February 22, 2025: “Blue Son,” Twin Brother, "Crossing the Delaware"

I've always been a person who hates wasting time.  Even sleep seems like a waste of time to me, though I know it's kind of essential for wellbeing.  In the hours that my eyes are closed and mind is idle, I could accomplish so much shit--write poems and books, grade papers, read, practice music, or exercise.  Yet, for some reason, my body tells me to shut down and recharge.

This penchant I have for overwork always catches up with me.  I can go for days/weeks on about three or four hours of sleep a night.  Then I crash big time.  I lie down and sleep for ten or 12 hours, or I get really, really sick, walking around like I'm a refugee from Night of the Living Dead.  

Sharon Olds writes about her sick son . . . 

Blue Son

by: Sharon Olds

All day with my blue son, 

sick again, the blue skin

under his eyes, blue tracing of his

veins over the bones of his chest

pronounced as the ribs of the dead, a gree

vein in his groin, blue-green as the

numbers on an arm.  His eloquent face

grows thinner each hour, the germs use him

like a soap.  Exhaustion strips him, and under each

layer of sweetness a deeper layer of

sweetness is bared.  His white skin,

so fine it has no grain, goes blue-

grey, and the burning blue of his eye

dies down and goes out, it is the faded cobalt on the

side of a dead bird.  He seems to 

withdraw to a great distance, as if he is

gone and looking back at me

without regret, patient, like an old

man who has just dug his grave and

waits at the edge, in the evening light,

naked, blue with cold, in terrible 

obedience.

As most of my faithful disciples know, I suffered for a few months recently with a major depressive episode.  (That's what my therapist diagnosed me with.)  All I wanted to do was sleep.  Wasn't hungry.  Couldn't concentrate.  Short-tempered.  Overwhelmed.  The list is endless.  On top of all that, I had motivation to complete only the barest of minimums.  I wasn't wasting time.  I was just hanging on, barely.

I'm thankfully coming out of that bluest of funks.  I've got more energy now for sure, but I still can't just put my head down on my pillow and fall asleep.  Instead, I write in my journal, read, fold clothes until I can barely keep my head up straight.  Then I flop into bed and let sleep conquer my overstimulated brain.

I've always dreamed of having a twin brother, as if that would solve all my guilt when I sleep.  Then I could rest while my twin brother continued on with my tasks.  (That sounds more like a clone, doesn’t it?). I once taught a student who had an identical twin brother.  When that student didn’t feel like coming to class, he’d send his brother instead.  The twin would listen, take notes, participate in class discussion.  (They’d obviously been doing this quite a while.). Eventually, I discovered their secret—I had them write something for me in-class, and their handwriting didn’t match.  

I often wonder if having a double would actually make me less tired or more tired.  Would I be tempted to work twice as hard to accomplish twice as much?  Knowing the way my mind works, that would probably be the outcome.  So, it would mean that I’d be twice as tired.

Saint Marty can’t win this battle.  He wrote a poem about having a twin, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

On this date in 1732, George Washington was born.  Head to the Metropolitan Museum website and study closely the painting titled Washington Crossing the Delaware.  Zoom in on General Washington's face, the icy Delaware, the billowing American flag, then write a poem that describes the scene and/or shares historical facts about the December 26, 1776 attack on the Hessians near Trenton, New Jersey.  If you do not have Internet access, use the portrait of Washing's face on the American dollar or quarter to inspire a poem about the ubiquity of Washington's face in American culture.

Crossing the Delaware

by: Martin Achatz

I always wanted a twin brother--

a person I didn't have to explain

myself to, who understood all

my cravings, desires--from Maria, 

the cute girl who sat next to me

in third grade, her black hair 

smelling like lemon, to Red

Sonja in her chainmail bikini,

cardinal mane, the Farrah

Fawcett of the Marvel crowd,

filling my dreams with hopes

of capture, ropes, manacles, 

stocks, a complete surrender.

My twin would know all this

without me saying single word, 

the way Washington in the painting 

seems to know what awaits him 

on the distant shore, eyes

aimed like canons, ready to fire

at anything blood-colored,

while the soldiers paddle and bale, 

desperate, as if they're crossing 

the River Styx , Charon 

as their commander.

In the boat, my twin and I whisper 

to each other, sibilant, breathless, 

assaulted by wind and rain,

in a current choked with ice,

not knowing what’s hiding 

in the darkness--a nest of Hessian 

bayonets ready to carve us up

like a Christmas goose, 

or a sexy barbarian with

a sword so sharp it could

split open the belly of sky

to deliver the infant sun

into the arms of morning,

her flashing metal breasts 

blinding us, her willing prisoners.

February 21, 2025: "Pre-Adolescent in Spring," Anger, "Dear Person Who Cut Me Off in Traffic"

Spent most of today traveling.  I had a poetry reading at a public library in a city about 120 or so miles away.  A good poet friend drove there and back.  Because I wasn't driving, all of my natural driving instincts remained muzzled.  Believe it or not, I can get a little . . . angry when behind the wheel.  Even my kids know that I'm a different person while operating a motor vehicle.

Sharon Olds gets called out by her daughter . . . 

Pre-Adolescent in Spring

by: Sharon Olds

Through the glass door thin as a light freeze on the pond,

my girl calls me out.

She is sucking ice, a cup of cubes

beside her, sparkling and loosening.

The sun glints in her hair dark as the

packed floor of the pine forest,

its hot resin smell rising like a

smell of sex  She leaps off the porch and

runs on the grass, her buttocks like an unripe

apricot.  She comes back, hair

smoking, face cool and liquid,

skin that vital, translucent white of the

casing of milk-weed pods.  She fishes

another cube from the cup with her tongue.

Around us the flat spears of bulbs

are rising from inside the ground.

Above us the buds are opening.  I hold

tight to this child beside me, and she

leans her body against me, heavy,

in layers still folded, its fragrance only

half unlocked, but the ice now rapidly 

melting in her mouth.

Sharon Olds provides a pretty vivid portrait of her daughter.  No longer her mother's "little" girl, the daughter nevertheless seeks out the comfort of Olds' embrace.  In this in-between state--not quite adult and not quite child--the daughter is a bud beginning to open, an unripe apricot, a bulb "rising from inside the ground."  The emphasis here is on growth and beauty.

As I said up above, I'm sometimes not the easiest to get along with.  I get moody, angry, happy, all in the space of about one minute.  When driving, I become possessed, especially if I've had a shitty day.  The smallest of inconveniences become the Hindenburg exploding into flames.  For the most part, I'm able to control my occasional bouts of temper.  Most people who know me have probably never seen me angry.

All kinds of circumstances feed the angry red monster inside me.  Exhaustion.  Stupidity.  Donald Trump.  Bad poetry.  Driving a car.  Change.  My kids (the ones who know you best are the ones who can piss you off the most).  However, I control my anger.  Focus it.  Try to transform it into something creative and constructive and positive.  Except when it comes to bad driving.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight about road rage, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem of address to someone or something that angers you.  It might be a former lover, a pair of shoes that gave you blisters, or the mosquito that buzzed in your ear all night.  Extra credit:  employ a 6-line stanza and an AABBCC rhyme scheme in each stanza.

Dear Person Who Cut Me Off in Traffic

by: Martin Achatz

You were in your Durango, weaving

in and out and around, in such

a frenzy to be first somewhere

or some when.  Maybe a dying parent,

a spouse giving birth, or a house

on fire, your family gathered across

the street, watching their lives become

cinder and smoke and ash.  Perhaps

you are late for work for the fourth 

time this week, your supervisor

having warned you that just one

more tardy punch would mean

the end of your time at the company,

and your son needs braces, daughter

requires insulin, wife in the middle

of chemo treatments, her bald head 

now fuzzed, eyes dark as wells,

no water or bottom in sight.

Or maybe, just maybe, you were meeting

the love of your life at a movie theater,

a date you'd planned a month in advance,

engagement ring in your pocket, a dozen

roses on the passenger seat, your Brut 

cologne so strong in the cab of the truck

your eyes water, blurring everything.

Another possibility:  you're plain tired

after a 12-hour shift at the auto

plant, only bed on your mind, 

the promise of pillow cold as February.

Whatever your reason for swerving

in front of me tonight, I forgive you,

because life is too short to hold

onto anger, even if your bumper

had a "Trump 2024" sticker on it.

I mean, everyone makes mistakes,

don't they?  

February 20, 2025: "Son," Travel, "Hanauma Bay, May 1996"

Another long day of librarying, teaching, writing.  Pretty exhausted tonight.  Tomorrow, I take a little road trip with a poet friend to do a poetry reading at a library about 130 or so miles away.  Getting my Bigfoot on.  

Sharon Olds comes home after a night out . . . 

Son

by: Sharon Olds

Coming home from the women-only bar, 

I go into my son's room. 

He sleeps—fine, freckled face 

thrown back, the scarlet lining of his mouth 

shadowy and fragrant, his small teeth 

glowing dull and milky in the dark, 

opal eyelids quivering 

like insect wings, his hands closed 

in the middle of the night. 

                                             Let there be enough 

room for this life: the head, lips, 

throat, wrists, hips, penis, 

knees, feet. Let no part go 

unpraised. Into any new world we enter, let us 

take this man.

I've done exactly what Olds does in this poem--come home after a long day and check on my kids before going to bed.  It's a parent thing.  I just couldn't relax when I was a young father until I knew both my son and daughter were still breathing.  Then, I just sort of stood there, marveling at how I was a part of making this beautiful creature in front of me.

Speaking of my son, I can hear him upstairs, playing online games, and screaming obscenities at his friends:  "You motherfucker!!" and "Fuck you!!" and "Asshole!!"  I'd like to be shocked and claim I don't know where he learned such language, but I have a pretty good idea where he picked it up.  (The phrase I utter at least 20 or so times a day is "You have got to be fucking kidding me!")

Kids really have a way of putting life into perspective.  Before my daughter and son showed up, I was pretty self-centered.  My wife and I went to movies, ate a restaurants, hung out with friends, stayed out late, came home slightly drunk.  We had a dog, but no houseplants.  We could do whatever we wanted, when we wanted, with whomever we wanted.

Now I am much older, with a 24-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son, mortgage, car payments, and a really cute puppy.  In short, I'm not completely in charge of my life anymore, but I'm okay with that.  My kids are amazing, funny, and smart.  I like to believe I had a small part in bringing these two bright souls into the universe.  If that's what I'm remembered for when I eventually leave this world, I'd count that as a win.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight about that honeymoon time before kids, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Use the following line from Natasha Trethewey's "Theories of Time and Space" to begin a poem that provides directions to a specific geographic place:  Everywhere you go will be somewhere / you've never been.  Aim to engage all five of your reader's senses as you lead him or her to Crater Lake, Munich, Tasmania, Italy, the Grand Canyon, etc.

Hanauma Bay,

May 1996

by: Martin Achatz

Everywhere you go will be somewhere

you've never been.

     -- Natasha Trethewey, "Theories of Time and Space"

I dreamed of your body next to mine

in the night

before we even had a bedroom

or bed.

In polar dark, I explored each

isthmus and cove

of you until I no longer

needed maps

or directions, the gentle coax

to turn left

then right, right again, right

and right and Jesus

right again!  Now, after almost 30

years of traveling

through the atlas of your muscles, limbs,

rivers, canyons,

I return to that far green

place where

coral and surf kissed

your skin

with salt, me rolling onto

you, pressing my

lips to yours lips, letting waves

rush over us

like Burt and Deborah in

From Here

to Eternity, chasing your

parrot fish

with my tongue, tasting the ocean

between your legs,

getting lost over and over and over,

only wanting

to take you somewhere you've never

been before.

February 19, 2024: "Relinquishment," Surrender, "Remingt n"

Eventually, all parents have to surrender their children to the world.  That's part of the deal.  They enter your life, squirming and red-faced and fragile.  You spend 17 or 18 or 19 years teaching them the ins and outs of living in this messed up universe.  Then, you release them, hold your breath, and hope.

Sharon Olds on releasing her daughter . . . 

Relinquishment

by: Sharon Olds

On a black night in early March,

the fire hot, my daughter says

Wrap me up in something.  I get the old

gray quilt, gleaming like a sloughed

insect casing, and wrap it around and 

around her narrow nine-year-old body,

hollow and flexible.  Cover my face,

she hisses in excitement.  I cover her face

and fall back from the narrow, silver

shape on the carpet.

                                  How finally

she is getting away--an Egyptian child

bound in gauze, set in a boat

on a black night in early March

and pushed out on the water, given

over to the gods of the next world

who will find her

or not find her.

This need to let children go is not easy, as Olds poem hints at.  It's full of uncertainty.  Maybe the gods will find the children, look after them.  Maybe they won't.  They'll end up, bound in gauze, floating forever in the water of a black night.

My daughter will be heading out into the black night in August, headed off to medical school.  My son, 16 years old and invincible, is already talking about moving out, getting an apartment with a friend.  I've tried to give them both tools and wisdom to cope with an increasingly unkind, divided world.  My wife and I have done our best, raising them to be loving and empathetic citizens of the universe. 

Will our son and daughter succeed in life?  I can't predict that, as much as I wish I could.  I performed in a show tonight at the library where I work.  It's a variety show featuring music, poems, storytelling, and special guests.  Think clearance A Prairie Home Companion.  The theme of the evening was "Crossroads"--those times in life when you're faced with tough decisions.  Kindergarten.  High school graduation.  Marriage.  Children.  Jobs.  Mortality.  

So, necessarily, I thought a lot about choices all day long.  I hope I've made good choices for my kids, gone down the right paths these past 25 or so years.  I guess I'll never know for sure.  I do know, however, that my daughter and son are loving, caring individuals.  They want to make the world a better place.  Even if I've fucked up every once in a while (which I have), my kids remind me that perhaps I didn't fuck up too badly.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight about a birthday present he received from his daughter.  The poem was based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

On this date in 1878, Thomas Edison received a patent for the phonograph.  Write a poem about a once-common household item that is now obsolete.  Examples:  transistor radio, cassette recorder, 8-track player, modem, oscilloscope, typewriter, Polaroid instant camera, Walkman.

Remingt n

by: Martin Achatz

My daughter b ught it f r me

f r Father's Day when she was

 nly 15, this typewriter  lder

than my dad.  I imagined

Hemingway p unding  ut The Sun

Als  Rises in Paris  n it, each w rd

a bullet fr m his fingers.  The letter

" " d esn't w rk, leaves h les

in the lines I type, as if the paper was

used as target practice f r

a BB gun.  I remember h w pr ud

my daughter was when she unveiled

her present, h w I cried when

her face unfurled like a m rning

gl ry.  She typed a message t  me:

"I l ve y u, Daddy."

"I l ve y u, 2!" I typed back,

all the missing   's  lining up

like a w lf m aning at

a beaver m  n.

February 18, 2025: "Rite of Passage," Gray Day, "Oyster"

It was kind of a gray day--nothing out of the ordinary happened, which is a good thing.  As you know, I don't like surprises all that much.  I prefer days that are . . . predictable.  The only surprises I like are ones that I know about.  You see, in my life, I've had too many . . . bad surprises.  Thus, I have become a creature of habits.  Even my wife knows my aversion to the unexpected.  That's why, I think, she's only thrown one surprise party for me.  It was for my 50th birthday, and she threw it on my 51st birthday.  Surprise!

Sharon Olds throws a birthday party for her son . . . 

Rite of Passage

by: Sharon Olds

As the guests arrive at our son’s party
they gather in the living room—
short men, men in first grade
with smooth jaws and chins.
Hands in pockets, they stand around
jostling, jockeying for place, small fights
breaking out and calming. One says to another
How old are you? —Six. —I’m seven. —So?
They eye each other, seeing themselves
tiny in the other’s pupils. They clear their
throats a lot, a room of small bankers,
they fold their arms and frown. I could beat you
up, a seven says to a six,
the midnight cake, round and heavy as a
turret behind them on the table. My son,
freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks,
chest narrow as the balsa keel of a
model boat, long hands
cool and thin as the day they guided him
out of me, speaks up as a host
for the sake of the group.
We could easily kill a two-year-old,
he says in his clear voice. The other
men agree, they clear their throats
like Generals, they relax and get down to
playing war, celebrating my son’s life.

This rite of passage is, I would say, pretty typical for typical boys doing typical boy things.  Talking smack.  Threatening each other.  Going for shock and awe.  Acting nonchalant.  Six- and seven-year-old boys learning how to behave like "men"--which, in this case, means they're tiny Russian oligarchs, I guess.  Pretty normal, even for the son of a poet.

I was not a typical six-year-old boy.  Or seven.  Or eight.  And I'm not a typical adult, unless you consider being a poet a typical occupation.  Most people wouldn't.  Even my "normal" jobs aren't that normal for most people--library programmer, college English professor, church organist.

So, I guess I don't like normal, which is different from not liking surprises.  You can be atypical and still not enjoy a group of people shouting "Surprise!" at you when you walk into a room.  (The one surprise party my wife threw for me was lovely--a room filled with individuals I care about deeply, and who obviously care about me.  I enjoyed myself immensely once I got over the initial shock.)  

But, in my normal atypical life, I try to plan my days so that I know exactly what is going to happen, from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed.  It's how I keep my mind from exploding.  The most excitement I want in a day is getting KFC for dinner when I was expecting Taco Bell.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem about a typical, gray day, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem in the key of gray.  Begin by looking up synonyms for gray.  Examples:  ashen, argentine, leaded, pewter, slate, hoary.  Gray is also associated with cheerlessness, depression, and dreariness.  Write a poem that strikes a dismal, dreary tone, or write a poem that uses synonyms for gray about a joyful topic.

Oyster

by: Martin Achatz

At the end of this hoary day,

when the muscle of time

flexes with leaden snow,

clouds hunched together

like the backs of so many

mice chewing the horizon,

I drag myself into silvery

dusk, my brindled dog

sniffing, digging, as if

she's a bloodhound chasing

escaped chain gangers.

Winter's iron thumb presses

down, makes each breath

a frozen dime of air.  I tug

on the leash, impatient

to retreat from this livid

landscape.  Above me,

the oyster sky opens

its mouth, sticks out

a tongue where a pearl

moon balances, a fragile

cocoon ready to hatch 

into light.

February 17, 2025: "For My Daughter," Lonely Offices, "Battle of the Bulge"

Like any parent, I expect my children to outlive me by many, many, many years.  

My parents buried two of their children--my brother, Kevin, and my sister, Sally--and it broke them.  Literally.  I don't think they ever really recovered from those losses.  I would sometimes find my dad sitting at the dining room table, just staring their graduation pictures on the wall.  Perhaps the one good thing about my mother's dementia was that she didn't have to live with the memory of their deaths every day.

Sharon Olds writes her daughter . . . 

For My Daughter

by: Sharon Olds

That night will come.  Somewhere someone will be 

entering you, his body riding

under your white body, dividing

your blood from your skin, your dark, liquid

eyes open or closed, the slipping

silken hair of your head fine

as water poured at night, the delicate

threads between your legs curled

like stitches broken.  The center of your body

will tear open, as a woman will rip the

seam of her skirt so she can run.  It will happen,

and when it happens I will be right here

in bed with your father, as when you learned to read

you would go off and read in your room

as I read in mine, versions of the story

that changes in the telling, the story of the river.

Olds is pretty pragmatic in this poem.  She knows her daughter is going to grow up, venture out into the world, have sex.  It's a part of becoming an adult for most people.  We replace the unconditional love of mothers and fathers with the affections/attentions of a significant other.  It's an old story--as Olds says, "the story of the river."

I hope I never have to experience what my parents did.  In fact, I don't even want to contemplate the possibility.  My daughter has become a loving, caring, beautiful young woman.  She lives with her significant other, and I can definitely feel the shift in our relationship.  She's not quite the same little girl who used to fall asleep on my chest watching Frosty the Snowman every afternoon after preschool.  

But I would still sacrifice everything for her, up to and including my own life.  As long as there's breath in my lungs, I will do whatever I can to keep both of my children from harm.  I believe that's part of the father job description:  "Must be willing to forfeit health and happiness for offspring."  

My dad, even though he wasn't really physically affectionate, would do anything for me.  I know that.  For years, he rode his riding lawnmower up to my house and cut my lawn for me.  (He did this well into his 80s.)  If I had a plumbing issue, I would call him, and he'd come over and fix it.  He came to all of my poetry readings, and, when I was named U.P. Poet Laureate, I've never seen him so happy for me.  It was one of the few times he hugged me and said, "I'm proud of you."

I loved my dad, even though he sometimes made that love very difficult.  Yet, as Robert Hayden says at the end of his great poem "Those Winter Sundays"--"What did I know, what did I know / of love's austere and lonely offices."

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight about those lonely offices of fatherhood, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Start by making a list of memories you associate with winter.  Describe your childhood sled or saucer, your favorite skating pond or tobogganing hill.  Did you go on ski vacations, or was winter more a time for hunkering down in a warm house?  What does winter smell like?  Taste like?  Describe your favorite winter outfit.  Take these memory snippets and fashion them into a wintry poem.

Battle of the Bulge

by: Martin Achatz

My dad fought winter the way

Patton fought the Battle of the Bulge, 

as if the fate of Western civilization 

depended on it.  He took no

prisoners as he rolled through drifts

and banks, ambushed pines where

snipers of white hid in branches.

For four, sometimes five months

Dad never surrendered to blizzard

assaults or cold as deep as

the Russian front.  He should have

received the Medal of Honor

for being an arctic Sergeant York,

storming squalls with nothing

but a shovel in his hands.

They say Patton's last words

in the hospital were It's too dark,

I mean it's too late.  Dad didn't

speak as he lay dying.  Instead,

his arms and legs kept moving,

pushing, marching, as if he had

one last snowy battle to win before

he found peace.

February 16, 2025: "Size and Sheer Will," Peter Pan, "Hide and Seek"

I remember seeing Walt Disney's Peter Pan as a kid.  (Yes, I know, I know.  The depictions of Indigenous stereotypes in that film are very problematic, but I was a kid and white and male.  I had the world in the palm of my little hand.)  Peter says at one point, "Go on! Go back and grow up! But I’m warning you, once you’re grown up you can never come back.”  That line terrified me.  Growing up was scary, and I didn't want to have anything to do with it.

Sharon Olds writes about her son's rush to grow up . . . 

Size and Sheer Will

by: Sharon Olds

The fine, green pajama cotton,
washed so often it is paper-thin and
iridescent, has split like a sheath
and the glossy white naked bulbs of
our son's toes thrust forth like crocus
this early Spring. The boy is growing
as fast as he can, elongated
wrist dangled, lean meat
showing between the shirt and the belt.
If there were a rack to stretch himself, he would
strap his slight body to it.
If there were a machine to enter,
skip the next ten years and be
sixteen immediately, this boy would
do it. All day long, he cranes his
neck, like a plant in the dark with a single
light above it, or a sailor under
tons of green water, longing
for the surface, for his rightful life.

Olds touches upon one of the great mysteries of being a kid:  that insatiable hunger to be an adult.  Her son wants to hop in the DeLorean and travel to his sixteenth year.  No passing "Go."  No collecting your $200.

Now well into my adulthood (my son says I'm ancient), I still don't understand young people rushing to join the "real" world.  If they haven't looked around recently, the real world kinda sucks.  Why would you give up curfews and homework and summer recess for taxes and colonoscopies and timeclocks?  It's not really a good trade.

I'm with Peter Pan on this one.  If I could purchase a condo in Neverland, I would.  I don't want to pay to get the brakes on my car fixed.  Just sprinkle some of Tink's pixie dust on me, and let me soar around Big Ben.  Sure, kids have their own brands of hardship, and sometimes adult problems impinge on the boundaries of Neverland, but, overall, kidding is a lot more fun than adulting.  Adulting sucks.

Sure, I can stay up as late as I want.  Drink alcohol to excess legally.  Smoke weed until the neighborhood smells like a skunk sanctuary.  But I still have to get up in the morning and go to work for eight or nine or ten hours in order to pay the mortgage and put gas in my car.  Remember those dinners that miraculously appeared on the table when you got home?  You have to cook those dinners yourself now.  And set the table.  And wash the dishes.

I think you're seeing my point now.  Hold onto your inner child as long as you can.  You'll have plenty of time to practice for death later.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem inspired by Peter Pan for tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:  

Begin writing a poem about your shadow, but don't stop there.  Describe the shadows of what you see around you:  robins, sheds, skyscrapers, park benches, soda pop cans.  If you want, take it a step farther, describing the shadow your father casts upon you or your shadow self.

Hide and Seek

by: Martin Achatz

I once lost my shadow

when I was a kid.

One second, it was

hot on my heels

as I ran down

an alley, the next,

it had vanished

like a snowflake

on an eyelash.

I searched for days,

under maple

canopies, in closets.

I opened cupboards,

crammed my face

into the darkest

places I could 

find, thinking 

shadow called

to shadow.  

I even looked

in my dad's 

underwear drawer

because I knew

he kept his shadow

in there at night,

folded like a pair

of socks beside

his Fruit of the Looms.

My shadow was

nowhere to be

found.  I'd almost

given up

when my mother

handed me my

laundry to be put

away, and there 

it was, washed,

ironed, and dark.

The afternoon sun

was still bright,

so my shadow

and I went

to the beach together,

waded the shallows

where phantoms

of minnows

swarmed, nibbled

our toes.

Art by Kristina Craig

February 15, 2025: "Eggs," Kids Grow Up, "A Whopper"

Raising kids is hard work.  Any caregiver of children would agree with this statement.  Of course I love my daughter and son, would do anything for them.  However, rearing offspring also makes you a little . . . crazy.  There's a reason why polar bears eat their young.  Some say it's because of climate change.  Mothers and fathers know differently.

Sharon Olds raises her daughter . . . 

Eggs

by: Sharon Olds

My daughter has turned against eggs.  Age six

to nine, she cooked them herself, getting up

at six to crack the shells, slide the 

three yolks into the bowl,

slit them with the whisk, beat them till they hissed

and watch the pan like an incubator as they

firmed, gold.  Lately she's gone from

three to two to one and now she

cries she want to quit eggs.

It gets on her hands, it's slimy, and it's hard

to get all the little things out:

puddles of gluten glisten on the counter

with small, curled shapes floating in their

sexual smear.  She moans.  It is getting

too close.  Next birthday she's ten and then

it's open season, no telling when

the bright, crimson dot appears

like the sign on a fertilized yolk.  She has carried

all her eggs in the two baskets

woven into her fine side,

but soon they'll be slipping down gently,

sliding.  She grips the counter where the raw

whites jump, and the spiral shapes

signal from the glittering gelatine, and she

wails for her life.

It's hard to see your kids grow up, grow away from you.  Olds recognizes that her daughter is becoming her own person, and pretty soon, she will no longer be able to shelter her from the cruelties of the world.  Kids just don't stay kids forever, and, while you're a parent for life, kids become adults become lovers become parents become spouses become (fill in the blank with any adult-sized occupation/avocation/role).

I would love to be able to protect my daughter and son from every boogeyman that rears its ugly head, real or imagined.  (NOTE:  I'm trying to remain non-political, but you can put whatever orange face you want on the boogeyman.)  Obviously, I can't be Batman keeping the streets of Gotham safe for the rest of their lives.  So, like Olds, I stand back and watch as they mature and find out they don't like eggs but are sentenced to a lifetime of them.

Of course, kids push boundaries all the time.  It's in the job description.  They want to do things that are dangerous or, frankly, really stupid.  I see that as an adult.  They can't connect those dots yet.  What do they do in these circumstances?  They bend the truth, exaggerate, or outright lie.  (I did it myself, so I speak from experience.)  Maybe they'll get away with it, and maybe it will bite them in the ass.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight about this very topic, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem in which not a single word is true.  The poem may consist of lies about yourself, or it could focus on fabricated historical events, laws of physics, or geographic wonders.  Let your imagination run toward the false!

A Whopper

by: Martin Achatz

My 16-year-old son wants

to spend the night at a friend's

house because it's the friend's

birthday and they want to make

chocolate chip cookies together then

collaborate on a physics project

(something about bodies in motion,

dropping feathers and water balloons

from the roof of a building) then

watch a Ken Burns documentary

about the American groundhog then

go for a hike in the woods

to take pictures of a flock 

of endangered scarlet bloomers

(I've never heard of these before)

that have nested in a pine grove

near the friend's backyard then

go door-to-door collecting cans

to help pay for a classmate's 

treatments for a terminal disease

named cocktus erectus (again I've never

heard of this condition before) then

they want to stay up all night 

to see the Labia Majora meteor

showers that are only visible

from Earth one night every 157,000

years.  How could I say "no" to him?

February 14, 2025: "Six-Year-Old Boy," Valentine's Day, "Mince and Whisk"

Being a poet sometimes means you speak truths that may upset other people.  That's the reason poets have been thrown in prison or exiled all through history--from Ovid to Allen Ginsberg.  Truth can frighten people, even if it's spoken with compassion and love.  Sharon Olds is one of those poets who can make her readers . . . uncomfortable.

Sharon Olds contemplates her son growing up . . . 

Six-Year-Old Boy

by: Sharon Olds

We get to the country late at night
in late May, the darkness is warm and
smells of half-opened lilac.
Our son is asleep oh the back seat,
his wiry limbs limp and supple
except where his hard-on lifts his pajamas like the
earth above the shoot of a bulb,
I say his name, he opens one eye and it
rolls back to the starry white.
I tell him he can do last pee
on the grass, and he smiles on the surface of sleep like
light in the surface if water. 

He pulls his pajamas down and there it
is, gleaming like lilac in the dark,
hard as a heavy-duty canvas fire-hose
shooting its steel stream.
He leans back, his pale face
blissful. The piss, lacy and fragile,
arcs over the black lawn.
Afterwards, no hands,
he shakes himself dry, cock tossing like a
horse’s white neck, and then he
leans against the car, grinning,
eyes closed, sound asleep,
his sex pointing straight ahead,
leading him
as if by the nose
into his life, late May,
June, late June, July,
full summer.

Yes, Olds is writing about her six-year-old son's penis.  And, yes, some people might think this poem is inappropriate.  (I'm not one of those people.)  I can absolutely see a certain brand of person crying foul over this little love poem.  

Yes, I said "love poem" because that's exactly what it is--a mother writing lovingly, intimately about her son.  Olds never holds back.  In fact, I would say she simply doesn't give a shit if her writing makes you squirm a little.  That's her job.

Today is Valentine's Day.  My little family celebrated by having dinner together tonight--Mexican food, per our kids' request.  It was lovely time.  We talked, ate, watched TV, played some games.  These are the people I love the most in my life.  They ground me.  Remind me of what's really important.  

My wife and I have been through some rough patches, as most of my faithful disciples know.  But we have overcome those obstacles.  This year, we will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.  That's a lot of water under the bridge, and there's a whole lot of water still to go.  My wife was the one who kept me alive this past November and December when I was in the midst of a major depressive episode.  She's done that countless times.

So, tonight, Saint Marty celebrates the love of his life with a poem based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Relying on memory, a culinary dictionary, or a stack of cookbooks, make three separate lists of verbs, nouns, and adjectives related to cooking and baking (score, truss, whisk, juice), then write a love poem using at least five words from each list.

Mince and Whisk

by: Martin Achatz

How many times have we been

together in the kitchen, mincing

garlic, whisking eggs and cream,

you lifting a sticky finger to my lips,

me licking the sweet batter from your

teaspoon, each taste filled with

raw hunger for more and more--

more whipping, more beating,

more dough folded into more dough

folded into (Oh, God, yes!) more

dough until the yeast activates,

begins to swell and rise and

breathe, brim, boil over the bowl's

lip, because it cannot be contained,

subdued, becomes something

necessary to live, fine as flour,

golden as yolk, and when the oven's

hot fingers press into its flesh,

it saturates the entire house

with its satisfied, sated breath?

February 13, 2025: "Exclusive," Agape, "Mercy Is a Wound"

Love is a strange verb, full of nuances. I can love my wife or son or daughter, and also love pizza. Or I can love the poetry of Sharon Olds, and also love silence. The Greeks divided love into four categories: Agape (unconditional love), Eros (romantic love), Philia (brotherly love), and Storge (familial love).

Sharon Olds writes about Storge . . .

Exclusive

by: Sharon Olds

I lie on the beach, watching you
as you lie on the beach, memorizing you
against the time when you will not be with me:
your empurpled lips, swollen in the sun
and smooth as the inner lips of a shell;
your biscuit-gold skin, glazed and
faintly pitted, like the surface of a biscuit;
the serious knotted twine of your hair.
I have loved you instead of anyone else,
loved you as a way of loving no one else,
every separate grain of your body
building the god, as you were built within me,
a sealed world. What if from your lips
I had learned the love of other lips,
from your starred, gummed lashes the love of
other lashes, from your shut, quivering
eyes the love of other eyes,
from your body the bodies,
from your life the lives?
Today I see it is there to be learned from you:
to love what I do not own.

I love the conclusion Olds reaches in this poem about her daughter--the necessity for parents to love their kids, knowing full well those kids will eventually leave to search for their own versions of love.  Love can't really be owned.

I know this love post is early--Valentine's Day is tomorrow.  But there's no such thing as too much love, is there?  Plus, I didn't want to write another post tonight about Agent Orange and his partner, Apartheid.  (By the way, there are terms for the love of the Felon in Chief:  racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, homophobia.  If you want a blanket term that covers all the bases, just use stupidity.)

I want to talk about my puppy tonight, who truly is the poster child for agape.  It doesn't matter to her whether I've taken her for a walk, ignored her, or spent two hours scratching her ears and belly.  She will always crawl into my lap and lick my face until I start laughing.  In short, she loves unconditionally.  

We should all experience that kind of devotion every day.  Love that doesn't expect anything in return but more love.  I'm a pretty blessed person, because I have a lot of agape in my life--from my wife, daughter, son.  And puppy.  Of course, as the old saying goes, the price of great love is great sorrow.  If you love someone or something deeply, you will eventually experience the grief of losing that someone of something.  That's how it works.

 Saint Marty wrote a poem about puppy love for tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Choose a word and its antonym then write a poem that contrasts the two extremes.  Consult a dictionary or thesaurus to find all the synonyms for your opposite words, or simply rely on memory to construct your lists of opposites.  Pairing possibilities:

bright/dim

light/heavy

large/small

extrovert/introvert

Mercy Is a Wound

by: Martin Achatz

Mercy is a wound sometimes, the way

you take your old dog to the vet when 

she loses sight, control of her

bowels and bladder, when she looks 

at you with marbled eyes, sniffs

your palm because she can't rise

from her pillow, presses her 

hot tongue to your skin to make

sure you are her person, the one

who fills her water dish, scratches

her ears, invokes her name in morning

light, like she's answered prayer.

Let's say her name is Mercy,

and let's also say she knows 

she's so close to darkness

she can smell its clay in the air.

Pick Mercy up, carry her

to the car, wrap her in a blanket

if she shivers.  When you're

in the exam room with her, say

her name over and over:

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.

And when the needle makes her

yelp, say her name again, quietly,

your lips right by her ear until

her eyes close, breathing slows,

paws cease twitching.  Tell her

she has been mercy in your life,

a Band-Aid or cool breeze 

on difficult days.  When you bring

her home, put her in the ground

under her favorite pine.  Visit her

as much as you can until winter

comes with its cold, wounding

blanket. 

February 12, 2025: "Ecstasy," Good Mood, "Donald Trump Meets the Ghost of Abraham Lincoln in the LIncoln Bedroom"

Okay, I have to admit that I spend a good deal of time every day doom scrolling, intentionally looking for social media posts designed to piss me off or frighten me.  It doesn't take long to find the latest insanity being perpetrated by the Republicans and the South African immigrant.

Now don't get all judgmental.  I'm an intelligent person who knows to fact check everything I see on Facebook (since Mr. Zuckerberg no longer gives a shit about truth in any way).  When I see something truly outrageous, I investigate, as any person with any kind of IQ should do.  (Public Service Announcement for MAGA Republicans:  Donald Trump's posts to Truth Social do not constitute credible, non-biased information.)  The crazy thing is:  most of the time, these outrageous social media claims about the Republican Party's blatant disregard of the current Constitutional crisis taking place in the United States end up being absolutely true.  

So, I have to limit my intake of this insanity mindfully.  I even set timers for myself when I dive into Facebook.  Then, I look for videos and posts that make me laugh or feel good about the human race.  Believe it or not, they're still out there.  I choose joy over .  . . whatever it is the Republicans are doing.

Sharon Olds writes about happiness and pleasure . . . 

Ecstasy

by: Sharon Olds

As we made love for the third day,
cloudy and dark, as we did not stop
but went into it and into it and
did not hesitate and did not hold back we

rose through the air, until we were up above
timber line. The lake lay
icy and silver, the surface shirred,
reflecting nothing. The black rocks
lifted around it into the grainy
sepia air, the patches of snow
brilliant white, and even though we
did not know where we were, we could not
speak the language, we could hardly see, we
did not stop, rising with the black
rocks to the black hills, the black
mountains rising from the hills. Resting
on the crest of the mountains, one huge
cloud with scalloped edges of blazing
evening light, we did not turn back,
we stayed with it, even though we were
far beyond what we knew, we rose
into the grain of the cloud, even though we were
frightened, the air hollow, even though
nothing grew there, even though it is a
place from which no one has ever come back.

Yes, it is a hard picture Olds paints of sexual union with her significant other.  There's orgiastic pleasure, sure.  But there's also a precipice that Olds is standing on the edge of--one false step, and she and her lover will plunge into that "place from which no one has ever come back."

I spent some time with my friend, Jody, today.  She was in the library, leading a teen crafting class, and I was with her because I needed my spirits lifted, which is something at which she excels.  We laughed, commiserated, bitched about the current state of politics.  It was cathartic, and I found myself genuinely full of joy.  Jody has always had this superhuman power to drag me, kicking and screaming, from darkness into light.  Today was no different.  

So, I'm in a good mood tonight, because of Jody.  We both share the same fears and anxieties.  Yet, we also lift each other up, even in the most difficult of times.  We've seen each other through a lot of shit.   

Saint Marty wrote a poem tonight in honor of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Today is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States.  Lincoln is said to have stated that "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not themselves."  For today's exercise, write a poem that includes someone or something being set free.  Example:  a zoo animal, a caged chicken, a tethered dog, a human being (either you or someone you know).

Donald Trump Meets

the Ghost of Abraham Lincoln

in the Lincoln Bedroom

by: Martin Achatz

Lincoln stands thin as a leaf 

of grass before Donald, stares

at him as if regarding the dead

at Gettysburg, face stricken

with sadness so deep a stone

would never find its bottom.

When Lincoln opens his mouth,

all Donald hears are cannons,

rebel whoops, four million slaves

groaning under the crack and slash

of four million whips.  Lincoln

gutters in the darkness like a firefly,

senses civil war in Donald's

limbs and organs--Sherman

marching through his bowels,

Lee charging his temples.

As Donald takes a deep breath,

opens his lips, Lincoln thinks

of that bullet his skull ate,

how it filled his head with

a universe of black blossoms,

spinning over an endless field,

souls lined up horizon to

horizon, free at last, hallelujah.

Donald blows Lincoln out 

like a birthday candle, without 

making a wish.  Lincoln hangs 

above his head like smoke above 

a battle that hasn't been fought.

February 11, 2025: "Sex Without Love," Tuesdays and Thursdays, "Dentistry"

So, today was . . . not a bad day.  Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester are a sprint, from the time I wake up until I get home at night.  I haven't taught a four-day-a-week class for many years, and I find it difficult switching gears so many times in one day, from library to college to library to college again, and then, possibly, back to the library for an evening program.  My mind is doing backflips to keep up, and I'm not finding a whole lot of personal pleasure in the schedule.

Sharon Olds writes about being responsible for your own happiness (sort of) . . . 

Sex Without Love

by: Sharon Olds

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the    come to the     God   come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

It's kind of a revolutionary idea, even in the sexually liberated time in which we live--sex for pleasure, that's it.  That's what Olds is saying in this poem--don't mistake the priest for the God.  You are responsible for your own pleasure and joy, nobody else.

This idea applies not only to sex.  It applies to life, in general.  The day you hand over the reins of your happiness to someone else, you have given up agency over your life.  Everything--pleasure, sorrow, hunger, lust, love--doesn't belong to you anymore.

So, me bitching about my miserable Tuesdays and Thursdays is a direct result of me choosing to be miserable.  I could opt to be excited or energized or happily challenged.  Instead, I've picked dread and exhaustion.  I need to cut that shit out.  Considering all the terrible things that are going on in the United States at the moment thanks to Agent Orange, my crazily busy days are chump change.

Saint Marty chooses to live the dream, not the nightmare.  Here is a poem he wrote about a nightmare, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem about a recurring nightmare.  Do not begin your poem "In the dream," but instead, launch straight into the telling:  "My parents and I were driving from Kentucky to New Jersey, but suddenly the car veered left, and I was on a roller coaster made of Jell-O."  For more inspiration, read some of Charles Simic's poems to get yourself in a surreal mood.

Dentistry

by: Martin Achatz

The first tooth pops out
like a cork from a bottle

of Merlot, my mouth flooded

with blackberries, plums,

notes of clover and cedar.

The next tooth turns soft

as melted butter, drips

down my chin as if I'm

at an all-you-can-eat

crab leg buffet.  Number

three shatters when Morten

Harket hits the high note

in "Take On Me" on Q-107,

four and five lost to

raids by ICE agents rounding

up undocumented incisors.

Six and seven become

hummingbirds, hover, drill

the air tornado green.

One by one, teeth migrate

from my mouth, perhaps

because they no longer

want to grind words

into poems anymore.

Instead, they join

a cloistered order

around a monk's tongue,

feasting on silence.

 

 

February 10, 2025: "Poem to My Husband from My Father's Daughter," My Biggest Fan, "Darwinopterus modularis"

I think I take after my mother more than my father.  

My father was a flint of a man, hard and volatile at times.  I know he loved me, but his way of expressing that love was working his ass off to support his family.  He generally didn't indulge in physical demonstrations of affection.  No kisses or hugs, at least not with his sons.

My mother was a thinker, examining situations from all angles.  She read a lot.  Laughed a lot.  Loved her kids a lot.  Mom was the one who convinced me to study computer science when I started college, so I had something to fall back on if this writing/poetry thing didn't work out.  I hardly ever saw her lose her temper, but, when she did, it was terrifying to behold--silent and furious.

Sharon Olds recognizes her father in herself . . . 

Poem to My Husband

from My Father's Daughter

by: Sharon Olds

I have always admired your courage.  As I see you

embracing me, in the mirror, I see I am

my father as a woman, I see you bravely

embrace him in me, putting your life in his

hands as mine.  You know who I am--you can

see his hair springing from my head like

oil from the ground, you can see his eyes,

reddish as liquor left in a shot-glass and

dried dark, looking out of my face,

and his firm sucking lips, and the breasts

rising frail as blisters from his chest,

tipped with apple-pink.  You are fearless, you

enter him as a woman, my sex like a

wound in his body, you flood your seed in his

life as me, you entrust your children to that

man as a mother, his hands as my hands

cupped around their tiny heads.  I have never

known a man with your courage, coming

naked into the cage with the lion, I

lay my enormous paws on your scalp I

take my great tongue and begin to 

run the rasp delicately

along your skin, humming:  as you enter

ecstasy, the hairs lifting

all over your body, I have never seen a

happier man.

Olds can see much of her father in the mirror of her husband's eyes.  Even though her relationship with her father wasn't functional in any way, she is still his daughter and carries his physicality in her body.  She can't escape him.

When I look in the mirror, I see my mother's face--her cheeks and chin cleft and smile.  I'm pretty mild-mannered, like her, and think deeply about things before making decisions, also like her.  She read all the time, with a penchant for mysteries and romances, and she could talk to anyone with ease.

While I'm not a big fan of cozy mysteries or love stories, I did inherit my love of words from her.  She read everything I wrote and came to every reading I gave until she physically couldn't.  She was my biggest fan.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight that his mother would have loved, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Spend time doing a little research today.  Possible subjects:  Egyptian pharaohs, astronomy, reptiles, geologic features of South America.  Incorporate lesser-known facts about your chosen subject into your poem.  If you are nowhere near a library and don't have Internet, write a poem on a subject you know little of nothing about, making up facts as you please.

Darwinopterus modularis

by: Martin Achatz

A crow the size of a gargoyle

perches above my office window,

a scrap of midnight at noon.

I watch as it watches the street

below, its onyx eyes hungry

for something smaller, weaker,

the way pterosaurs skimmed

seas for beds of plankton, flash

of silver fish in the briny foam, 

a ruling reptile, all membrane, 

keratinous fibers, claws like

thunderbolts.  I wonder if the crow

feels its royal blood, how

the kings and queens in its

line gazed on high from sclerotic

rings at the cretaceous kingdoms,

leafed and scaled and furred.

Did they know (does the crow?)

we would spend eons trying

to become angels and gods

like them?  When I step outside, 

will I be blessed with feather,

beak, tail, evolve into Gabriel,

six-winged seraph, chimera?

Will I soar into the heavens

to find the face of God, claw

at his vitreous humor until

it rains down, flooding the world

again for 40 days and 40 nights?

The crow opens its mouth, makes

a sound like the Second Coming.

February 9, 2025: "The Fear of Oneself," Being a Parent, "Lesson"

Sometimes, being a parent sucks.  You want to be friends with your kids, give them everything they want.  However, you have to also say "no" quite a bit, even if you know it will lead to slamming doors, lots of Fuck You! being thrown around, and tears.  

That's the kind of Sunday I had.

Sharon Olds writes about the kind of mother she is . . . 

The Fear of Oneself

by: Sharon Olds

As we get near the house, taking off our gloves,
the air forming a fine casing of
ice around each hand,
you say you believe I would hold up under torture
for the sake of our children. You say you think I have
courage. I lean against the door and weep,
the tears freezing on my cheeks with brittle
clicking sounds.
I think of the women standing naked
on the frozen river, the guards pouring
buckets of water over their bodies till they
glisten like trees in an ice storm.

I have never thought I could take it, not even
for the children. It is all I have wanted to do,
to stand between them and pain. But I come from a
long line
of women
who put themselves
first. I lean against the huge carved
cold door, my face glittering with
glare ice like a dangerous road,
and think about hot pokers, and goads,
and the skin of my children, the delicate, tight,
thin, top layer of it
covering their whole bodies, softly
glimmering.

When I first learned I was going to be a father, I was terrified.  What if I don't connect with my child?  What if I don't love my child?  What if my kid hates me?  What if I fuck my kid up for life?  So many "what ifs" ran through my head, I started keeping a notebook of them.

It all stems from my own relationship with my father, which was complicated.  I mean, I know he loved me, and I loved him.  But we didn't understand each other a whole lot.  He wanted me to go deer hunting and kill things, and I wanted to take piano lessons and write poems.

That's what Olds is dealing with, too, in the poem above.  This fear that she can't protect her own kids because she "comes from a / long line / of women / who put themselves / first . . ."  Olds is afraid of being her mother.

As I said earlier, today was a tough parenting day.  I'm not going to get into details, but let's just say that my son isn't happy with a decision my wife and I made, and "isn't happy" is a kind way of describing his behavior.  Listening to him in his room, I thought he was going to go full Menendez brothers on us.  

Things have calmed down, and we have reached détente.  Not sure how tomorrow is going to go.  He hasn't really said a word to me since about 4:30 p.m., and it's pushing 9:30 p.m.  He didn't even come downstairs to watch Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show, and he loves Kendrick.  

I will say that the reason my wife and I said "no" to him wasn't arbitrary or capricious.  We are trying to keep him safe, even if he doesn't see it that way.  

So, to sum up today:  I'm the worst father in the world.

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

Compose a poem of address that begins with one word (the person, place, or thing being addressed), and then progresses by adding one word to the length of each line (for example:  line 1 is one word long, line 2 is two words long, line 3 is three words long, etc.).  Aim for a poem of at least ten lines.

Lesson

by: Martin Achatz

Son,

your anger

at me tonight

fills the house with

air taut and sharp as

barbed wire.  I wish you'd see

I only want to keep you safe

as that morning I first held you in

my arms, promised I would never let anything harm

you while I still had oxygen in my lungs, your

hatred of me now proof that I'm doing my job right.

February 8, 2025: "The Line," Good and Bad News, "Bone Cold"

Sometimes news is good, and sometimes it's no so good.

When my cell phone rings at 11:37 p.m., I immediately think, "Who died?"  I don't expect good news at that time of the night.  On the other hand, if the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy calls my in early October, I can be fairly confident I'll be receiving good news.

Sharon Olds deals with possibly bad news . . . 

The Line

by: Sharon Olds

When we understood it might be cancer,
I lay down beside you in the night,
my palm resting in the groove of your chest,
the rachis of a leaf. There was no question of
making love: deep inside my body that
small hard lump. In the half-light
of my half-life, my hand in the beautiful
sharp cleft of your chest, the valley of the
shadow of death,
there was only the present moment, and as you
slept in the quiet, I watched you as one watches
a newborn child, aware each moment of the
miracle, the line that has been crossed
out of the darkness.

There's probably no more devastating news than a cancer diagnosis.  I remember the day I received a phone call from one of my siblings, telling me that our sister had lymphoma of the brain, with doctors giving her very little chance for survival.  I walked around, not really hearing or seeing anything for hours.  To borrow Olds' metaphor, a line had been crossed, and I could never go back over it.  I was stuck on the other side.

It pretty much snowed all day today.  I didn't really do a whole lot besides shovel a little, practice for a few worship services at various churches, and write poems.  I didn't receive any news, good or bad.  (Confession:  I've avoided all social media.  I needed a break from the President and Republicans.)  I am calmer right now than I've been all week.

You see, I find myself falling into an old habit from 2016:  scrolling and scrolling through newsfeeds, becoming more and more horrified with every appearance of the color orange.  It literally began to make me physically ill back then.  I'm not going to bury my head in the sand for the next four years, but I'm also not going to climb onboard the Trump Unlimited Railroad every day, either.

Instead, I try to focus on what's in front of me:  birds, my sleeping puppy, ice-shagged pines, crimson winterberries.  I fill my mind with these tangible, concrete pleasures, and it makes me less . . . crazy.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight, based on following prompt from The Daily Poet, that focuses on the present moment:

It's the birthday of Elizabeth Bishop, one of the most well-regarded poets of the 20th century.  Bishop's forte is looking closely at the world's creatures and sharing them with her reader in a painterly fashion:  palm trees are fistfuls of limp fish-skeletons and a dead hen's wing is as thin as tissue paper.  For today's poem, take a walk around your block and notice the small and seemingly insignificant things you pass (a leaf, a beetle, a patch of poppies), as well as your neighbors and/or their dogs, cats, and children.  If you are up for it, take notes.  Either way, return to your desk to describe in vivid detail what you observed.

Bone Cold

by: Martin Achatz

In my backyard,

winter cracked its

knuckles under

my boots--teeth

white as moonlight,

arms bone hard--said

to me, I wish I could be

more like you,

with your fountain

pen and notebook.

If you only knew

how I would give up

everything--the blizzard

of my belly, tundra 

of my toes, wind

of my eyelashes--

if I could simply 

write one line 

of poetry that would

break the heart of summer,

make it understand 

how lonely I am 

for the lips

of the sun.

February 7, 2025: "New Mother," Strategic Planning, "Snow Blower Ode"

I spent a good portion of my day at a strategic planning retreat for work.  (That sounds like a military operation, but it was actually not too horrible.)  We talked about communication and the future.  Told jokes.  Had drinks and ate lunch.  (I had a grilled muenster and roasted tomato sandwich with onion rings, in case you're interested.)  By the end of our session, I felt like we'd given birth to something new and productive.

Sharon Olds writes about having a baby . . . 

New Mother

by: Sharon Olds

A week after our child was born,
you cornered me in the spare room
and we sank down on the bed.
You kissed me and kissed me, my milk undid its
burning slip-knot through my nipples,
soaking my shirt. All week I had smelled of milk,
fresh milk, sour. I began to throb:
my sex had been torn easily as cloth by the
crown of her head, I'd been cut with a knife and
sewn, the stitches pulling at my skin--
and the first time you're broken, you don't know
you'll be healed again, better than before.
I lay in fear and blood and milk
while you kissed and kissed me, your lips hot and swollen
as a teen-age boy's, your sex dry and big,
all of you so tender, you hung over me,
over the nest of the stitches, over the
splitting and tearing, with the patience of someone who
finds a wounded animal in the woods
and stays with it, not leaving its side
until it is whole, until it can run again.

It's a pretty intimate poem--this first sexual encounter between Olds and her husband after the birth of their daughter.  There's longing in these lines.  Fear.  Lust.  Yearning.  Hunger.  Everything has changed for them because of this fragile, new addition to their lives.  

As most of my faithful disciples know, I'm not a big fan of change.  I don't like new additions or emendations.  I eat the same breakfast and lunch every day.  Say the same prayers.  Listen to the same music.  Every night, I sit down and write a blog post.  Sure, there are sometimes slight variations, depending on the day of the week, but even those slight variations are pretty routine for me.

So, talking for an entire day about changes in my place of work was not completely comfortable for me.  But it wasn't as bad as oral surgery.  Because I was part of the discussion--instead of simply being told, through email, that X, Y, and Z are going to take place--I didn't experience that much anxiety.  (I still had anxiety, but I mixed it with gin and tonic to make it more palatable.)

Perhaps these changes will be good, make my life (and everyone else's lives at the library) better.  Sort of like buying a snow blower after shoveling snow for 20 years.

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

In honor of the birthday of John Deere, inventor of the steel plow, write a poem about your favorite labor-saving device.  Examples:  coffee grinder/maker, ice maker, electric can opener, vacuum cleaner, washing machine, etc.  Bonus source:  consult the user manual of your chosen device.

Snow Blower Ode

by: Martin Achatz

Snow ambushes our house

in the middle of night, captures

our garbage cans and car,

blockades the driveway, turns

trees into POWs, shackled

with drift and ice.  In this siege,

O snow blower, you sleep

in the bunker of the garage, 

mouth wide and open, ready

for your cold, cold breakfast.

You're Little Boy in the belly

of Enola Gay, Grant chasing

Lee to Appomattox, wood horse

waiting at the gates of Troy.

When the drums of your heart

roar and you march into battle

at morning light, rabbits flee, crows

retreat to sky, and you, O Napoleon, 

O Joan of Arc, wage your war against

the white supremacy of winter.