October 2: "Hippos on Holiday," Bigfoot Poems, Dreams Do Come True

Many, many years ago, I dreamed of a book that I would love to read:  a collection of Bigfoot poems.  This was when Amazon was in its infancy, and Google wasn't a verb.  I searched the internet, visited different websites (again, this was before social and media met).  The book simply didn't exist.  

Billy Collins dreams of a movie he'd like to see . . . 

Hippos on Holiday

by: Billy Collins

is not really the title of a movie
but if it were I would be sure to see it.
I love their short legs and big heads,
the whole hippo look.
Hundreds of them would frolic
in the mud of a wide, slow-moving river,
and I would eat my popcorn
in the dark of a neighborhood theatre.
When they opened their enormous mouths
lined with big stubby teeth
I would drink my enormous Coke.

I would be both in my seat
and in the water playing with the hippos,
which is the way it is
with a truly great movie.
Only a mean-spirited reviewer
would ask on holiday from what?

This afternoon, I received a shipment of my new collection of poems--A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders.  It's the book of which I dreamed so many years ago.  To give you an idea of how long it took me to write it, one of the poems predates my daughter, who will be 24 years old in December.  

There are no hippos in my book.  However, you do get a lot of Bigfoot and lake sturgeon and ducks and jellyfish and chipmunks.  When I first opened the box, I just stood there, staring at the book's cover.  Until today, it didn't seem real.  More like a really good fever dream where hippos do go on holiday and Bigfoot trick-or-treats.  

I've been carrying a copy of the book with me all day long.  Every once in a while I'll hold it in my hands, flip through the pages, read a line or stanza.  Just to remind myself that dreams can come true.  

Saint Marty may sleep with the book under his pillow.

August 14: "Reader," Four Shillings Short, "Barred Owl"

So, I had a poetry-filled day.

Started out by writing poetry on the roof of the library with one of my best poetry pals.  (See the end of this post for one of my rooftop compositions.)  Then I wrote an email to a poet I admire, hoping to book this person for next year's Great Lakes Poetry Festival.  After that, it was a lot of busy work, helping move shelves and books for a library remodel, answering other emails, arranging concerts.

This evening, I hosted a concert by a Celtic group named Four Shillings Short (a lovely husband/wife team--Aodh Og O'Tuama and Christy Martin).  I spent a couple hours speaking with them both, and I found out the Aodh Og's parents were good friends with Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney (one of my poet gods).  Aodh Og met Heaney a couple times in his life.  Imagine this news being shared with me nonchalantly, like talking about a good cup of coffee, while the top of my head comes off.

After the concert, I went to another event to share some of my Bigfoot poems.  My daughter and son came for the reading, and we had some cider, ate pizza, and listened to music.  When it was my turn, two musician/artist friends accompanied me with guitar and saxophone.  It was a wonderful way to end the night, and there were a lot of people there to listen.  (Maybe they were simply there for the kombucha, but I like to think they showed up for the words and music.)

In today's poem, Billy Collins addresses one member of his audience . . . 

Reader

by: Billy Collins

Looker, gazer, skimmer, skipper,

thumb-licking page turner, peruser,

you getting your print-fix for the day,

pencil-chewer, note take, marginalianist

with your checks and X's,

first-timer or revisiter,

browser, speedster, English major,

flight-ready girl, melancholy boy,

invisible companion, thief, blind date, perfect stranger--

that is me rushing to the window

to see if it's you passing under the shade trees

with a baby carriage or a dog on a leash,

me picking up the phone

to imagine your unimaginable number,

me standing by a map of the world

wondering where you are--

alone on a bench in a train station

or falling asleep, the book sliding to the floor.

I just got home after this long day of poetry and music.  I'm a little exhausted, but also quite filled-up.  For the most part, I often don't feel like a real artist in any way.  My job is all about supporting and helping other artists and musicians and writers.  Rarely do I get a chance to share my work with an audience.  It was a wonderful gift.

So, looker, gazer, skimmer, skipper--Saint Marty felt like a real poet today.  

Barred Owl

by: Martin Achatz

Who cooks for you?  Who cooks for you all?

In the night, I hear the question

echo through the pines.

It's 11,000 years old,

has been heard by tyrannosaur,

stegosaur, mammoth, dodo.

Who cooks for you?  Who cooks for you all?

Like a mother seeing a crowd

of kids, worried over their health, safety.

Think of those ancient birds

circling, circling the horny backs 

of giants, crying out their concern, 

extinction just a Pleistocene

chipmunk that can be hunted, caught,

shredded with beak and claw, eaten

as the glaciers slowly crawl by.

Who cooks for you?  Who cooks for you all?

December 30: "The Summer Day," Smallest of Things, Bigfoot Poems

Mary Oliver learns something from a grasshopper . . . 

The Summer Day

by:  Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean--

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Yes, life really is all about paying attention, even to the smallest of things--like a grasshopper eating sugar from your palm.  A prayer is simply recognizing the universe's gifts.  Taking heed.  And, above all, celebrating the one wild and precious life you are given.

This post is the second-to-last in the Year of Mary Oliver.  I've really enjoyed my time with Mary.  She has taught me so much about poetry and grace.  Leaving her behind will be difficult.  (In case you're wondering, I have picked out a new author and book for 2024, but you will have to wait until Monday to find out.

However, I will carry the lessons of Mary with me for the rest of my life.  Particularly those lessons regarding joy and happiness.  And I have something to celebrate on this second-to-last night of the year.

This morning, I received an email from an editor informing me that he's accepting seven of my poems for publication, including three Bigfoot poems.  It's the first time I've ever sent my Bigfoot out into the world, and the world seems to like him.

No matter how many times I get published, each time I get a letter or (more often these days) an email, my wild and precious life seems filled with butterflies sipping sugar from my hand.  Sweet and blessed.  My whole day has been sun and celebration, right down to the long walks I took with my puppy and the turkey pot pie my sister made for dinner.  

For Saint Marty, 2023 is going out with a bang instead of a whimper.

April 27: Strange Taste, Working at Home, Chips and Wine and Gossip

Santiago fights his last fight . . . 

But by midnight he fought and this time he knew the fight was useless. They came in a pack and he could only see the lines in the water that their fins made and their phosphorescence as they threw themselves on the fish. He clubbed at heads and heard the jaws chop and the shaking of the skiff as they took hold below. He clubbed desperately at what he could only feel and hear and he felt something seize the club and it was gone.

He jerked the tiller free from the rudder and beat and chopped with it, holding it in both hands and driving it down again and again. But they were up to the bow now and driving in one after the other and together, tearing off the pieces of meat that showed glowing below the sea as they turned to come once more.

One came, finally, against the head itself and he knew that it was over. He swung the tiller across the shark's head where the jaws were caught in the heaviness of the fish's head which would not tear. He swung it once and twice and again. He heard the tiller break and he lunged at the shark with the splintered butt. He felt it go in and knowing it was sharp he drove it in again. The shark let go and rolled away. That was the last shark of the pack that came. There was nothing more for them to eat.

The old man could hardly breathe now and he felt a strange taste in his mouth. It was coppery and sweet and he was afraid of it for a moment. But there was not much of it.

Spent the day working at home with my son, except when I had to give a final exam to my students at the university.  Then my son and I went to an event at my local library for National Poetry Month.  I read with another local poet.  Some Bigfoot poems.  Some other poems.  

After the reading, we had chips and wine and gossip with some poet friends.  It was a good distraction from the sadness of yesterday.

Saint Marty's koan for tonight:  don't invite sharks to a dinner party.

July 21: Ponderous Profound Beings, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, Cloud Above My Head

That for six thousand years- and no one knows how many millions of ages before- the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings- that all this should be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o'clock P.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D. 1851), it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings are, after all, really water, or nothing but vapor- this is surely a noteworthy thing.

Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items contingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times is combined with the element in which they swim; hence, a herring or a cod might live a century, and never once raise its head above the surface. But owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular lungs, like a human being's, the whale can only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere. Wherefore the necessity for his periodical visits to the upper world. But he cannot in any degree breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude, the Sperm Whale's mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the surface; and what is still more, his windpipe has no connexion with his mouth. No, he breathes through his spiracle alone; and this is on the top of his head.

If I say, that in any creature breathing is only a function indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a certain element, which being subsequently brought into contact with the blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not think I shall err; though I may possibly use some superfluous scientific words. Assume it, and it follows that if all the blood in a man could be aerated with one breath, he might then seal up his nostrils and not fetch another for a considerable time. That is to say, he would then live without breathing. Anomalous as it may seem, this is precisely the case with the whale, who systematically lives, by intervals, his full hour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a single breath, or so much as in any way inhaling a particle of air; for, remember, he has no gills. How is this? Between his ribs and on each side of his spine he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of vermicelli-like vessels, which vessels, when he quits the surface, are completely distended with oxygenated blood. So that for an hour or more, a thousand fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus stock of vitality in him, just as the camel crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus supply of drink for future use in its four supplementary stomachs. The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is indisputable; and that the supposition founded upon it is reasonable and true, seems the more cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise inexplicable obstinacy of that leviathan in having his spoutings out, as the fishermen phrase it. This is what I mean. If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale will continue there for a period of time exactly uniform with all his other unmolested risings. Say he stays eleven minutes, and jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths; then whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have his seventy breaths over again, to a minute. Now, if after he fetches a few breaths you alarm him, so that he sounds, he will be always dodging up again to make good his regular allowance of air. And not till those seventy breaths are told, will he finally go down to stay out his full term below. Remark, however, that in different individuals these rates are different; but in any one they are alike. Now, why should the whale thus insist upon having his spoutings out, unless it be to replenish his reservoir of air, ere descending for good? How obvious it is too, that this necessity for the whale's rising exposes him to all the fatal hazards of the chase. And not by hook or by net could this vast leviathan be caught, when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath the sunlight. Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter, as the great necessities that strike the victory to thee!

In man, breathing is incessantly going on- one breath only serving for two or three pulsations; so that whatever other business he has to attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die he will. But the Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time.

It has been said that the whale only breathes through his spout-hole; if it could truthfully be added that his spouts are mixed with water, then I opine we should be furnished with the reason why his sense of smell seems obliterated in him; for the only thing about him that at all answers to his nose is that identical spout-hole; and being so clogged with two elements, it could not be expected to have the power of smelling. But owing to the mystery of the spout- whether it be water or whether it be vapor- no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived at on this head. Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has no proper olfactories. But what does he want of them? No roses, no violets, no Cologne-water in the sea.

Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his spouting canal, and as that long canal- like the grand Erie Canal- is furnished with a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the downward retention of air or the upward exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice; unless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living. Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener!

Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it is for the conveyance of air, and for several feet laid along, horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head, and a little to one side; this curious canal is very much like a gas-pipe laid down in a city on one side of a street. But the question returns whether this gas-pipe is also a water-pipe; in other words, whether the spout of the Sperm Whale is the mere vapor of the exhaled breath, or whether that exhaled breath is mixed with water taken in at the mouth, and discharged through the spiracle. It is certain that the mouth indirectly communicates with the spouting canal; but it cannot be proved that this is for the purpose of discharging water through the spiracle. Because the greatest necessity for so doing would seem to be, when in feeding he accidentally takes in water. But the Sperm Whale's food is far beneath the surface, and there he cannot spout even if he would. Besides, if you regard him very closely, and time him with your watch, you will find that when unmolested, there is an undeviating rhyme between the periods of his jets and the ordinary periods of respiration.

But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out! You have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not tell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand in it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely.

The central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist enveloping it; and how can you certainly tell whether any water falls from it, when, always, when you are close enough to a whale to get a close view of his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading all around him. And if at such times you should think that you really perceived drops of moisture in the spout, how do you know that they are not merely condensed from its vapor; or how do you know that they are not those identical drops superficially lodged in the spout-hole fissure, which is countersunk into the summit of the whale's head? For even when tranquilly swimming through the mid-day sea in a calm, with his elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary's in the desert; even then, the whale always carries a small basin of water on his head, as under a blazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock filled up with rain.

Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious touching the precise nature of the whale spout. It will not do for him to be peering into it, and putting his face in it. You cannot go with your pitcher to this fountain and fill it, and bring it away. For even when coming into slight contact with the outer, vapory shreds of the jet, which will often happen, your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of the thing so touching it. And I know one, who coming into still closer contact with the spout, whether with some scientific object in view, or otherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm. Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to evade it. Another thing; I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt it, that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind you. The wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is to let this deadly spout alone.

Still, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and establish. My hypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides other reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations touching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale; I account him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed fact that he is never found on soundings, or near shores; all other whales sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I am convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes up a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deep thoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the curiosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected there, a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep thought, after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an August noon; this seems an additional argument for the above supposition.

And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor- as you will sometimes see it- glorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts. For d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye.

So, here I sit at McDonald's on a rainy Saturday morning.  It's the first real rain my little corner of the Upper Peninsula has received in a week or so.  It looks like one of those real soaking rains that's going to last for quite a while.  I'm sitting in my little corner, typing this blog post, trying to think deep thoughts amid the clatter and conversation of the normal Saturday morning crowd, of which I am one.

I sort of like Melville's idea of the cloud of mist floating above profound thinkers of the world--Plato, Dante, the Sperm Whale, and himself.  Perhaps there is some fog of ideas floating above my head this very moment, waving in the air like heat off a July highway.  I'm not sure that what I'm typing or contemplating is necessarily earth-shattering.  It's reflection more than anything else, applying Melville's words to this moment of my life.

I will say that, when I am truly engaged in my work--whether it's blogging, poem-ing, or prose-ing--my entire body feels different.  Looser.  Relaxed.  Engaged with the world in a different way.  More aware and less aware at the same time.  I can't really explain it definitively.  I'm a different person.  Poet Saint Marty.  Writer Saint Marty.

Today, my thoughts are preoccupied with several things:

1. What Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin said to each other in their private meeting in Helsinki.
2. Whether Bigfoot really exists.
3. If Congress is going to impeach Donald Trump.
4. Who is going to publish a book of Bigfoot poems.
5. Why so many people in this country still support Donald Trump.
6. When I am going to write another Bigfoot poem.

As you can see, two subjects are monopolizing my mind at the moment:  Bigfoot and Donald Trump.  Perhaps I could combine them into one endeavor--a poem titled "Bigfoot Eavesdrops on Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Helsinki."  

I'm sure that some other subject will soon swoop in and take over.  The cloud above my head will change shape or consistency.  I have to plan for a reading that I'm doing next Thursday with a couple musician friends.  Have to write a new poem for that one.  Clean my house for my Book Club tomorrow evening.  Read.  Pick out music to play for Mass this afternoon.  

I can feel the air shifting, weather fronts clashing, above my head now.  Again, I'm not sure these are deep or profound subjects.  Certainly, this blog post will not go down in the annals of literature as something akin to Leaves of Grass or Moby-Dick.  I am just like everyone else trying to make sense of the modern world in which I live.  That includes Donald Trump.  Bigfoot.  Poetry.  Homelessness.  Poverty.  Universal healthcare.  Compassion.  Love.

Saint Marty is thankful this morning for deep thoughts.

June 23: April Halprin Wayland, "Big Dreams," Sidewalk Poetry Contest

Big Dreams

by:  April Halprin Wayland

The scruffy house cat

aches to fly—

she dreams all day of

wings and sky!

So tonight

she climbs the ladder,

mounts a platform,

nothing matters

except to catch

a thin trapeze

then hold on tight

with grace and ease.

She swings herself

by both front paws

then somersaults

to wild applause

of kitchen mice,

who, though dizzy,

encourage Cat,

to keep her busy.

___________________________

Tomorrow, I'm going to be one of the judges in a Sidewalk Poetry contest in Marquette, Michigan.  The theme is "All Things BIG."  Since I'm working on a book of Bigfoot poems, I'm more than a little excited to see the entries for the contest. 

In honor of this event tomorrow, I thought I'd share a poem about a BIG thing. 

Saint Marty is going to work on a new Bigfoot poem tonight.

January 3: Climaxes and Thrills, Big Ideas, Plans for 2017

As a trafficker in climaxes and thrills and characterization and wonderful dialogue and suspense and confrontations, I had outlined the Dresden story many times.  The best outline I ever made, or anyway the prettiest one, was on the back of a roll of wallpaper.  

 

I used my daughter's crayons, a different color for each main character. One end of the wallpaper was the beginning of the story, and the other end was the end, and then there was all that middle part, which was the middle. And the blue line met the red line and then the yellow line, and the yellow line stopped because the character represented by the yellow line was dead. And so on. The destruction of Dresden was represented by a vertical band of orange cross-hatching, and all the lines that were still alive passed through it, came out the other side.

Vonnegut spends a lot of time at the beginning of Slaughterhouse Five discussing the difficulties he's encountered writing a book about his war experiences.  He stops and starts, drunk calls war buddies and old girlfriends, and tries to map out a path from word number one to "The End."  This struggle goes on for years.

I'm very much like Vonnegut when it comes to writing.  I have big ideas, but I'm not sure how to implement them.  Over the years, I've said that I'm working on a book about Catholic saints (still in progress); a collection of poems based on headlines from the Weekly World News (abandoned--somebody else had the same idea and beat me to publication); a collection of poems based on the Star Wars universe (on hold--can't let this one go just yet); a young adult series of books about Dante's nine circles of hell (plotted out and saved for later); and, most recently, a collection of Bigfoot poems (moving ahead). 

It's sort of what we all do at the beginning of a new year.  Vow to lose weight.  Exercise more.  Clean out the attic.  Learn how to oil paint.  Write a book.  Big ideas.  Big plans.  And then reality takes hold.  Work resumes.  School functions and dance recitals and birthday parties.  Throw into that mix unexpected events like car problems, health issues, deaths, Trump presidencies.  The locomotive of the new year quickly goes off the rails.

So, I have plans for 2017, but I am not going to broadcast them to the world.  That way, if I fail, I don't have to offer explanations.  I'll just curl up in the fetal position on December 31, 2017, suck my thumb, and mutter over and over, "I'll do it next year, I'll do it next year, next year, next year." 

Who knows what 2017 has in store for me and my family?  There will be great happinesses and great challenges.  I'm sure about that.  I may be named Poet Laureate of the U. P.  I may not.  I may get a promotion at work.  I may not.  My daughter may become captain of her high school quiz bowl team.  She may not.  My son may start eating fruits and vegetables.  He may not.  My wife may make the bed when she gets up in the morning.  She may not.  It's a new year.  Anything is possible.

However, I will make clear one small goal for myself this year.  Daily, I am going to name one thing for which I am grateful.  Starting now. 

This morning, Saint Marty is grateful for his sister who gave him an iPhone for Christmas.  He's grateful for her generous and loving spirit.

Me and my iPhone

October 28: Killing Frost, Pile of Dead Leaves, Christmas Essay

Since then the killing frost has struck.  If I got lost now on the mountains or in the valley, and acted foolishly, I would be dead of hypothermia and my brain wiped smooth as a plate long before the water in my flesh elongated to crystal slivers that would pierce and shatter the walls of my cells.  The harvest is in, the granaries full.  The broadleaf trees of the world's forests have cast their various fruits:  "Oak, a nut; Sycamore, achenes; California Laurel, a drupe; Maple, a samara; Locust, a legume; Pomegranate, a berry; Buckeye, a capsule, Apple, a pome."  Now the twin leaves of the seedling chestnut oak on the Carvin's Cove path have dried, dropped and blown; the acorn itself is shrunk and sere.  But the sheath of the stem holds water and the white root still delicately sucks, porous and permeable, mute.  The death of the self of which the great writers speak is no violent act.  It is merely the joining of the great rock heart of the earth in its roll.  It is merely the slow cessation of the will's sprints and the intellect's chatter:  it is waiting like a hollow bell with stilled tongue.  Fuge, tace, quiesce.  The waiting itself is the thing.

This passage smells like autumn to me.  The killing frost.  Berry and drupe and legume and pome.  I was recently on a panel with two other poets.  We spoke about the power of the month of October, which is what Dillard is speaking about here.  One of the poets said that October is his most productive month.  It is a time when, for him, it's easier to tap into the root of writing.  Or, as Dillard says above, it is a time for the "slow cessation of the will's sprints and the intellect's chatter."  The poet simply becomes a hollow bell, waiting to to rung.

This last weekend of October, I find myself exhausted for some reason.  My mind barely functions at the moment.  The evidence:  it took me close to four minutes to compose the previous two sentences.  It is only 4:30 in the afternoon as I type this, and yet I could go into hibernation right now.  I don't feel like a hollow bell, full of potential music.  More like a pile of dead leaves, rattling and scratching like bones in the wind.

I do have two writing projects in the works:  my collection of Bigfoot poems and my annual Christmas essay.  The former has started taking shape, although I'm not sure what that shape is eventually going to be.  The latter is merely a great idea in my head at the moment--one that requires some research and poetic inspiration.

So, my bell has been ringing this month.  Tonight, however, I feel the need for rest.  My body and mind let me know every once in a while that I am in need of more than my usual nightly quota of five hours of sleep.  A late afternoon slump.  Sometimes, I regain my energy.  Other times, I surrender.  Fall asleep on the couch for five hours.  Crawl into bed for a power nap and stay there until the morning.

I want to rest this evening.  But I also want to read and work on my Christmas essay a little bit.  Perhaps I will be able to do both.  Or neither.  Remain mute, like Bob Dylan.  Refuse to acknowledge reality.

If the Swedish Academy calls tonight, Saint Marty will answer the phone.  He doesn't want to be accused of being impolite and arrogant.

October 9: Halloween Poetry Reading, Bigfoot Poems, Classic Saint Marty

Greetings, loyal disciples, on this Sabbath day.

As with most Sabbaths, I have been working on various projects most of the day.  Church this morning, playing in the band.  This afternoon, I spent a few hours planning a Halloween poetry reading that I'm doing in a week at our local library.  I've been working on a sequence of Bigfoot poems.  My bandmates are going to be doing music (think "Creep" by Radiohead).  And I will be unveiling some works in progress.

This afternoon, it's school stuff.  Midterm to create.  Essay rubric to put together.  Quizzes to grade.  Plus, my family is having a belated Saint Marty's Day celebration.  Tapioca and presents.  The whole shebang.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired two years ago.  More about the Swedish Academy and its short-sightedness.

October 9, 2014:  A Special Award, 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, Peter Modiano

"Attention, please!" it said.  "Will Mr. Homer Zuckerman bring his famous pig to the judges' booth in front of the grandstand.  A special award will be made there in twenty minutes.  Everyone is invited to attend.  Crate your pig, please, Mr. Zuckerman, and report to the judges' booth promptly!"

Yes, Wilbur gets a prize at the end of the book.  Zuckerman gets twenty-five dollars.  Fern gets Henry Fussy (or vice versa).  And, above all, Charlotte reaps the rewards of all the writing she's been doing in her webs.

This morning, Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, announced the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature in Stockholm.  And the winner was...not me.  It was some French novelist named Peter Modiano.  I was going to say "obscure novelist," but then I risk sounding like some Anglo-centric, ignorant American.  From what I've read, Modiano is one of the greatest French writers alive.  He's published over thirty-plus novels.  His subjects are memory, identity, and time.  Blah, blah, blah.

I know all my disciples are crying foul tonight.  Once again, I have been robbed of an award I so richly deserve.  Instead, the Swedes have chosen to bestow their prize on yet another writer who will, no doubt, fade from memory faster than you can say "Pepé Le Pew."  So what if the French people love him?  The French awarded Jerry Lewis the Legion of Honor.

I am not bitter or jealous, however.

Peter Modiano won the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Saint Marty's going to the Wisconsin Dells this weekend.  Who's laughing now?

The winner of this year's Nobel 
Prize in Literature

September 6: Bigfoot Poems, Billy Collins, "Flames"

Billy Collins makes me laugh.  There aren't too many poets that I can say that about.  But I get a little tired of poets without a sense of humor.  Not all poems have to be about bus crashes and terminal diseases.

I'm working on some poems that are about Bigfoot.  When I tell that to people, they give me strange looks, as if I've just stated that I think I was born on the planet Pluto (yes, Pluto is still a planet).  But, I'm going to keep writing these poems.  They make me happy.

They make Saint Marty happy.  And shouldn't poetry make you happy?

Flames

by:  Billy Collins

Smokey the Bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches.

His ranger's hat is cocked
at a disturbing angle.

His brown fur gleams
under the high sun
as his paws, the size
of catcher's mitts,
crackle into the distance.

He is sick of dispensing
warnings to the careless,
the half-wit camper,
the dumbbell hiker.

He is going to show them
how a professional does it.