February 5, 2025: "The Connoisseuse of Slugs," Mystery, "42"

I like to think I have good taste in some things--poems, movies, books, music, friends.  Trying to define what makes a good poem or film or friend is difficult, mysterious.  It's like trying to understand the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Yet, I know good poems by the way they leave me breathless at the end.  Good films if I'm still thinking about them three days later.  Good friends by how much of my shit they will put up with.

Sharon Olds is an expert on something . . . 

The Connoissseuse of Slugs

by: Sharon Olds

When I was a connoisseuse of slugs
I would part the ivy leaves, and look for the
naked jelly of those gold bodies,
translucent strangers glistening along the
stones, slowly, their gelatinous bodies
at my mercy. Made mostly of water, they would shrivel
to nothing if they were sprinkled with salt,
but I was not interested in that. What I liked
was to draw aside the ivy, breathe the
odor of the wall, and stand there in silence
until the slug forgot I was there
and sent its antennae up out of its
head, the glimmering umber horns
rising like telescopes, until finally the
sensitive knobs would pop out the ends, 

delicate and intimate. Years later,
when I first saw a naked man,
I gasped with pleasure to see that quiet
mystery reenacted, the slow
elegant being coming out of hiding and
gleaming in the dark air, eager and so
trusting you could weep.

It's a wonderfully weird poem from Olds--one only she could and would write.  And it's all about being an expert.  The slug imagery mixes with sexual imagery, until, in the concluding lines, Olds stuns us with beauty and longing.  It takes my breath away,  Hence, it's a good poem.

I had lunch with one of my oldest (not chronologically) friends.  We both worked at a local book store back in the 1990s, and we quickly bonded.  Through the years we've seen each other through a lot:  divorce, depressions, births, deaths, graduations.  Jody was in the birthing room when my wife was having our daughter.  She filled my university office with balloons for my birthday one year.  We both cuss like sailors and enjoy dirty jokes.  Through the decades we've known each other, she's put up with a lot of my shit.

And that makes her a really good friend.

Friendship is a mystery.  You're never sure where or when it's going to strike.  Jody is about a foot shorter than me with a Southern accent.  The first time I met her, she pointed at me and shouted, "Oh my God, a 4.0 GPA!"  (She'd looked over my resumé when I came in for my interview at the book store.)  I liked her immediately, but I never dreamed that--over 30 years later--we'd still be so close.  

It has been a long week, full of all kinds of stress at work (some induced by the President Musk and the Republicans):  a huge programming series funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, if federal funding isn't "paused" again for review; my annual evaluation for the university; issues with computers; issues with students.  In short, a shit show.  And Jody went out to eat with me and let me vent, hugely.  

When I dropped her off at her apartment complex after lunch, she gave me a kiss and a hug and said, "Take care of yourself, for fuck's sake.  I love you."  (I may be paraphrasing a little.)

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight on mystery, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet;

In celebration of the first Reader's Digest publication on this date in 1922, head to the Reader's Digest home page and click on Jokes:  http://www.rd.com/jokes.  After reading several jokes, draft a poem that riffs on scenarios and punchlines that most intrigue you.  Alternatively, write a poem of three or four sections in which each section begins with a well-known riddle.  Examples:  What time is it when an elephant sits on a fence?  What's black and white and red all over?  Why did the chicken cross the road?

42

by: Martin Achatz

1.

What can you catch but not throw?

Tonight, I caught wind in a pine,

jumping branch to branch like

a hungry crow, scraping the air

with the rusty blade of its voice.

2.

What can cry without eyes and fly 

     without wings?

An angel crashed in my backyard,

its feathers gummed with sap,

eyes filled with more salt than

the Atlantic.  I kissed her cheek, tasted

my mother's last breath.

3.

What gets bigger the more you take away?

Something gibbous walked down

the street, searching for 

a puddle of eclipse

to quench its bright thirst.

4.

What can you break without touching it?

I woke when I heard frost tap

on the pane, write a love 

letter to morning on the glass.