July 27: "The Drive," Supreme Act of Trust, "Precious Cargo"

Billy Collins goes for a ride . . . 

The Drive

by: Billy Collins

There were four of us in the car

early that summer evening,

short-hopping from one place to another,

thrown together by a light toss of circumstance.

I was in the backseat

directly behind the driver who was talking

about one thing and another

while his wife smiled quietly at the windshield.

I was happy to be paying attention

to the rows of tall hedges

and the gravel driveways we were passing

and then the yellow signs on the roadside stores.

It was only when he began to belittle you

that I found myself shifting my focus

to the back of his head,

a head that was large and expansively held.

As he continued talking

and the car continued along the highway,

I began to divide his head into sections

by means of dotted lines,

the kind you see on the diagram of a steer.

Only here, I was not interested in short loin,

rump, shank, or sirloin tip,

but curious about what region of his cranium

housed the hard nugget of his malice.

Tom, my friend, you would have enjoyed the sight--

the car turning this way and that,

the sunlight low in the trees,

the man going on about your many failings,

and me sitting quietly behind him

wearing my white butcher's apron

and my small, regulation butcher's hat.

I'm not a good passenger in a car.  Prefer to be behind the wheel.  It's very difficult for me to give up that control, unless I have complete confidence in the driver's skills or am incapacitated in some way (it happens with insulin-dependent diabetics).  But, given the choice, I will always drive.

Letting another person drive me somewhere is a supreme act of trust--that the driver will not go all Fast & Furious on me and that the driver knows where the hell we're going.  I once saw President Obama's motorcade traveling from the local airport to a speaking engagement at the university.  The vehicles in that convoy were going at least 80 to 90 miles per hour along the highway with a police escort, which convinced me that I would never want to be President of the United States.

Today, I didn't drive too much.  My wife had the car at work, so much of my ambulation was by foot.  I mowed my lawn, took my puppy for a long walk, and, in the afternoon, strolled up to church to play the pipe organ for Saturday evening Mass.  It was close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit today, so I ended up sweating in impolite places for a good portion of my waking hours.

Now Saint Marty's feet are a little sore tonight.

Precious Cargo

by: Martin Achatz

Every time I picked up her daughter

for a date, my future mother-in-law

would tell me, "Drive safe.  You have

precious cargo."  Her words stuck

with me as I got behind the wheel,

turned the key in the ignition.  It was

a matter of trust, the way a mother robin

pushes her baby out of the nest, trusts

air and feather and instinct to keep

that fledgling safe from gravity's hunger.

I would take her daughter to dinner, a movie,

maybe skinny-dipping in Lake Superior, then,

late on some dark road, parked, slipped

into the back seat with her, pressed against

this precious cargo, felt breath and heartbeat

fluttering on my fingertips, a winged thing

trying to take flight for the first time

into the freckled heavens of my body.

July 14: "In the Evening," Abby, Fellow Insomniac

Billy Collins at the end of day . . . 

In the Evening

by: Billy Collins

The heads of roses begin to droop.

The bee who has been hauling his gold

all day finds a hexagon in which to rest.

In the sky, traces of clouds,

the last few darting birds,

watercolors on the horizon.

The white cat sits facing a wall.

The horse in the field is asleep on its feet.

I light a candle on the wood table.

I take another sip of wine.

I pick up an onion and a knife.

And the past and the future?

Nothing but an only child with two different masks.

It is the end of day for me, too.  Collins is savoring the last remnants of the evening in this poem, and that is exactly what I'm trying to do.

Most of this Sunday, I've been traveling.  First, we came home from Calumet early this morning, dropped off my suitcase, picked up my son and puppy.  Then, we made a quick trip to Mackinaw City to pick up my great niece, Abby--one of my favorite people in the world

Abby is going to be spending the week with us, and my son couldn't be more excited.  These two truly get each other, and it's great to see them together.  Abby and I just finished watching the film Sasquatch Sunset, and she loved it.  (There are reasons why she's one of my favorite people in the world.)

Now, everyone is going/has gone to bed, and, despite the fact that I'm operating on about seven or eight hours of sleep over these past 72 hours, I'm not feeling particularly tired.  It could be because it's so warm--almost 90 degrees today, and it's still about 78 or so.  Or it could be my mind decompressing after a very busy weekend.  Or my mind anticipating a very busy week.

Whatever the reason, I am very much awake.

Maybe I'll read a little.  Or watch another movie.  Go for a walk.  Count some stars.  Eat some of the fudge I bought in Mackinaw City.  Write a poem.  Revise a poem.  Draw a picture.  Or I may just enjoy the quiet.  (Well, semi-quiet.  As I said, it's hot, and I have a fan blowing on me.)

Abby's kind of a night owl, so, she's probably still awake upstairs right now.  If she's anything like me, her brain probably has a hard time shutting down.  Too many things to think about.

Saint Marty is going to enjoy having a fellow insomniac in the house for a week.

June 18: "Cornish," Pasties, "Heat Wave"

Billy Collins must not be a fan of pasties . . . 

Cornish

by: Billy Collins

Would someone

please translate

her long memoir

into a language

almost no one speaks

or understands anymore?

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where I live, is a place where a lot of Cornish families settled, mainly because of the mining industry.  During the 18th century, the Cornish were considered to be the best hard rock miners in the world (Cornwall being the global hub of mining at the time), so it's no surprise that they came to this region to work in the copper and iron mines.  

Hence the fact that the U.P. is also famous for, among other things, its pasties (a Cornish specialty).  Because these meat pies were portable and provided a full meal (bread, meat, potatoes, vegetables), Cornish miners packed them in their lunch buckets as they headed belowground to work.  Nowadays, you can't drive through a city, village, or town in the Upper Peninsula without finding at least one pasty shop.

So, the heritage of Cornwall, if not the language, is alive and well in my neck of the woods.  I am not of Cornish stock.  I'm a mixture of English and German, mostly.  My sister worked for the mines, but my ancestors did not.  However, I grew up eating pasties and hearing stories of mining disasters like the Barnes-Hecker collapse.  

Today was the first really hot day of the summer, with high temperatures and humidity.  Stepping outside, I almost felt like a baking pasty.  I'm not complaining.  Given the choice between 20 below zero and 90 degrees, I'll take 90 any day.  I love hot weather.  Of course, I was in an air-conditioned library most of the time.

I hosted a poetry reading at the library this evening for three poet friends who've recently released books.  It was a wonderful event, full of great poetry.  And a ton of people showed up.  If I sound surprised, I was.  Usually, poetry doesn't garner all that much enthusiasm from the general public.  Yet, there were only a few empty seats in the audience tonight, and, afterward, everyone just hung around, talking, laughing, and buying books.  I almost felt bad rushing people out the door into the heat at 8:30 p.m. when the library closed.

Now, I'm sitting on my couch at around 11:30 p.m., unable to sleep, thinking of those Cornish miners riding those elevators down into the mine shafts.  How, even at the height of summer, they were surrounded by the cool and damp of the earth.  I wonder if it felt like being buried alive every day.  Maybe, as they worked, they sang Cornish songs or recited Cornish poems and nursery rhymes.

And now Saint Marty is hungry for one of his mother's pasties.

Heat Wave

by: Martin Achatz

A wasp nest nestles

under the eave of my garage,

a paper fist clenched so tightly

its gray knuckles sizzle

in the frying pan of June.

August 15: Fifteen Albums, Midst of Life, Michael David Madonick, "Stork," Confessions of Saint Marty

One of the kids would say that Robert had showed up in generally good spirits around a quarter after four, a little late, and that they joked about the prospect of getting hired to record the theme song to a cartoon show about outer-space hounds from Japan in the new year, work that Ives had gotten them through a connection; that he walked in with a Sam Goody's shopping bag as well as another bag filled with different items, mainly paperback books.  Dressed too lightly for the cool day, he had worn a long black-hooded raincoat and a cap that he didn't like because it messed up his fine dark hair, brown penny loafers and galoshes, a Cardinal Spellman High School senior ring.  During the break he sat around with a couple of his friends in the choir room, showing them the 33rpm records he had bought as Christmas presents that afternoon, about fifteen albums in all.

Those are the details of Robert Ives' final afternoon of life.  Christmas is approaching.  He's a senior in high school.  Loaded down with presents, Robert has plans.  Practicing with the church choir.  Entering the seminary.  Recording a theme song for a TV show.  Robert is surrounded by the promise of the future, as most 17-year-old high school seniors are.  In an hour or so, he will be dead.

I think we're all a little like Robert.  When I get up in the morning, I think about breakfast and work and school.  As I go through the day, I read poems, write a blog post, sometimes clean a bathroom.  In the evening, I'm already thinking about the following day.  The future is always on my mind, and that future does not include death.

Yet, as the Book of Common Prayer says, "in the midst of life, we are in death."  A year ago, I'm sure, my sister was not thinking of death.  She was thinking about dinner and watching The Big Bang Theory.  Sure, she had a broken wrist and back pain, but she still was thinking of a future.  A long future.

My sister is doing well at home.  For the most part, she's peaceful, without pain.  For the first time in a while, she's munching on ice chips.  Opening her eyes every once in a while.  Around her, life is going on as normal.  My dad is sleeping through reruns of Gunsmoke.  My nephews and nieces are playing video games.  My son is having tantrums over bathing.  There's laughter and arguments.  Life.

Today is hot.  It's supposed to reach over 90 degrees.  My brother is taking my son on a fishing trip.  I'm planning on going for a run this afternoon.  A short one.  I'm also playing the pipe organ for the afternoon Mass.  And then we will order pizza like we always do on Saturday nights.  And my sister will be in the midst of all of this.

I'm still not convinced that bringing my sister to my parents' house was the best decision in the world.  However, at the moment, the prospect of my sister going gentle into that good night is not imminent.  She is surrounded by family and friends.  People who love her.  That is a good thing.

Saint Marty is not raging against the dying of the light.  Yet.

Stork
          for my father, Carl, who died October 5th, 1998
          and for his great-granddaughter, Anna, born October 5th, 1998

by:  Michael David Madonick

What bird brings grief?  The crow, the raven, some multitude of starlings
rapturing their madness in an oak?  Or is it that simple bird, a sing sparrow

chilled and pouting up against the dawn?  I wonder, when they passed

through the darkness, toward their different light, how my father might
have talked with her, holding her hand, a hand already formed at some

perfect age, at ten or twelve, and his, at thirty or thereabout.  In our time,

it wasn't long, five hours, maybe six.  But time enough, I think, for a walk
along the boardwalk near Rockaway, for something to eat, time for my

father to tell his great-granddaughter how he never liked walking

on sand, particularly on hot days, such as this, but that she should try it,
not keep back from the waves where they both could see some ghostly

sooty gulls trace their wings across the phosphorescence of breaking

sea.  And Anna, with her perfect mouth, might thank my father
for the chocolate milkshake she had no idea she loved.  He would

have spoiled her like that, in that short time, but not without warning,

not without the undertow, the jellyfish, the lost hooks that even there
good fishermen lose to things beyond their dreams.  He'd have warned her

until he left, disappeared from Ft. Lauderdale, in the chimney smoke

of the crematorium's Monday afternoon, where like a painting, a painting
assembling itself against the unframed canvas of sky, a large bird would

form, tall and strong, no flimsy phoenix, he wouldn't have that, not even

in dream, he'd make a more useful bird, something of his smoke, that
could carry the practical, the precious, across the confusing distance

of the in-between.  It could carry six pounds, almost seven, and when

it landed nearly breathless in Vermont, against my daughter's breast,
she'd be happy, scared and warned.  Such is that early crying, that distance

from the beach.  Such is that bird that did my father's work.  It is made

of grief.  In a year or maybe twelve, I'll bring her chocolate by some
beach, she'll look at me, and me at her, as if at something both of us

repeat.

Confessions of Saint Marty

July 16: No News, New Cartoon, Hot Day

It is over 90 degrees outside.  I went running early this morning, came home, collapsed on the floor, and proceeded to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West in a rainstorm.  Didn't do a whole lot of anything else today.

If you're wondering, I haven't heard anything about the poetry contest yet.  I keep checking the Website, and the same old message is posted:  "The winner will be announced by July 15."  Last time I checked my calendar, that was yesterday.  I suppose I I should think that no news is good news.  It's sort of like someone telling you on your birthday that your present is on the way.  I can still have hope right now.  I still have a present to open.  When my present actually arrives, it might be a tin of stale sardines, but, for now, I can still believe it's going to be a Pulitzer Prize.

New cartoon tonight.  Hope you enjoy it.

Saint Marty is keepin' the faith.