April 15: Zap Gun, Holy Saturday, Firewood

The saucer was one hundred feet in diameter, with portholes around its rim.  The light from the portholes was a pulsing purple.  The only noise it made was the owl song.  It came down to hover over Billy, and to enclose him in a cylinder of pulsing purple light.  Now there was the sound of a seeming kiss as an airtight hatch in the bottom of the saucer was opened.  Down snaked a ladder that was outlined in pretty lights like a Ferris wheel.

Billy's will was paralyzed by a zap gun aimed at him from one of the portholes.  It became imperative that he take hold of the bottom rung of the sinuous ladder, which he did.  The rung was electrified, so that Billy's hands locked onto it hard.  He was hauled into the airlock, and machinery closed the bottom door.  Only then did the ladder, wound onto a reel in the airlock, let him go.  Only then did Billy's brain start working again.  

Billy's first alien encounter.  Very 1950s.  Weird owl/theremin music.  A flying saucer actually shaped like a saucer.  Rotating lights.  A zap gun.  And a ladder.  Straight out of The Day the Earth Stood Still.  I wouldn't be surprised if Gort appeared in all his silver glory, using his death ray to vaporize the first station wagon he comes across.

Holy Saturday.  I have a feeling that, by the end of the weekend, I will wish that I had been abducted by aliens.  I have three more Easter services to play.  The longest and most complex happens tonight.  Three hours.  Darkness and candles.  Seven readings, one baptism, two confirmations.  Lots of Gregorian chant.  Communion.  And, hopefully, at the end, some chocolate.

I also have two rehearsals to attend this afternoon.  Easter is a wonderful time, but it's murder on church musicians.  On top of everything else, I have a stack of papers to grade and lessons plans to plan.  Like I said, a ride in a flying saucer is sounding pretty good to me right now. 

The good news is that someone is coming to my house to cut up and take away the pine tree that was uprooted by Monday's storm.  And I don't have to pay a thing.  He's just happy for the firewood.  He's coming this afternoon, so, by the time the Easter Bunny shows up tonight, the tree should be in tree heaven, stacked and ready to burn.

Today, on the eve of Easter, Saint Marty is thankful for friends who need wood to heat their houses.

September 9: Poetry Reading, Matt Gavin Frank, "Communion"

I don't have much time for my second post this evening.  I'm heading out to a reading by poet Michael Madonick.  I'm not familiar with his work, but I feel like cutting loose a little bit tonight instead of holing up in my office, waiting for my daughter to be done with her dance lessons.

The poem I have chosen comes from Matt's collection Sagittarius Agitprop.  It's a quiet little poem that strikes at the heart like an angry hornet.

Saint Marty's been stung tonight.

Communion

by:  Matthew Gavin Frank

There is something of sleep
that is the hushing of a bird's feathers

being shuffled by other birds.
The day travels by train, bridging

both lobes, each errand shuffled
and repeated like a deck of cards.

The cards know the importance
of silence and repeated words:

Each king, each queen, lying back-
to-front with the jacks and numbers, lit

with indecency, must recall
the supermarket, the blue soap

on sale, the hole in the shoulder
of the postman's shirt.  There is something

of the mouth that calls to these,
in the uniform of sleep, as a bird

collecting a flock, an ant, who
when threatened with a fall,

discovers that it can spin a web
like a spider.

Hush of feathers