May 14, 2025: "When," Rose, "Black Coffee and Burned Toast"

Tomorrow would have been my sister Rose's sixtieth birthday.  She's been gone for three years now.  Hard to believe.  I think of her quite a bit, not always with sadness--she had a bright, bright spirit.  When she's on my mind, it's hard not to smile.

Poetry allows you to transform difficult emotions and experiences into something beautiful.  You could be writing about the September 11 attacks and create something that takes your breath away.  Billy Collins did that with "The Names."  Or you could be writing about your dying father and create a gorgeous exhortation for him to live--Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night."    

Sharon Olds writes a beautifully scary poem about nuclear holocaust . . .

When

by: Sharon Olds

I wonder now, only when it will happen,
when the young mother will hear the
noise like somebody's pressure cooker
down the block, going off. She'll go out in the yard,
holding her small daughter in her arms,
and there, above the end of the street, in the
air above the line of the trees,
she will see it rising, lifting up
over our horizon, the upper rim of the
gold ball, large as a giant
planet starting to lift up over ours.
She will stand there in the yard holding her daughter,
looking at it rise and glow and blossom and rise,
and the child will open her arms to it,
it will look so beautiful.

I find the end of this poem incredibly moving--that image of the mother holding the daughter as a mushroom cloud blooms on the horizon.  It's right out of one of those disaster flicks from the 1980s.  (You know the ones I'm talking about--a meteor wipes out the planet, a luxury cruise ship capsizes, California breaks off and slips into the ocean after an earthquake.)  The tenderness of the moment in Olds' poem is heartbreaking.

I'm not going to get all maudlin about my sister in this post.  She's simply been on my mind a lot recently.  Yes, I'm still grieving for her, despite the time that's elapsed since her passing.  I'm not sure it's possible to get over losing a loved one.  For me, all it takes is drinking a can of Diet Coke, and my sister Rose is right there with me.

Tomorrow, I know the ghost of my sister will be following me all day.  She loved celebrating her birthday.  In fact, as soon as Christmas was over, Rose would start reminding us that her birthday was approaching.  (She didn't have a really great concept of time.)  Maybe I'll write something about ghosts--something to remind myself of Rose's smile or laugh.  Something beautiful

Saint Marty wrote a not-so-scary poem about his father tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem about your father or a father figure in your life.  In the poem, mention the type of shoes he wore, what he ate for breakfast, and reference at least three fathers from television shows.  Write to find out where these three images will lead you and what story your poem wants to tell.

Black Coffee and Burned Toast

by: Martin Achatz

He had black coffee and burned toast

every morning like Communion

while he listened to Marty Robbins on WJPD,

his leather work boots laced on his feet,

breast pocket stuffed with pens.

Each time he swallowed a slug

of black liquid, his Adam's apple 

bobbed like a buoy in rough waters.

He wasn't Pa Ingalls wading

through chest-deep snowdrifts

to rescue me from a blizzard

or John Robinson in his metallic

jumpsuit aiming Jupiter II toward

Alpha Centauri to save me from aliens

with heads like inflated chimpanzees

or even Herman Munster driving me

in a hearse to get vanilla ice cream

on a hot July afternoon.  No,

my old man wasn't anything 

special in his jeans and khaki

shirts, just a guy you'd see

in line at McDonald's or pushing

a lawnmower on a Saturday

morning.  He couldn't recite

Shakespearean soliloquies or perform

Calculus problems in his head.

One time, he sat in the front row

at a poetry reading, fell asleep

while I recited my poems.  Later,

he told me he was just concentrating

on what I was saying, chewing

my words like Easter bread, Jesus'

face scorched into each bite and dripping

with tongues of melted butter.

November 16: "Carrara," Holistic Health Fair, Help or Hope

I admire all artists.  Pets.  Musicians.  Painters.  Crafters.  Chefs.  Sculptors.  Comedians.  They inspire and render the world more beautiful, even in the darkest of times.

Billy Collins reflects on marble . . .

Carrara

by: Billy Collins

The Tyrrhenian Sea was bouncing off to the right

as we headed south down the coast,

and to the left rose the Apennine mountains,

some with their faces quarried away,

from where heavy blocks of white marble

had been cut and carried down

and stacked in rows in yards along the highway.

Is anyone hiding within? I wondered,

as we passed a little Fiat

and were passed in turn by a green Lamborghini,

hiding the way Pinocchio hid inside a log--

maybe David who goes by another name,

or an anonymous girl caught dancing

or any other figure encased and yet to be revealed.

Are you in there, Dawn with your sunburst halo,

concealed from the freshly sharpened chisel?

How about you, Spirit of Revolution

waving a flag of marble

and crushing the serpent Tyranny with one foot?

Or is nobody home, no one barely breathing

in the heavy darkness of the pure white stone?

Soon, we were standing on a wide beach

where the body of Shelley had floated ashore,

and where all those questions washed away--

though later I pictured a sculptor wandering

among the blocks, hands clasped behind his back,

then deciding it was time to get to work

on a towering likeness of his favorite English poet.

I think any artist looks at a piece of marble, blank piece of paper, empty stage, stretched canvas, dormant drum and sees/hears/feels something that nobody else does.  A favorite English poet.  A "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night."  A Nutcracker.  A Girl with a Pearl Earring.  A We Will Rock You.  That's how creative minds work.  Where others see a rock. an artist will see The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.

I spent the day at a holistic health fair with an artist friend, trying to sell my poetry and meeting a whole lot of friendly people, some complete strangers and some friends (past and present).  I have no idea how the people I encountered voted in the election, although I could make an educated guess.  That's not what today was about.

Here is what it was about:  connection.  Everybody there was searching for help or hope.  Some found it in astral readings.  Some in essential oils.  And some in words.

I led a short poetry workshop at this event in the afternoon.  The audience members (one a friend I hadn't seen in almost six or seven years) put pen/pencil to work in search of small, daily wonders.  It was that simple.  Look at a blank page and see a list of miracles.

Here's what Saint Marty came up with:

Nine Ways of Looking at Wonder

by: Martin Achatz

1.

Frost on grass and roofs

in morning light,

white on white on white.

2.

A hardboiled egg

with golden heart.

3.

A sweet piece of apple

stuck between my teeth.

4.

An old friend's hug,

happy to see me

in a dark time.

5.

Pepperoni pizza

on a greasy plate,

begging for my tongue.

6.

Chocolate.

Always chocolate.

7.

A dog cutting the night

in two with his bark.

8.

A Beaver Moon

in a dawn sky,

God's bright eye.

9.

People in a room

writing poems 

about wonder.