.  More

sexual sounds from

her friends, as if

they were now all

climaxing.  I increased

my pace, not wanting

to hear the story's end,

content with the idea

that if only the girl's

mother had made those

ice cream cone cupcakes

for her birthday,

the world would be

a better place, without

war or hunger or poverty,

where a simple stroll

in 40-degree sunlight

on a January day

could make a body

vibrate with ecstasy.

January 29, 2025: "The Moment," Crisis Averted, "#Poet"

So, yesterday I was full of gloom and doom over a certain person who was "pausing" all federal government grants and funding.  I'm a little less gloomy and doomy today--emphasis on little.

Sharon Olds writes a poem about growing up . . . 

The Moment

by: Sharon Olds

When I saw the dark Egyptian stain,

I went down into the house to find you, Mother--

past the grandfather clock, with its huge

ochre moon, past the burnt

sienna woodwork, rubbed and glazed.

I went deeper and deeper down into the

body of the house, down below the

level of the earth.  It must have been

the maid's day off, for I found you there

where I had never found you, by the wash tubs,

your hands thrust deep in soapy water,

and above your head, the blazing windows

at the surface of the ground.

You looked up from the iron sink,

a small haggard pretty woman

of 40, one week divorced.

"I've got my period, Mom," I said,

and saw your face abruptly break open and

glow with joy.  "Baby," you said,

coming toward me, hands out and

covered with tiny delicate bubbles like seeds.

It's a tender moment between daughter and mother.  An admission and a submission.  Olds tells her newly divorced mother that she's started menstruating, and she submits to her mother's love and support.  There are things over which we have no power, physical things like menstruation, puberty, aging.  We all have to undergo these normal human processes.  It's part of being alive.  

Yesterday, I was informed that President 47 and Congressional Republicans were putting a "pause" on all federal grant funds, including those from the NEA (from which I was awarded almost $17,000 for a Big Read programming series).  Also yesterday, a federal judge paused the pause until this coming Monday, when a ruling would be made.  Powerless, I had to submit to the situation.  

This morning, I again submitted.  This time it was a request for the remaining funds of the grant (a little less than $5,000).  The request was approved within ten minutes, and I received a message from Arts Midwest/NEA that the check was being cut and sent today.  And my day suddenly got better.  Crisis averted.

I have a feeling that, in the next four years, we're all going to be experiencing a lot of these moments of powerless submission.  Will I try to fight back?  Of course, when fighting back will accomplish something, like this morning.  Otherwise, I will just . . . deal.  Endure.

But I can celebrate tonight a small victory in a country that seems to be disintegrating as I watch.  The Republicans took it on the chin today.  That is cause to party a little.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem today to give himself a laugh, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a "Twitter poem"--a poem where each stanza is a complete thought or sentence not more than 140 characters in length.  To keep with this Twitter theme, have each stanza be about a unique topic not related to the stanza above or below it.

NOTE:  This prompt predates the takeover of Twitter by President Musk.

#Poet

by: Martin Achatz

Is there such a thing

as too much poetry?  Asking

for a friend.

#EmilyDickinson

I'd like to go fishing

with her, but she just

catches and releases.

#ElizabethBishop

She asked me to dress

up like the pope for our

date.  Don't know why.

#SharonOlds

Looking for someone

to mow his lawn.

It's out of control.

#WaltWhitman

Don't go for a walk

with him.  He always

picks the wrong road,

all rocky and muddy.

#RobertFrost

What's so special about

a goddam wheelbarrow?

#WCWilliams

Whatever you do,

don't ask about

her father.

#SylviaPlath

How many times

is he going to point

out another stupid crow?

#WallaceStevens

When the moon is full

as an onion, he gets

a little crazy.

#AllenGinsberg

Never ask

if she knows any

good jokes.

#PatriciaLockwood

She's got a good

ear.  Tell her 

your problems.

#CarolynForché

She's still rising

like Easter bread.

#MayaAngelou

January 28, 2025: "My Father Snoring," Art, "Convergence (a Pollock)"

It has been a long day full of not-so-welcome news.  I need something to make me chuckle a little bit.

This poem from Sharon Olds, while very serious, makes me laugh.  I shared a room with a brother who snored like a chainsaw . . . 

My Father Snoring

by: Sharon Olds

Deep in the night, I would hear it through the wall—
my father snoring, the great, dark
clotted mucus rising in his nose and
falling, like coils of seaweed a wave
brings in and takes back. The clogged roar
filled the house. Even down in the kitchen,
in the drawers, the knives and forks hummed with that
distant throbbing. But in my room
next to theirs, it was so loud
I could feel myself inside his body,
lifted on the knotted rope of his life
and lowered again, into the narrow
dark well, its amber walls
slick around my torso, the smell of bourbon
rich as sputum. He lay like a felled
beast all night and sounded his thick
buried stoppered call, like a cry for
help. And no one ever came:
there were none of his kind around there anywhere.

So, this afternoon at the library, I received an email from Arts Midwest, an organization that oversees, among other things, National Endowment for the Arts Big Read grants.  Ostensibly, the email said that all federal grants (including those from the NEA) have been put on "pause" until they are reviewed.

That means that drawing down funds from the $16,600 NEA Big Read grant that I was awarded for the library has been (temporarily, I hope) suspended until further notice.  

Now, the NEA Big Read will go on in March.  At the beginning of the year, fearing that something like this was coming down the pipeline, I drew down funds from the NEA to pay for a good portion of the scheduled events.  However, I will still be lacking around $5,000 of the promised grant until the "review" is completed.  (The library is currently working on a game plan to ensure the Big Read will happen in full.)

Art is essential to a free-thinking society.  Take away art and all that's left is propaganda.  And maybe Adam Sandler movies.

I'm not going to get all political here.  All I want to say is that we are living in dangerous times in the United States.  If you're a citizen of the United States, write your representatives in Congress, raise your voice, don't be silenced.  

Saint Marty wrote a Pollock tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Today is the birthday of painter Jackson Pollock.  Pollock was well-known for his drip paintings, where he would splash many colors of paint onto large canvases he had placed on the floor.  Write a poem inspired by this style of painting or by the wild style of a Pollock painting.  Maybe dribble words across the page or splatter one color throughout your poem.  Or write an ekphrastic poem (an ekphrastic poem describes, comments on, and/or dramatizes a work or works of visual art) about one of his paintings or a unique image you see in it.

NOTE (from playground.poetry.blog):  

The Pollok is a rather obscure and fairly eccentric poetry form invented by poet and art critic John Yau to pay tribute to the American abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock.  It is a fourteen-line poem with the rather unusual requirement that the first line must be a quotation by the artist.  The remaining thirteen lines consist strictly of words from Pollock's quote, the idea being to splatter words repeatedly on the page like he famously did with paint on his canvases . . . Interestingly, another one of the rules of writing a pollock is to break the rules any time you feel like it (much like Pollock did with his painting).  So it is more than permissible to substitute one of your favorite quotes by someone else for the Pollock quotation . . .

Convergence (a Pollock)

by: Martin Achatz

Each age finds its own technique.

Each technique finds age,

finds each its own

age.  Age each age,

technique each technique,

own each its.

Own age.  Own finds.

Own each technique.

Its, its, its, its own.

Age technique, tech each age.

Ow age!  Ech age!

In age find sage.

Teach ache.  Teach tech.

Fin.  Town.  Fin.  Age.  Fin.

January 27, 2025: "Fate," Poetic Genes, "Winter Weather Exhibit"

A friend recently asked me where I got my poetic genes.  I can't answer that question.  My dad was a plumber, spending his entire life fixing line breaks in sewers instead of stanzas.  My mom was a reader.  Perhaps I inherited my love of words from her.

Sharon Olds tries not to become her father . . . 

Fate

by: Sharon Olds

Finally I just gave up and became my father,
his greased, defeated face shining toward
anyone I looked at, his mud-brown eyes
in my face, glistening like wet ground that
things you love have fallen onto
and been lost for good. I stopped trying
not to have his bad breath,
his slumped posture of failure, his sad
sex dangling on his thigh, his stomach
swollen and empty. I gave in
to my true self, I faced the world
through his sour mash, his stained acrid
vision, I floated out on his tears.
I saw the whole world shining
with the ecstasy of his grief, and I
myself, he, I, shined,
my oiled porous cheeks glaucous
as tulips, the rich smear of the petal,
the bulb hidden in the dark soil,
stuck, impacted, sure of its rightful place.

Olds eventually accepts the father parts of herself--his defeated face, mud-brown eyes, ecstasy of grief.  It's sort of impossible to escape your genetics.  You are who you are, no matter how much you want to run away from home.

I am my father's son, with his penchant for quick anger and hard work.  I'm also my mother's son, with her capacity for cutting through the bullshit.  So from where did my poetic talent come?  Maybe I'm the reincarnation of Robert Frost or Walt Whitman.  Maybe my mother read Shel Silverstein to me in utero.  Or perhaps I'm just a genetic anomaly--one of those accidents of nature that can't be explained.  I'm a duckbilled platypus.  

Whatever its origin, my love of words has been with me since I was very young.  I've always wanted to be a published author.  My dad made me a plumber's apprentice.  My mother tried to convince me to go into computer programming.  I'm not angry with them.  They were both trying to look out for me.  However, the call of the poet was just to strong for me to ignore.

Saint Marty issues a poetic weather warning tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Find an interesting newspaper article and circle all of the words that interest you.  Write a poem about a topic that has nothing to do with the article.  See if you can use these words in new ways.  If the article was about the environment and you circled the words "fracking" and "global warming" think about new ways that you can use these terms, such as "fracking one's heart" or "having global warming of the brain."  See where your poem leads you.

Winter Weather Exhibit

by: Martin Achatz

The National Weather Service has issued

a Winter Weather Exhibit for the area,

dominated by wildfires of snow, handfuls

of glacial artistry.  Think of Wyeth's Helga,

her devastating cheeks, wake of braids, gazing

into a blank celebration:  white racked up

on white racked up on white.  Or Monet painting

a frozen pond scummed with dead water

lilies, perhaps a brood of snow geese collected

on the shore, military beaks pointed

heavenward, waiting for a break

in the clouds, a resilience of blue

to return the landscape to its original 

mixture of soft light, lapping wave.

ADDITIONAL DEATILS . . . May be

upgraded to a Winter Storm Retrospective

if Edward Hopper finds an all-night

diner that serves cherry pie.

January 26, 2025: "The Ideal Father," Perfection, "Snow"

Believe it or not, I'm not perfect.  I know it's hard to believe, but I mess up constantly.  This morning, I played keyboard for a worship service at a local Lutheran church.  I mangled one of the hymns so badly that I wanted to crawl under the organ bench and eat a cyanide capsule.

Of course, perfection is not something any human can attain.  We're all inherently flawed.

Sharon Olds writes about her "perfect" dad . . . 

The Ideal Father

by: Sharon Olds

When I dream you, Dad, you come into the dream

clean, farouche, gesundheit, feral

fresh face, physically exact--

the ideal, the schemata, the blueprint, no mark of

pain.  You're perfect as a textbook example:

your hair like a definition of hair,

the bulb with its pith which contains a little air,

the root, the spear of horny substance, the

mouth of the follicle, the filament which forms the

coat of the mammal, the way the sheath

glistens where the shaft opens its oil to the light;

and your skin, the layers of the epidermis like

clear water through which we see the

subcutaneous fat, its pearls

swimming in cross-section; and your teeth, their

pork-white ceilings, enamel crowns,

pulp hollows, necks and roots like

squids' legs, deep in the gum--not a

cavity, no whiff of rot; and your

body flawless, pink carnation

boutonniéres of the nipples, and your sex

stiffening in textbook time,

record time, everything about you 

exemplary.  Where is the one who threw up?

The one who passed out, the one who would not

speak for a week, slapped the glasses off a 

small girl's face, bloodied his head and

sank through the water?  I think he is dead.

I think the ideal father would hardly

let such a man live.  After all he has

daughters to protect, laying his perfect

body over their sleep all night long.

Olds' father was by no means ideal in any way.  She dreams up her own version of a perfect father, right down to the part in his hair.  But this poem is a tale of two fathers--one who lays his perfect body over his daughters' sleep to protect them from harm, and one who slaps a small girl's face so hard that her glasses go flying.  

Nothing about today was perfect or ideal.  I had big plans of what I wanted to accomplish, but, as often happens, I wasn't able to finish my to-do list.  I do this to myself all the time, and I end up going to bed, feeling like a failure.  

Here's my litany of deficiencies tonight:

• I'm not a perfect father.
• I'm not a perfect husband.
• I'm not a perfect friend.
• I'm not a perfect teacher.
• I'm not a perfect musician.
• I'm not a perfect poet.
• I'm not a perfect Christian.

For each of these bullet points, I could provide 100 examples of my mistakes and fuckups.  But my point is simply that I am not perfect.  In fact, I may be the least perfect person I know, and I've known quite a few assholes.  But I try hard, every day, to do what's right.  And really, that's all anybody can do.

Here is one thing I did right today:  I led an online poetry workshop, wrote shitty poems, and made some people laugh.  Times are little tough right now in the United States, so laughter is a real gift.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem today about the perfection of snow, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem that begins with a very large image, such as the universe at night, Earth, a country, an ocean, Jupiter, a continent, a cargo ship, or some other gargantuan object.  Then, throughout your poem, have each image following become smaller than the previous one.  Write until you arrive at the tiniest of images, and end your poem there.

Snow

by: Martin Achatz

This morning the world was snow,

everything white and cold and blinding,

even the air, each breath a blizzard.

A pine in my backyard, all frilled

with snowy lace, stands like a tall

girl at a high school Yule Ball,

waiting to be asked to dance, ruby

winter berries flashing in her needles.

A hare twitches at the tree's knuckled

roots, haunches wound tight in case

I get too close.  But I stay still, try

to slow my lungs and heart until

they move at the speed of a snowflake

drifting from the heavens, down, down,

a tiny cathedral of ice searching

for the perfect place to praise the ground.

January 25, 2025: "Burn Center," Blue Funk, "Depression"

Poets tackle difficult subjects sometimes.  For a couple months last year (starting right around Thanksgiving), I wrote about a severe blue funk I found myself in.  I stopped writing those blog posts, however, because several of my faithful disciples said they were just too sad and dark.

Sharon Olds gets burned by love . . . 

Burn Center

by: Sharon Olds

When my mother talks about the Burn Center

she's given to the local hospital

my hair lifts and wavers like smoke

in the air around my head.  She speaks of the

beds in her name, the suspension baths and

square miles of lint, and I think of the

years with her, as her child, as if

without skin, walking around scalded

raw, first degree burns over ninety

percent of my body.  I would stick to doorways I

tried to walk through, stick to chairs as I

tried to rise, pieces of my flesh

tearing off easily as

well-done pork, and no one gave me

a strip of gauze, or a pat of butter to 

melt on my crackling side, but when I would

cry out she would hold me to her

hot griddle, when my scorched head stank she would 

draw me deeper into the burning

room of her life.  So when she talks about her

Burn Center, I think of a child

who will come there, float in water

murky as tears, dangle suspended in a

tub of ointment, suck ice while they

put out all the tiny subsidiary

flames in her hair near the brain, and I say

Let her sleep as long as it takes, let her walk out

without a scar, without a single mark to

honor the power of fire.

It's a strange metaphor that Olds uses--this Burn Center with all its fire imagery--to describe the complicated relationship she had with her mother.  Yet, I get it.  Love can burn and scar you.  However, Olds, in her ending lines, is newborn, resurrected from the flames without a dimple of scar on her body.

Tonight, I can tell you that I'm sort of resurrected, as well.  While I haven't completely shaken off the darkness, I can say that there's a lot of sun in my life now.  Yes, I still experience whelming moments, but they are much less frequent.  Yes, I cry occasionally, but the tears don't last as long.  And I'm able to get out of bed in the morning without dread in my heart.

I won't go into all I've done to get to this point of near return, but I have my wife and many close family and friends to thank for their love and support through these last three or so months.  It has been an uphill battle, but many helping hands pulled me along.  

I am so grateful and blessed.

Saint Marty wrote an abstractly concrete poem tonight based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Choose an abstract word such as love, hate, obsession, freedom, success, etc. for your title, then write a poem that is made up completely of concrete images.  For example, if I chose the word "Love" for my title, I might use images such as two robins on the branch of a cherry tree or the heart of a cinnamon roll.  Alternatively, if I chose the word "Shame," I might use images such as a bus stop covered in vines or a child walking away.  Don't feel you need to be completely literal--allow for a little mystery, letting your images do the work for you.

Depression

by: Martin Achatz

A church steeple at street's end

jabs its finger into God's black eye.

Myrtle, my neighbor's Great Dane, 

barks and barks for an hour straight

while a mouse darts across my hardwood

floor, its nails like melting icicles.

Unread books are heaped on my ottoman, one

cover, a black-and-white clown staring at me.

Leftover lasagna beside a can of flat  

Diet Coke in the fridge.  Not hungry or thirsty.

The burned-out lightbulb in the living 

room fills the air with darkness.

An unfinished poem in my journal,

its final line crossed out and

January 24, 2025: "The Departure," Oppositions, "Twins"

Most relationships are a complicated mix of love and anger, respect and jealousy, joy and grief.  In order to define what joy is, you need to know grief.  To feel love, you have to have some acquaintance with anger or hatred.  That's how the universe works--it's defined by oppositions.

I'm not being profound here.  Many people a lot smarter and more eloquent than me have made the same observation.  You can't have light without darkness.  Sunrise without sunset.  Cold without warm.  Music without silence.  That's how it all works.

Sharon Olds addresses her father . . . 

The Departure

by: Sharon Olds

(to my father)

Did you weep like the Shah when you left?  Did you forget

the way you had had me tied to a chair, as

he forgot the ones strapped to the grille

in his name?  You knew us no more than he knew them,

his lowest subjects, his servants, and we were

silent before you like that, bowing

backwards, not speaking, not eating unless we were

told to eat, the glass jammed to our

teeth and tilted like a brass funnel in the 

soundproof cells of Teheran.  Did you forget

the blood, blinding lights, pounding on the door, as

he forgot the wire, the goad,

the stone tables?  Did you weep as you left

as Reza Pahlevi wept when he rose

over the gold plain of Iran, did you

suddenly want to hear our voices, did you

start to rethink the darkness of our hair,

did you wonder if perhaps we had deserved to live,

did you love us, then?

Sharon Olds' relationship with her father was obviously fraught, as evidenced by this poem.  There was physical and emotional abuse layered on top of alcoholism.  Yet, after her father died, she wrote a collection of poems titled The Father that was all about her love and acceptance of him, recognizing the cycle of drinking and violence that formed him as a person.

I love my wife, but we have struggled a great deal in our time together.  I love my son and daughter, but I haven't always agreed with the life choices they've made.  My dad and I had a complex bond, filled with both love and confusion--me not getting him sometimes, and vice versa.  I love my close friends, but that doesn't mean we see eye-to-eye on every subject.  Far from it.

Yet, if the basis of a relationship is mutual respect and affection, that relationship will thrive.  I will do anything for my family and loved ones.  They know that.  I don't hold grudges.  Life is too short, and, in the end, all the anger and resentment only harms myself.  If the biggest mistake I ever make in my life is loving someone who harms me in some way, I'd count that as a win.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about joy and grief tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem about twins where the first and last lines are the same line.  Have the poem be about two of something or two similar events.  As you continue to write, consider objects that come in pairs or images that have something to do with twins (Doublemint gum, pairs of socks, hot and cold faucet handles, etc.)  Write your poem in couplets or have stanzas mirror each other, such as two stanzas of three lines, then two stanzas of five lines.  Feel free to title the poem "Twins" even if your poem isn't directly about two people.

Twins

by: Martin Achatz

for Mary Oliver

You wrote we shake with joy and grief,

both inside us like lungs doing

their sustaining work.  Perhaps they do

eat at the same dinner table, one

liking biscuits and gravy, the other

preferring ham and eggs.  And maybe

they even go for walks, morning, evening,

holding hands, high school sweethearts,

bodies so perfectly suited to each other

they nest in bed at night

like just-washed spoons in a drawer,

still smelling of lemony soap.

I bet they lived next to you, Mary,

neighbors who came over for wine

on New Year's Eve, when everyone

is Janus, gazing backward and forward,

and, at midnight, raised glasses, toasted

all that was, all that is to come.

As they left, trooping through snow

toward home, you watched them from

a window, marveled how you

couldn't tell them apart in the bright

moonlight, then took out your notebook where

you wrote about shaking with joy and grief.

January 23, 2025: "The Forms," Surrealism, "Fried Egg on the Plate without the Plate"

So, I'm getting a little social media weary.  Too many posts that piss me off and make me sad.  Had to take a break today.  I'm sure all kinds of weird shit happened in Washington, D. C., but I just had to stop scrolling and reading.

There's an old hospital building that's being demolished right now in Marquette, Michigan.  My son was born there.  I had my appendix removed there.  I worked for a little while in the O.R. there.  Every day, I've been driving by the site, watching the structure looking more and more like the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma after Timothy McVeigh.

I am surrounded by the surreal.

Sharon Olds on all the forms of love . . .

The Forms

by: Sharon Olds

I always had the feeling my mother would
die for us, jump into a fire
to pull us out, her hair burning like
a halo, jump into water, her white
body going down and turning slowly,
the astronaut whose hose is cut
falling
           into
                 blackness. She would have
covered us with her body, thrust her
breasts between our chests and the knife,
slipped us into her coat pocket
outside the showers. In disaster, an animal
mother, she would have died for us,

but in life as it was
she had to put herself
first.
She had to do whatever he
told her to do to the children, she had to
protect herself. In war, she would have
died for us, I tell you she would,
and I know: I am a student of war,
of gas ovens, smothering, knives,
drowning, burning, all the forms
in which I have experienced her love.

Olds is right.  Love can make people do wonderful and terrible things.  Look at the list of abuses at the end of the poem:  gas ovens, smothering, knives, drowning, and burning.  While her mother was focusing on protecting herself, she left her children to fend for themselves against their father's alcoholic angers.

That's the space that we're all in right now--dealing with our old, drunk uncle.  He's embarrassing, catering to the absolute worst of humanity.  Each day brings another unbelievable act of stupidity and/or recklessness from him.

Perhaps André Breton was right:  "The man who cannot visualize a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot."  I've been seeing hippos galloping on tomatoes these last few days.

Saint Marty ventures into surrealism, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

On this day in 1989, Salvador Dali died at age eighty-four in Spain.  Write a poem with the title of one of Dali's paintings or use four of these titles from his words in a poem:  Self-Portrait in the Studio, The Artist's Father at Llane Beach, Coffee House Scene in Madrid, Fried Egg on the Plate without the Plate, Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood, Man with Unhealthy Complexion Listening to the Sound of the Sea, The Invisible Harp, West Side of the Isle of the Dead, A Couple with Their Heads Full of Clouds, Two Pieces of Bread, Expressing the Sentiment of Love, Cathedral of Thumbs, Soft Monster.

Fried Egg on the Plate Without the Plate

by: Martin Achatz

after Salvador Dali

An egg climbed up a string with no end because the sun looked like its mother.

The sun laughed as the egg lost its grip, sliding back down the string, again and again.

Finally, the egg cried out, Don't you love me anymore?

You're a joke I told a chicken once, the sun said.

Don't you see the family resemblance? The egg sighed like a rooster.

But by that time, breakfast was over, and the sun went for a swim in the lake.

The egg dangled on the string, weeping yolky tears.

January 22, 2025: "The Victims," More Orwell, "Poem Eleven Days After the Funeral . . ."

Sometimes people get punished for their abuses, and sometimes they get pardoned.

Sharon Olds writes about abuse . . . 

The Victims

by: Sharon Olds

When Mother divorced you, we were glad. She took it and
took it, in silence, all those years and then
kicked you out, suddenly, and her
kids loved it. Then you were fired, and we
grinned inside, the way people grinned when
Nixon's helicopter lifted off the South
Lawn for the last time. We were tickled
to think of your office taken away,
your secretaries taken away,
your lunches with three double bourbons,
your pencils, your reams of paper. Would they take your
suits back, too, those dark
carcasses hung in your closet, and the black
noses of your shoes with their large pores?
She had taught us to take it, to hate you and take it
until we pricked with her for your 
annihilation, Father. Now I
pass bums in doorways, the white
slugs of their bodies gleaming through slits in their
suits of compressed silt, the stained
flippers of their hands, the underwater
fire of their eyes, ships gone down with the
lanterns lit, and I wonder who took it and
took it from then in silence until they had
given it all away and had nothing
left but this.

COMMUNITY SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:  If you are a Trump supporter, please stop reading this blog now to avoid becoming offended or angered.  Oh, and go fuck yourself.

I'm going to try to avoid being political in every single post for the next four years, but, currently, the situation in Washington, D. C., is more Orwell than Orwell ever imagined.  At the end of this week, I think everyone is going to feel pretty battered and bruised.

That's it.  That's the wisdom I have for you today.  Hang in there, disciples.  Try to find something beautiful or wildly funny (or both) to focus on.  

Saint Marty wrote a short poem of loss today, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem that has only two lines (no more than thirteen syllables each).  End the poem with an image of something being lost.  Give the poem either a long or one-word title.

Poem Eleven Days After the Funeral

of President James Earl Carter, Jr.

by: Martin Achatz

Outside the library, the flag hangs half-mast, still, sad,

as if there's an Executive Order banning wind.

January 21, 2025: "Possessed," A Bumpy Ride, "10 Versions of Hope"

Since yesterday afternoon, things in the United States have been a little . . . strange.  The Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America, and pronouns have been declared illegal.  Mount Denali has been rechristened Mount McKinley.  I could go on, but you get the idea.

It all feels strangely familiar.  We have now entered The Twilight Zone.  Again.

Sharon Olds can't escape her parents . . . 

Possessed

by: Sharon Olds

I have never left. Your bodies are before me 

at all times, in the dark I see 

the stars of your teeth in their fixed patterns 

wheeling over my bed, and the darkness 

is your hair, the fragrance of your two heads 

over my crib, your body-hairs 

which I count as God counts the feathers of the sparrows, 

one by one. And I never leave your sight, 

I can look in the eyes of any stranger and 

find you there, in the rich swimming 

bottom-of-the-barrel brown, or in the 

blue that reflects from the knife's blade, 

and I smell you always, the dead cigars and 

Chanel in the mink, and I can hear you coming, 

the slow stopped bear tread and the 

quick fox, her nails on the ice, 

and I dream the inner parts of your bodies, the 

coils of your bowels like smoke, your hearts 

opening like jaws, drops from your glands 

clinging to my walls like pearls in the night. 

You think I left—I was the child 

who got away, thousands of miles, 

but not a day goes past that I am not 

turning someone into you. 

Never having had you, I cannot let you go, I 

turn now, in the fear of this moment, 

into your soft stained paw 

resting on her breast, into your breast trying to 

creep away from under his palm— 

your gooseflesh like the shells of a thousand tiny snails, 

your palm like a streambed gone dry in summer.

Olds is constantly being reminded of her mother and father, through memory and the eyes of a stranger and the tread of feet in a hallway.  No matter how long it's been, where she is, her parents haunt her daily.

Now, the United States is going through the same thing.  It's almost as if the ghost of our drunk uncle has appeared for Thanksgiving dinner, and he immediately sits down at the table and starts talking about JFK conspiracy theories and denying the Holocaust.  Buckle your seatbelts, folks.  It's going to be a bumpy ride.

The only way to combat dread and darkness is by embracing hope, in whatever form it takes.  Tonight, I hosted an event at the library called Words & Music for Hope--local musicians singing hopeful songs, local poets reading hopeful poems.  It was a full house, and, by the end of the evening, people were smiling and laughing.  

It was a good night, full of good people from the community who are really struggling with the Ghost of President Present.  They needed some way to exorcise their fears and angers.  I'm not saying everyone left the program feeling calm and confident about the future.  However, for about an hour and a half, everyone got a break from the Dementia Don show.  

We laughed.  We sang and clapped.  We hugged.  We hoped.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about sustaining hope, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:  

Instead of focusing predominantly on sight today, focus on taste, hearing, scent, and touch.  As you notice something that doesn't involve sight, jot it down in a notebook.  It could be "my hands smelled like pennies after digging through the change jar," or "heard a kingfisher calling over the sounds of waves."  At the end of the day, write a poem using your jotted down images.

10 Versions of Hope

by: Martin Achatz

It's the sun's warm fingers rubbing your neck on a 40-below-zero morning.

And your dog's sandpapery tongue licking your cheeks until they burn.

If you've heard silence buzzing in your ears like bees, that's hope.

That apple fragment, sweet as honeycomb, stuck between your teeth--hope.

Your furnace snoring to life in the middle of a January night.

An itch on your shoulder that your wife scratches into submission.

If you've smelled the musk under your arm in July, you've smelled hope.

Muffled laughter behind a closed door and onions steaming your eyes with tears.

Hope smacks its lips at dinner, loudly, when the bread is warm, dripping with butter.

When your 16-year-old son leans over, kisses your forehead softly, unexpectedly, before he goes to bed, that's hope, too.

January 20, 2025: "Absent One," Great Man, "Psalm for Martin"

Okay, it is a significant day in the history of the United States.  If I didn't write about it, it would be like ignoring the elephant in the room, if you'll pardon my use of that old cliché.  So, for better or worse, this post addresses the topic, starting with:

Sharon Olds writes about an aging poet friend . . . 

Absent One

(for Muriel Rukeyser)

by: Sharon Olds

People keep seeing you and telling me
how white you are, how thin you are.
I have not seen you for a year, but slowly you are
forming above my head, white as
petals, white as milk, the dark
narrow stems of your ankles and wrists,
until you are always with me, a flowering
branch suspended over my life.

In this poem, Sharon Olds celebrates a writer friend who is important to her.  Today, an important person was celebrated all over my country.  A historic individual who really tried to make the United States of America better, greater.

There is a polar vortex sitting on our shoulders right now.  Most Upper Peninsula schools were closed, and most of them (including the university where I teach) will be closed again tomorrow.  With a 40 below zero wind chill predicted, nobody is taking any chances.  

This morning, I took a shower because I didn't have to rush off anywhere.  The library and university were closed because of the federal holiday.  As I was toweling off, I noticed that the bathtub wasn't draining.  There was a good five or six inches of water just sitting there, unmoving.  I plunged the drain.  Many times.  It didn't help.

Therefore, around 8:30 a.m., my wife called a plumber to come out and unblock the blockage, and I spent most of the day praying the pipes weren't frozen solid.

I also worked on a poem, met a friend for lunch, read a book, wrote a script, and recorded a podcast episode.  I haven't turned on the television all day long, not wanting to watch any news reports, and I avoided most social media, as I will probably be doing for the next four years.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

While much of what happened today was disappointing, I never gave up on hope.  There are still good people out there.  Decent and compassionate people.  Jimmy Carters and Martin Luther Kings.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem today about a great man's dream, using the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem where the first word of a line begins with the same letter as the last word of the same line.  Have the poem be about a reoccurring dream you have or had as a child.  For example, the first line could be My dream hinted at mailboxes as my and mailbox both begin with the letter "m."

Psalm for Martin

January 20, 2025

by: Martin Achatz

Dreams never hang around, disappear

as soon as my eyes open, me already

thinking about the day's worries, tasks,

pushing aside all the lingering phantoms

of my subconscious, even the ones

where my dead sister presses her warm

fingers against my cheek, me feeling

in just-waking moments as if I've

forgotten something important, filling

my atria with an aching melancholy,

hollow as bells pealing the Angelus hour.

I don't keep a dream journal to scribble in

early morning dark, don't press escaping

visions like daisies between vellum

pages to preserve their summer petals.

Rather, I swing my bare feet to floor, rise,

step into the coming day, all specters

of night burning off like fog.  On

this January morn, I prefer to think

of another man's dream, filled only

with hope for a better life.  Wondrous.

Beautiful.  A promised land burning

in the distance, a bright island

where all God's children will

join hands, sing joyfully

together.  Free.  Together.

At last.  Alleluia.  Amen.

January 19, 2025: "Best Friends," Lost Friends, "Mary Oliver Aria"

My life has been/is abundant with good friends.  

So many people have filled my days with laughter and love and kindness.  Yes, some of these individuals have disappeared--through circumstance, time, and loss--but I still hold their memories dear, like rare stamps on old letters.  A childhood friend who died of AIDS.  A college friend who drowned in Lake Superior on a late summer night.  A poet friend who battled cancer bravely, joyfully.  

I try to honor all of them, every day.

Sharon Olds honors a lost childhood friend . . .

Best Friends

by: Sharon Olds

(for Elizabeth Ewer, 1942-51)

The day my daughter turned ten, I thought of the
lank, glittering, greenish cap of your
gold hair. The last week of
your life, when I came each day after school,
I'd study the path to your front door,
the bricks laid close as your hairs. I'd try to
read the pattern, frowning down
for a sign.
               The last day--there was not
a mark on that walk, not a stone out of place--
the nurses would not let me in.

We were nine. We had never mentioned death
or growing up. I had no more imagined
you dead
than you imagined me
a mother. But when I had a daughter
I named her for you, as if pulling you back
through a crack between the bricks.
                                                       She is ten now, Liddy.
She has outlived you, her dark hair gleaming like
the earth into which the path was pressed,
the path to you.

A polar vortex is setting up shop right now across a good portion of the United States, including my little portion of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Over the next couple days, temperatures and wind chills are going to reach 40 degrees below zero in some places.  Schools have already begun cancelling classes, and several churches cancelled worship services this evening.

I'm not going to turn tonight's post into a maudlin reflection on loss.  As I said, my life has been abundantly blessed with friendship.  I truly don't know what I have done to deserve such a wealth of love.  Perhaps because of my Catholic upbringing, I often feel . . . undeserving.  I fuck up.  A lot.  I let people down.  A lot.  But I try my best to be a good, true, and loyal friend.

Tonight, I led a Zoom poetry workshop.  Several close poet friends showed up.  The evening's theme of "self worth."  Basically, we all wrote praise poems about ourselves.  That's a tall order for a person who doesn't even like looking at himself in the mirror.  Suffice to say, it was struggle.

So, if you are friend of mine, thank you for overlooking my many failings.  I treasure your love and support and infinite patience.  If I've upset or angered  or disappointed you in any way, please accept my apology.  It wasn't my intention to harm you in any way.  I cherish and honor your presence in my life.

Saint Marty honors one of his favorite poetic friends--Mary Oliver--with a poem based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Today is the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe.  From 1949 to 2009, the "Poe Toaster," an unknown person, visited the grave of Edgar Allan Poet near midnight, leaving three roses and a half-filled bottle of cognac on Poe's grave.  Make up a legend or strange story about a famous person or family member, and/or share a unique way to pay tribute to someone after he or she has died.

Mary Oliver Aria

by: Martin Achatz

My dog charged into the iceberg

of morning, her bark sharp

as a pickax, cracking nosebleed

air into shards.  Mary, you

would have been right there

with her, the tail of your body

wagging, waiting for the ball

of day to be thrown so you

could chase it across the field

into the trees, the soft animal

of you hungry to connect 

with this frozen world where

your imagination was always 

most alive.  I kneel at the edge 

of Blackwater Pond, lower

my head to the water, lap

long and hard, tasting its

rocks and leaves and fire,

as you often did.  I let its

winter rattle my ribs, fill

my blood with wild geese

crying for you over and over--

Mary  Mary  Mary  Mary--

until something green

and beautiful  begins 

to thaw inside me.

January 18, 2025: "The End," Anatomizing Grief, "Polar Vortex"

It's cold out, and its going to get a lot colder in the next couple days.  According to the forecast, it's not going to get much warmer than -3 degrees on Monday, -4 on Tuesday, with wind chills approaching 40 below zero at times.

That means people are going to die from exposure in the next few days.  

Sharon Olds writes about death . . . 

The End

by: Sharon Olds

We decided to have the abortion, became
killers together. The period that came
changed nothing. They were dead, that young couple
who had been for life.
As we talked of it in bed, the crash
was not a surprise. We went to the window,
looked at the crushed cars and the gleaming
curved shears of glass as if we had
done it. Cops pulled the bodies out
bloody as births from the small, smoking
aperture of the door, laid them
on the hill, covered them with blankets that soaked
through. Blood
began to pour
down my legs into my slippers. I stood
where I was until they shot the bound
form into the black hole
of the ambulance and stood the other one
up, a bandage covering its head,
stained where the eyes had been.
The next morning I had to kneel
an hour on that floor, to clean up my blood,
rubbing with wet cloths at those glittering
translucent spots, as one has to soak
a long time to deglaze the pan
when the feast is over.

Olds' poem is almost painful to read.  She's examining the psychological effects of loss, comparing abortion to a fatal car crash.  Don't apply your own moral or political beliefs to this poem.  It isn't political.  It's anatomizing grief in all its permutations.  I know people who've had abortions, and, while it was the correct decision for them, they still mourn.

(I'm not looking to jump into a debate about abortion.  I do not have a vagina, and it's none of my business.  Or your business, for that matter.  If you don't believe in abortion, then don't choose to have one.  It's that simple.)

Loss is loss.  It hurts.  It sucks.  It takes a long time to heal from.  That's pretty much the thrust of today's poem and this post.  I miss all my departed, sometimes so much it's physically painful.  Time doesn't heal all wounds.  It simply dulls the pain for a little while, like a shot of Novocaine.  

Saint Marty wrote about death tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

In 1919, twenty-one people were killed and one hundred fifty injured when a large molasses tank in Boston, Massachusetts, broke open and a wave of brown stickiness rushed through the streets.  Write a poem that features an unusual death.  The death or details of the event can be fictional or true.

Polar Vortex

by: Martin Achatz

I think of what 35 below

zero will feel like tomorrow

as the priest in the pulpit

talks about Mary using

her mother voice, scolding

her son into performing a wedding

miracle, saving the party 

from going dry.  I wonder

if she did that often when he

was younger, guilted him into

making the fig tree in their backyard

bloom with fruit. or their chicken

lay double yolkers every time.

Maybe she even made him

call down rain when her feet

were too sore to walk to the well,

or make her dough rise

when she was short on yeast.

Perhaps when the heavy cold

sits on our shoulders, Mary 

will shake her head, wag

a finger at her son, point

at a homeless man, Walmart 

bags wrapped around his feet,

blood thick as slush in his still

heart.  She won't have to say

a word, and her son will taste

her disappointment, as if he left

dirty dishes in the sink or forgot

to make his bed in the morning.

January 17, 2025: "Miscarriage," Loss, "Giving Thanks"

So much of human behavior confounds me.

Here's a list of things that I don't understand:

• Over 77 million people voting for a convicted felon to be President of the United States
• Neighbors who take down their Christmas trees on December 26
• Pickles
• The ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Suffering of any kind
• Anyone who hasn't seen Star Wars
• Mean people
• People who get their news from Facebook
• David Lynch haters
• Vaccine deniers
• Poetry haters

I could go on, but you get the idea.  The biggest thing I don't understand, however, is profound loss.

Sharon Olds writes about loss . . . 

Miscarriage

by: Sharon Olds

When I was a month pregnant, the great

clots of blood appeared in the pale

green swaying water of the toilet,.

Dark red like black in the salty

translucent brine, like forms of life

appearing, jelly-fish with the clear-cut

shapes of fungi.

That was the only appearance made by that

child, the dark, scalloped shapes

falling slowly.  A month later

our son was conceived, and I never went back

to mourn the one who came as far as the

sill with its information;  that we could

botch something, you and I.  All wrapped in

purple it floated away, like a messenger

put to death for bearing bad news.

Loss, of course, comes in all shapes and sizes.  There are huge losses (the California wildfires right now), and there are smaller losses (a couple losing a baby to miscarriage, as in Olds' poem).  I would bet, however, that a couple who goes through a miscarriage feels that loss just a powerfully (if not more so) as a couple who loses their home to a fire.  

I try to remind myself every day that people I encounter have all lost someone or something important to them.  It's one of the things that sort of binds humanity together--we all nurse these kinds of wounds, whether those wounds are scarred over or fresh as a papercut,  Even the biggest assholes on the planet on the planet probably have pictures in their wallets of dead mothers, fathers, spouses, or kids.  

How do I deal with loss?  I try to find small things every day to celebrate, from a really good piece of toast to a poem that makes my heart sing "Now Thank We All Our God."  Doing this keeps me from descending into despondency.  

Yes, there's a lot of shitty things happening in the world right now.  But there are also beautiful sunrises; people providing meals to the hungry; elderly neighbors who send birthday cards to kids on their street; puppies who lick your face until you can't stop laughing.  It's just a matter of pausing to recognize these small moments of grace and say "thank you."

Saint Marty celebrates a small moment, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write down three things you did yesterday.  Think about the specific details of each event using all of the five senses:  what you saw, heard, touched, smelled, and tasted.  Choose one of these events to write a poem about.  Or write one poem with three sections made up from each of the events.

Giving Thanks

by: Martin Achatz

When my dog squats 

in my backyard to shit

in the snow, then turns

around to smell what

she has just accomplished,

I think to myself, yes,

I get it.  I understand

the need to give thanks

for everything, tiny 

or gigantic, that we do,

because the world is too

big and so much goes

unnoticed.

January 16, 2025: "The Winter After Your Death," Best Part of My Day, "Apple Ode"

It was a day where nothing seemed to go the way I expected.

You see, the first thing I do every morning is make a list of tasks.  Then, I prioritize those tasks, from "Absolutely HAS to get done today" to "Get this done some time in the next six months."  From library work to teaching, everything seemed to take longer, be more complicated, than anticipated.

Sharon Olds misses her friend . . . 

The Winter After Your Death

(for Katie Sheldon Brennan)

The long bands of mellow light
across the snow
narrow slowly.
The sun closes her gold fan
and nothing is left but black and white–
the quick steam of my breath, the dead
accurate shapes of the weeds, still, as if
pressed in an album.
Deep in my body my green heart
turns, and thinks of you. Deep in the
pond, under the thick trap
door of ice, the water moves,
the carp hangs like a sun, its scarlet
heart visible in its side.

Olds' elegy for her dead friend is quite moving.  If you read my post from yesterday, you know it celebrated the birthday of my friend, Helen.  Helen passed a few years ago, but she is still all around me daily.  I opened a poetry book from my shelf today, and inside the cover was a card from Helen, written in her beautiful cursive.  ". . . And Happy Easter!!!  Rebirth, new beginnings, replenishment."

Even though today didn't go according to plan, I didn't have a bad day,  It just wasn't what I expected.  There's that word again:  expect.  Expectations, as I wrote a couple days ago, generally lead to disappointments.  However, I wasn't disappointed or upset today.  I was just . . . okay.  

Recently, the best part of my day has been occurring at lunch--it's my apple, which has been filling me with a great deal of satisfaction.  That may sound really simplistic, but who says that happiness has to be fireworks and marching bands all the time?  Sometimes, all you need is a really sweet, juicy apple.  I know my friend, Helen, would have agreed with me on this.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for today about his apple, using the following prompt from The Daily Poet.

Brainstorm ten words that come to mind when you think of snow and ten words that come to mind when you think of oil.  Write a poem that uses a word from the "snow list" in the first line and a word from the "oil list" in the second line.  Continue doing this until you have used all (or most) of the words.

Apple Ode

by: Martin Achatz

I press my lips to your cold

skin, lick until you're slippery

as an icicle in spring, tender

flesh sweet as a baby's milky

breath against a tundra of breast.

O apple, the orchard where Tin Man

stood frozen in rust, in need of

lubricant against the witch's curse,

is a blizzard of you, so tempting

to Dorothy she ignores the black

sulfur drifting through forest air

in a vinegary haze, reaches up

to pluck one ruby fruit from a dry 

stem, bite an olive-sized piece

off, let it plow her tongue's field.

Perhaps the witch, with her petroleum

robes and permafrost heart, would

change her mind about needing

those slippers if only, O dear apple,

she sampled your white honey's

sticky friction, let it flood her body 

the way her flying monkeys

flood the emerald heavens.

January 15, 2025: "Farewell Poem," Helen, "Rules for Celebrating a Dead Friend's Birthday"

I was reminded early this morning that today is the birthday of one of my best friends to whom I had to say goodbye about three years ago.  A wonderful emissary of joy named Helen.  She's been with me all day long, on my snowy walk across campus to teach, during a concert at the library tonight, as I sit here on my couch typing this post.

Sharon Olds says goodbye . . .

Farewell Poem

by: Sharon Olds

(for M. M. O., 1880-1974)

The big, cut iceberg waits

outside the harbor like a spaceship.

Sends in emissaries:  cold

chopped fish, floating cakes,

canoes of ice white as brides.

Lurks just beyond the warm

furred lip of the harbor, summer

berries in the bushes, loud stink

of fish drying on salty wooden

slats.  Waits.  Hides nine

tenths of its iron implacable

bulk under the belt of the water,

frigid as cods' teeth, even

now in July.  The sea bathes

her endless pale scarred hips.

The berg sits, cute as a hat,

snowy as egret feathers, waiting

to call the next one out to the other

world beyond the absolutely 

frozen vessel.

                    She walks down

to the water without her walker.

With none of her three canes she was always

losing, joking about, looking for,

finding over her arm.  She just

had her hair done, silver curls

obedient as ivy tendrils

over her child's brow.  She wears

the grey dress with a white collar,

sensible shoes, white socks, 

diamond pin, sets her foot

on the cloudy crystal of an ice floe

and floats out to her mother, floats

out to the white iceberg waiting

ninety-three years for hot death

to deliver his favorite daughter home to

the cool white long room,

lace curtains from the parlor flying

like flags in the summer sky.

Saying farewell is never easy.  Putting a loved one on an ice floe and watching her sail away to that cool white long room, as Olds says.  

But I've never really had to say farewell to Helen, because I feel her presence all the time, as I did today.  Often since her memorial service, I've wanted to send her a text with a picture of something beautiful--a snowy tree, an eagle eating a fish, my daughter on her college graduation day, my son in his ugly Christmas sweater.  Images I know Helen would have loved.  

She was light.  She was joy.  Period.  She was everyone's best friend.  Everyone's cheerleader.  Everyone's shoulder to cry on.  She wasn't a saint, by any means  But she was a force of nature, and, like any force of nature, she changed the landscape of the world.

Selfishly, I wish Helen were still here, on this planet, with me and everyone who loved her.  Yet, I know she IS still here.  I hear her right now in the wind rattling my window, making the trees dance.

Saint Marty wrote a poem today for his pal, Helen, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

On this day in history in 1892, James Naismith (who is also credited for the first football helmet) published the rules for the sport of basketball.  Write a poem made up of rules for something that does not yet have rules written for it.  It could be "Rules for Wearing a Top Hat" or "Rules for Digging a Grave."  Start by making a list of at least three activities that don't have rules, then choose one to focus on.

Rules for Celebrating

a Dead Friend's Birthday

by: Martin Achatz

for Helen

Go for a long hike, at least ten miles.  Don't pack any protein bars or granola.  Forage as you walk, for blueberries, frozen mint, sweet maple sap.

Handwrite letters to everyone you love, include quotes from Mary Oliver or Desmond Tutu or Rumi, draw hearts to dot your i's, use the word joy at least 20 times.

Buy flowers for yourself, whatever's in season--winter jasmine, calla lily, sweet pea--put them in a vase by a window, next to some stones you found on the shores of Lake Superior, watch how the sun turns them into a constellation, name the constellation after yourself.

Eat dark chocolate mixed with sea salt and some kind of fruit--cranberry or cherry or candied orange peel--share it with anyone you meet, even your neighbor who's been flying a Trump flag every day since 2015.

See a bald eagle in a blue sky, compose a poem on the spot, then text it to all the contacts in your phone, followed by at least seven exclamation points.

When the moon climbs the ladder of night, stand in your backyard, make wolf sounds, dance as if your life depends on it.

Don't stop until you're sure all the stars know your name.