October 31, 2025: “Leaving the Island,” All Hallow’s Eve, “My Teenage Son Carves a Pumpkin”

Yes, it is All Hallow’s Eve.  

All the little ghosts and goblins and Supermans are at home, sifting through their chocolaty loot.  I used to do that every year—dividing my Halloween candy into three categories:  1) all chocolate products not containing coconut; 2) Starburst types of sweets (including Laffy Taffy); and 3) Smarties and Lemonheads.  It is the start of candy season.

Sharon Olds writes about a scary encounter with between a father and son . . . 

Leaving the Island

by: Sharon Olds

On the ferry, on the last morning of summer,

a father at the snack counter low in the boat

gets breakfast for the others.  Here, let me drink some of

Mom’s coffee, so it won’t be so full

for you to carry, he says to his son,

a boy of ten or eleven.  The boat

lies lower and lower in the water as the last

cars drive on, tilts its massive

grey floor like the flat world.  Then the

screaming starts, I carry four things,

and I only give you one, and you drop it,

what are you, a baby? a high, male

shrieking, and it doesn’t stop, Are you two?

Are you a baby? I give you one thing,

no one in the room seems to move for a second,

a steaming pool spreading on the floor, little

sea with its own waves, the boy

at the shore of it.  Can’t you do anything

right? Are you two? Are you two? the piercing

cry of the father.  Go away,

go up to your mother, get out of here— 

the purser swabbing the floor, the boy

not moving from where the first word touched him,

and I could not quite walk past him, I paused

and said I spilled my coffee on the deck, last trip,

it happens to us all.  He turned to me,

his lips everted so the gums gleamed,

he hissed a guttural hiss, and in

a voice like Gollum’s or the Exorcist girl’s when she

made the stream of vomit and beamed it

eight feet straight into the minister’s mouth

he said Shut up, shut up, shut up, as if

protecting his father, peeling from himself

a thin wing of hate, and wrapping it

tightly around father and son, shielding them.

It’s amazing what kids will do to protect or defend their parents, even mothers or fathers who are physically or emotionally abusive.  It’s almost as if the boy in Olds’ poem doesn’t know what to do when the speaker says something kind to him.  He interprets the speaker’s words as a criticism of the father and thus goes into full defense mode:  Shut up, shut up, shut up.

Tonight, all the parents were bundled up while their little Elmos and witches and dinosaurs went begging for candy door-to-door.  I didn’t hear an angry word or criticism, except the occasional “What do you say?” when I handed out the Twix bars, followed by a sheepish “Thank you!”  

Holidays, even ones steeped in blood and ghosts and serial killers, seem to bring out the best in people.  And, really, Halloween started as a time to honor and remember the dearly departed, at a time when, supposedly, the veil between the here and hereafter is the thinnest.  That’s why All Hallow’s Eve is followed by All Saints’ Day and then All Souls’ Day.

My kids have outgrown trick-or-treating.  This year is literally the first time my wife and I haven’t trooped around the neighborhood with one or both of them.  Instead, we stood outside with our bowl of booty, became that old couple who fawns over all the cute little goblins coming to our front step.

My son?  He invited a friend (who happens to be a girl) over for the evening.  They had pizza and did whatever teenagers these days do to entertain themselves.  (I remember what I did at my son’s age on Halloween, so I’m hoping he’s being a little more responsible.)  He carved our pumpkin this afternoon, so he did his filial duty.  So I don’t begrudge him his hormonally charged night.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for this Halloween night, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem about a specific moment that could happen on Halloween.  It could be about stealing a pumpkin, walking through a graveyard, or giving out candy to trick-or-treaters.  Pay attention to specific details, sounds, or sights that might be present on this holiday.

My Teenage Son Carves a Pumpkin

by: Martin Achatz

He doesn’t want to do it, hates

the viscera inside with its

almost human membranes,

cold as December.  But he does it

because he wants to spend

this All Hallow’s Eve with a girl,

watch Jason hunt horny teens

or Regan baptize Father Merrin

with split pea, hoping the girl

clings to him the way pollen

clings to a bee’s leg.  His pumpkin

sits now on the front stoop,

mouth big as a super moon, 

eyes just tiny stars, candle

inside—a flickering tonsil—

while he and the girl carve

each other in the dark upstairs,

bodies blazing like Druid bonfires.

June 26: "Halloween," Good Friends, "Chicken and Beer"

Billy Collins and trick-or-treating . . . 

Halloween

by: Billy Collins

When I said hello

to a very small cowboy,

he gave me the trigger finger.

Ah, kids say and do the darndest things, usually at the most inconvenient times.  Any parent can vouch for that.  Halloween, in particular, heightens this possibility.  Having a small child in costume, hyped up on sugar and tired from walking around the neighborhood, is a recipe for these kinds of embarrassments.  I can't tell you how many times I stopped one of my kids on Halloween to remind them to say "thank you" after receiving their treat.  Usually, said kid halted mid-flight, turned, and mumbled the words as if they tasted like Kaopectate on their tongues.  One time, my daughter was offered some candy she didn't like, and she politely closed her treat bag and said, "No, thank you,  I don't like those," and walked away from the stunned homeowner.

Kids get a free pass when it comes to expressing brutal honesty because, frankly, it's kind of hilarious.  Adults, on the other hand, can get themselves into trouble sometimes if they actually say what they are thinking.  The one phrase that has prime real estate on the tip of my tongue is "you have got to be fucking kidding me!"  As in, someone reminds me about a meeting at work, and I whisper to myself, "You have got to be fucking kidding me!"

Because of this constant need to monitor thoughts, speech, and actions, adulting can be pretty exhausting.  That's why good friends are so important.  You don't have to apologize to them for being yourself.  They know and understand.  

Once a week, my wife and I have dinner and beer with another couple.  They are very good friends.  None of us feels the need to obfuscate if asked the question, "So, how was your day?"  Sometimes, the answer is "Great!"  Other times, the answer is "Complete rubbish!"  And then we spend our time together sorting through the trash heap of the day.  We know and care deeply about each other, and it's wonderful.

Tonight, my wife and I had KFC and beer with our friends.  We unpacked our days, aired our victories and struggles, and left feeling heard and loved.  The food and drink nourished our bodies, and the conversation nourished our spirits.  I always leave these dinners feeling better about myself and the universe.  It's a sacred moment of connection that I rarely experience at any other time.

Saint Marty gives thanks for good friends.

Chicken and Beer

by: Martin Achatz

with friends is Holy

Communion on Wednesday

evening, minus the betrayal,

arrest, crucifixion.  I'll save

that for Saturday night.

October 27: Bat-Shaped Seat, Pumpkins, Haunted Escape Room

[The Vogon] threw himself backward into a huge leathery bat-shaped seat and watched them.  He did the smile again.

I think I may have met this Vogon last night.

Greetings from Saint Marty and his son, Saint Gideon!

We are sitting here right now, listening to the radio program, The Red Jacket Jamboree, on our local Public Radio Station.  It's the Halloween episode that was recorded earlier this month at the Calumet Theatre.  I always have such a good time with my Red Jacket family.  Hope some of you guys out there had a chance to listen, as well.

My son and I have had a very Halloween-centered day.  First, we stopped at Walmart and bought some pumpkins and trick-or-treat candy.  Then we went costume shopping for my son, Saint Gideon.  He's chosen to be a mime this year.  So, we picked up a beret, striped shirt, white gloves, and some red suspenders.  Viola!  Mime.

Finally, after dinner, we carved some jack-o-lanterns.  I think that we are all ready for All Hallow's Eve. 

Speaking of All Hallow's Eve, let me tell you about the escape room I was forced to participate in last night, courtesy of my good friends at the cardiology office where I work (one of my four occupations).  You see, they know how much I hate haunted attractions.  Don't like jump scares.  Or zombies.  Or clowns.  Or rats.  Or dark places.  This escape room was promoted with the line "Exorcists Needed."  Not a big fan of that tag line, either.

Well, before I showed up with my daughter for this thing, I needed a little courage.  Found it in my cupboard--a bottle of pear schnapps.  After a couple glasses, I thought I was ready for anything.  I wasn't.  Standing outside the escape room, I could hear screams, yelling, moaning.  Then, we had to sign waivers that basically said, "If, by chance, I become possessed by a demon or am eaten by something undead, I won't hold anybody responsible."

The actual escape room is kind of a blur to me now.  I know that I grabbed one of my friends by her vest and held her in front of me for protection.  There were things screaming at us.  Blood running in a sink.  A possessed girl curled up in a bed.  A locked nursery full of demented toys.  And through this whole experience, I kept yelling things like "Ring the damn bell!"  and "Who has the cross?!" and "I think I soiled myself!" (I didn't say "soiled") and "I'm not touching that!!!"  I may have blacked out a couple of times.  That Vogon may have shown up.  I don't know.

All I can say is that I have had the whole Halloween experience this weekend, whether I wanted it or not.

Saint Marty may be sleeping with the lights on tonight.

May 28: Ancient and Unentered Forests, Memorial Day, Big Deals

(As told at the Golden Inn)

The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about there, is much like some noted four corners of a great highway, where you meet more travellers than in any other part.

It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho,* was encountered. She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White Whale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance of the Town-Ho's story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of the story was unknown to the captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the private property of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it seems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secrecy, but the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not well withhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod's main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record.

*The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting a whale from the mast-head, still used by whalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagos terrapin.

For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one saint's eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closer terms with me; and hence the interluding questions they occasionally put, and which are duly answered at the time.

"Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I am about rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm Whaler of Nantucket, was cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days' sail eastward from the eaves of this good Golden Inn. She was somewhere to the northward of the Line. One morning upon handling the pumps according to daily usage, it was observed that she made more water in her hold than common. They supposed a sword-fish had stabbed her, gentlemen. But the captain, having some unusual reason for believing that rare good luck awaited him in those latitudes; and therefore being very averse to quit them, and the leak not being then considered at all dangerous, though, indeed, they could not find it after searching the hold as low down as was possible in rather heavy weather, the ship still continued her cruisings, the mariners working at the pumps at wide and easy intervals; but no good luck came; more days went by and not only was the leak yet undiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so, that now taking some alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood away for the nearest harbor among the islands, there to have his hull hove out and repaired.

"Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the commonest chance favoured, he did not at all fear that his ship would founder by the way, because his pumps were of the best, and being periodically relieved at them, those six-and-thirty men of his could easily keep the ship free; never mind if the leak should double on her. In truth, well nigh the whole of this passage being attended by very prosperous breezes, the Town-Ho had all but certainly arrived in perfect safety at her port without the occurrence of the least fatality, had it not been for the brutal overbearing of Radney, the mate, a Vineyarder, and the bitterly provoked vengeance of Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado from Buffalo.

"'Lakeman!- Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where is Buffalo?' said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass.

"On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don; but- I crave your courtesy- may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now, gentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well nigh as large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to far Manilla; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our America, had yet been nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting impressions popularly connected with the open ocean. For in their interflowing aggregate, those grand fresh-water seas of ours,- Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan,- possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many of the ocean's noblest traits; with many of its rimmed varieties of races and of climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic isles, even as the Polynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by two great contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long maritime approaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East, dotted all round their banks; here and there are frowned upon by batteries, and by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw; they have heard the fleet thunderings of naval victories; at intervals, they yield their beaches to wild barbarians, whose red painted faces flash from out their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues are flanked by ancient and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried lines of kings in Gothic genealogies; those same woods harboring wild Afric beasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported furs give robes to Tartar Emperors; they mirror the paved capitals of Buffalo and Cleveland, as well as Winnebago villages; they float alike the full-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer, and the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as direful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are, for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus, gentlemen, though an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean nurtured; as much of an audacious mariner as any. And for Radney, though in his infancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse at his maternal sea; though in after life he had long followed our austere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was he quite as vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh from the latitudes of buckhorn handled Bowie-knives. Yet was this Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human recognition which is the meanest slave's right; thus treated, this Steelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile. At all events, he had proved so thus far; but Radney was doomed and made mad, and Steelkilt- but, gentlemen, you shall hear.

I really like this little passage, which deals, in part, with my little part of the world--Michigan and the Upper Peninsula.  Melville's description of the lakes and forests is pretty dead-on.  Ancient and unentered forests.  Lakes that are more like oceans.  Gaunt pines.  As a U. P. writer, I always appreciate coming across descriptions of my home.  I especially appreciate the fact that I didn't remember that the Great Lakes make a cameo appearance in Moby-Dick.

It is Memorial Day.  This morning, my kids and I went to a parade, and then we attended a service at a local cemetery in honor of war veterans.  It's what we do every year.  A tradition.  From what I understand, Memorial Day used to be a much bigger deal in my neck of the woods.  Huge celebrations.  Parades that were bigger and better than Fourth of July parades.  Community picnics.

Now, those days are long-gone.  Ever since I can recall, this day has been marked by little fanfare.  A six-minute procession downtown consisting of a fire truck, some antique cars, a couple marching bands, and members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars marching almost in step.  The glory days of Memorial Day seem like passages in an old book.  They've passed from reality to the past to history to myth.

I am at my mother's house right now.  We are going to have a barbecue.  Steaks, I think.  I bought a watermelon for dessert.  Another Memorial Day tradition.  Of course, things have changed in the last few years, since the death of my brother, sister, and, now, father.  My remaining siblings sometimes seem to have lost their way.

Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Halloween, Christmas, Easter.  All of these holidays used to be big deals in my family.  Times where we all got together and told stories and ate.  Nowadays, Christmas is a quick trip to Walmart on Christmas Eve.  Halloween is an inconvenience--little kids interrupting Netflix.  And Memorial Day is a few steaks thrown on the barbecue after the latest D-grade movie is over on the television.  The holidays I remember have slipped from reality to the past to history.  Pretty soon, they will be myth.

I hope I never let that happen in my home, with my kids or wife.  I don't want them to remember our lives together like some kind of fairy tale.  Things change.  I get that.  Parades shrink.  The shores of the Great Lakes go from ancient forests to lines of condominiums.  People die.  The easy thing to do is to let these things take over.  Sit in a dark room, stare at your phone or the television.  Sleep all day.

That's not my style.  I fight to keep Christmas special.  Try to fill Halloween with candy and ghosts and trick-or-treating.  Make Memorial Day more than just a half-ass dinner when there's nothing else to watch on television.

I don't want to live the same day over-and-over, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.  There's got to be more to life than that.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for a good day with his kids.  For parades.  For remembrance.  For the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of the people whom he loves.

October 31: Bleeding Hearts, Living Dead, Halloween

"Americans have finally heard about Dresden," said Rumfoord, twenty-three years after the raid.  "A lot of them know now how much worse it was than Hiroshima.  So I've got to put something about it in my book.  From the official Air Force standpoint, it'll all be new."

"Why would they keep it a secret so long?" said Lily.

"For fear that a lot of bleeding hearts," said Rumfoord, "might not think it was such a wonderful thing to do."

It was now that Billy Pilgrim spoke up intelligently.  "I was there," he said.

Billy has risen from the dead in his hospital bed.  He feels it necessary to respond to Rumfoord's lecture on the bombing of Dresden.  He is the living dead times two.  He survived Dresden, and he just survived an airplane crash.

Tonight is Halloween.  My kids have their costumes on, and, in an hour, we are heading out into the snowy streets of the Upper Peninsula to join the living dead, vampires, Harry Potters, and Batmans on the prowl for chocolate.

That is my wisdom for this evening.  At the moment, I feel like the living dead, myself.

Saint Marty is thankful for kids and pumpkins and candy.

October 29: Carl Kolchak, Kim Addonizio, "Scary Movies"

When I was a kid, my favorite TV show was Kolchak:  The Night Stalker.  It was about a Chicago reporter, played by Darren McGavin (yes, the dad from A Christmas Story), who spent most of his days tracking down and battling vampires and zombies and other things that go bump in the night.  It lasted only one season (1974-1975), but it was the best series ever.  Ever.

I have always been attracted to darker subject matter.  I'm a poet.  What can I say?  Loved The Exorcist and Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street (the originals, not the lame sequels).  Read every Stephen King and John Saul novel that I could get my hands on.  Halloween and Christmas battled in my heart for supremacy.

I think the reason that horror fiction appealed to me is that it touched on subjects that kids aren't normally exposed to.  Big subjects.  Death.  Afterlife.  Violence.  Myth.  Murder.  Monsters.  Sex.  Horror fiction doesn't shy away from crossing boundaries.  That's why the Goosebumps books are so popular.  They acknowledge the fact for kids that there's scary shit out there.

As an adult now, I still watch an occasional horror film (mostly with my teenage daughter).  But I can't remember the last Stephen King novel that I've read from start to finish.  Maybe, as I've gotten older and encountered the real scary shit in the world, I don't feel the need to read about it, as well.  It's not so entertaining any more.

Tonight, however, Saint Marty is going to force his daughter to watch an episode of Kolchak.  It's still a freakin' great show.

Scary Movies

by:  Kim Addonizio

Today the cloud shapes are terrifying,   

and I keep expecting some enormous   

black-and-white B-movie Cyclops   

to appear at the edge of the horizon,

to come striding over the ocean   

and drag me from my kitchen   

to the deep cave that flickered   

into my young brain one Saturday

at the Baronet Theater where I sat helpless   

between my older brothers, pumped up   

on candy and horror—that cave,

the litter of human bones

gnawed on and flung toward the entrance,   

I can smell their stench as clearly

as the bacon fat from breakfast. This   

is how it feels to lose it—

not sanity, I mean, but whatever it is   

that helps you get up in the morning

and actually leave the house

on those days when it seems like death

in his brown uniform

is cruising his panel truck

of packages through your neighborhood.   

I think of a friend’s voice

on her answering machine—

Hi, I’m not here—

the morning of her funeral,   

the calls filling up the tape

and the mail still arriving,

and I feel as afraid as I was

after all those vampire movies   

when I’d come home and lie awake

all night, rigid in my bed,

unable to get up

even to pee because the undead   

were waiting underneath it;

if I so much as stuck a bare

foot out there in the unprotected air   

they’d grab me by the ankle and pull me   

under. And my parents said there was

nothing there, when I was older   

I would know better, and now   

they’re dead, and I’m older,   

and I know better.

October 26: Pact with the Devil, Daughter and Halloween, Boring Teenager

The world has signed a pact with the devil; it had to.  It is a covenant to which every thing, even every hydrogen atom, is bound.  The terms are clear:  if you want to live, you have to die; you cannot have mountains and creeks without space, and space is a beauty married to a blind man.  The blind man is Freedom, or Time, and he does not go anywhere without his great dog Death.  The world came into being with the signing of the contract.  A scientist calls it the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  A poet says, "The force that thought the green fuse drives the flower / Drives my green age."  This is what we know.  The rest is gravy.

This passage reeks of Halloween darkness.  I am especially fond of the blind man Time and his great dog Death.  Talk about a pair made for a horror movie.  Picture them, an eyeless Grim Reaper leading a huge werewolf of a hound.  If that isn't enough to send a shiver down your spine, then you are probably near to shuffling off this mortal coil already.  As Dillard says, the great pact of life is that we all eventually have to encounter the blind man and his pet.

Halloween is fast approaching, and I was informed last night that my fifteen-year-old daughter does not want to get a costume or go trick-or-treating.  She simply wants to walk around with her little brother while he raids the neighborhood.  The news kind of took me by surprise because, up until yesterday, my daughter was shopping for costume pieces online.  When my wife told me that she didn't want to dress up for All Hallow's Eve, I was very supportive.  I believe my exact words were, "So, she's going to be a boring teenager."

Yes, I understand that my daughter is asserting her independence, trying to figure out the world and her place in it.  Being a teenager is scary business, without having to dress up and carve pumpkins.  But I can't help feeling a little sad.  My daughter was always a Halloween nut.  Loved planning out her ensemble for October 31.  Designing pumpkin faces.  Now, another little bit of her childhood has gone for a walk with the blind man and his dog.

Halloween just isn't going to be the same.  I thought I had at least a couple more years of trick-or-treating left with my daughter.  I suppose that I should be happy that she still wants to walk around with her little brother as he hits the neighbors' houses.  There's still enough of the Great Pumpkin in her to do that.  And maybe she'll change her mind before next Monday night.

If not, Saint Marty's jack-o'-lantern will be burning a little less brightly come the last night of October.

October 18: Saint Marty's Day Gift, Sharon Olds, "Ode to the Creature from the Black Lagoon"

So, I got Sharon Olds' new collection of poems as a Saint Marty's Day gift.  The book, simply titled Odes, has been making me very happy for over a week.  Even though I have featured her several times as Poet of the Week, I can't overlook the joy I take in these.

In honor of Halloween, I would like to share one of my favorites from the collection.

Yes, Saint Marty is a geek fanboy of Sharon Olds.

Ode to the Creature from the Black Lagoon

by:  Sharon Olds

I'm not sure how old I was,
not still twelve, I think, that child
lifted up on her telescoping legs--
and not yet fourteen, that worst year,
trying to talk to the other kids
through the agency of the monster I shuffled
around as--I think thirteen, I think
it was sometime during that thirteen-month
night, that I snuck out to see it.  It was not
human, though it had a torso and limbs
and a head, and it did seem a little like us
in its isolation and suffering
and menace.  Mostly it shined, mostly
it glistened, its craquelure skin mirroring
light, mostly I think it hunted
people, mostly it came up,
out of the Black Lagoon, and wandered
a town, a one of its kind--an it, post-
human and yet pre-alien.
It pains me now to think of the actor
in the glitter suit--no penis, as far as I
could see, though I had not seen one yet--no
breasts, I who was growing my own small
butter lettuces in the night, or
being used to grow them.  O bifurcate
sparkling with costume scales, O primate--
from the planet inside us--your thin skin
the gliss flay of the juices my possessed
body was making, thank you for showing us
ourselves, shimmering up out of
the night soup of the gene, thank you for your
beauty, your invincible strangeness, you dangerous
stardom, your fearlessness, your slime!

October 31: A Monk, Halloween, Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven," Confessions of Saint Marty

Yet while a lot of the street kids wanted to be Superman or like the Paladin character on Have Gun Will Travel on television, his son's mind always drifted in a certain direction.  In those days, anything regarding the church seemed to fascinate him.  He remembered how one of the old Puerto Rican ladies who lived in the building would say, "Su hijo es un angel?"  How the boy had memorized his Baltimore catechism, memorized all the altar-boy Latin for the Mass in the good old days before it was changed by the reforms of the Ecumenical Council, how he had actually dressed up as a monk on Halloween one year.

Ives' son, Robert, is a different boy.  While his friends are into superheroes and cowboys, Robert meditates God and life after death.  There's a depth to his thinking, as if, in some way, he knows his destiny.  He loves going to church.  Loves the prayers and incense.  Even when he goes trick-or-treating at Halloween, Robert walks a different path--eschewing the "normal" for the sacred and holy.

My children are not dressing up as nuns or monks or saints today.  When they hit the neighborhood to gather their sugared and chocolate-covered booty, they will both be dressed as ninjas.  It's cold and rainy this Halloween morning.  The rain is supposed to last all day, into the night.  Last year, we had a snowstorm, so a little rain doesn't bother me.

Once the sun starts to go down, we will visit the neighbors' houses, and they will say stuff like, "I can't believe how big your kids are getting!"  My son will walk for a while and then start complaining that his feet are sore or that he's too cold.  My daughter will grow impatient with her brother and start sighing and snapping at him.  We will hop in my car and visit the houses of friends and aunts.  And, at the end of the night, I will carry the pumpkins into the front porch.  They will smell of wax and burned squash.  Perhaps I will hop in the shower to warm up.  Then, I will flop on the couch, turn on the TV, and try to find an old horror movie.

That will be my Halloween, barring any unforeseen circumstances, like torn costumes or sudden illness or a blood battle between my kids.

Saint Marty loves Halloween.

The Raven

by:  Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
''Tis some visitor,' I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door-
Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;- vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore-
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
''Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door-
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;-
This it is, and nothing more.'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
'Sir,' said I, 'or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you'- here I opened wide the door;-
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering,
fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, 'Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, 'Lenore!'-
Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
'Surely,' said I, 'surely that is something at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore-
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;-
'Tis the wind and nothing more.'

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and
flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed
he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door-
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door-
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
'Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, 'art sure no
craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore-
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door-
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as 'Nevermore.'

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered- not a feather then he fluttered-
Till I scarcely more than muttered, 'other friends have flown
before-
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'
Then the bird said, 'Nevermore.'

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
'Doubtless,' said I, 'what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore-
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never- nevermore'.'

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and
door;
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore-
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking 'Nevermore.'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
'Wretch,' I cried, 'thy God hath lent thee- by these angels he
hath sent thee
Respite- respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'

'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil!- prophet still, if bird or
devil!-
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-
On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore-
Is there- is there balm in Gilead?- tell me- tell me, I implore!'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'

'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil- prophet still, if bird or
devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore-
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'

'Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend,' I shrieked,
upstarting-
'Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my
door!'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the
floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted- nevermore!

Confessions of Saint Marty

October 30: Creature from the Black Lagoon, Wife's Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe, "Annabel Lee," Pumpkin Fairy Tale

Halloween with my coworkers

He lived for their excursions out.  Trips here and there around the city.  Brought them into the office, showed them the photographer's studio, a television commercial being shot, a printing plate.  Took them to triple-feature movie shows at the Nemo on 110th Street and Broadway (Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Time Machine, Hercules Unchained--in one bill!) and to see the museums:  ostriches posed as if in a gallop at the Museum of Natural History, and Egyptian sarcophagi over at the Metropolitan...

Ives lives for these moments with his son and daughter--taking them to work with him, treating them to movies and museums, trying to give them everything that his foundling childhood lacked.  He is in the business of making memories for his kids because he himself has no memories of his real mother or father.  That is why holidays like Halloween and Christmas, which revolve around family, are so important to Ives.  Abandoned as a child, Ives wants to make sure that his children feel loved and cherished.  Wanted.

Today is my wife's birthday.  Unfortunately, we have not been able to spend much time together.  I worked.  She worked.  Since it is the day before Halloween, I was able to play dress-up for the medical office, as you can see.  It was great fun.  In the afternoon, my wife and I attended my son's elementary school costume parade.  It's an event where all the parents are packed into the gym and each classroom of kids march through in their Halloween costumes.

There were Batmans and Darth Vaders and Spidermans galore.  My son chose to be a white ninja.  He was the only white ninja in the entire school.  My wife and I sat in the bleachers and cheered for him.  He waved at us as he paraded by.  I was easy to spot.  I was the only Cat in the Hat in the building.

And then, my wife and I went out separate ways.  She went to work.  I picked my daughter up from dance class, gave my son a bath, made sure each were fed.  Now, I'm sitting on my couch at home, waiting for my wife to come home.  There isn't going to be cake or ice cream.  No presents.  It will just be me, my wife, and Jimmy Fallon.  A quiet night in preparation for the craziness of All Hallow's Eve tomorrow.

Once upon a time, a pumpkin farmer named Jack grew tired of growing pumpkins.  He was tired of everything that had to do with pumpkins.  He was tired of eating pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie and pumpkin seeds and pumpkin bread.  He was tired of the smell and color of pumpkins.  So Jack decided to become a lemon farmer.

Jack tore up his pumpkin patch and planted lemon trees.  He fertilized and watered.  He covered the trees when there was frost.  He read books about lemons, collected lemon recipes.  When he went to bed at night, he dreamed of lemon bars and lemonade and lemon meringue pie.  For a year, all Jack did was eat, sleep, and breathe lemons.

In October, when Halloween time arrived, people began showing up at Jack's farm to buy their pumpkins.  When they found out that Jack no longer grew pumpkins, they went down the road to the other pumpkin farm.  Jack called after them, "Come back!  I have lemon pudding!"  But nobody came back.

Jack never sold a single lemon and ended up working for the pumpkin farmer down the road.

Moral of the story:  When life gives you pumpkins, don't be a dumbass and make lemonade.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.


Annabel Lee

by:  Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes! - that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Off the Top of My Head

October 29: Eternal Afterlife, Cremation Stone, Edgar Allan Poe, "The Sleeper," Off the Top of My Head

Lost in a kind of delirium and frightened by the prospect of an eternal afterlife in such a world, Ives would begin to doze, and finally sleep, or nearly so, soon let out a shout, waking everyone in the apartment.

After his mystical vision, Ives spends a great deal of time thinking about life after death.  Even though he is a devout Catholic, brought up to believe in Heaven and angels and salvation, Ives is uneasy about the afterlife.  His vision of colored winds and spinning suns simply confuses him even further, since it doesn't fit into the Christian paradigm of eternity.  Ives simply doesn't know what to think.

It has been a little over two months since my sister died.  My family has been waiting this whole time for her interment.  We haven't done it yet because we ordered a cremation stone.  My sister never wanted to be buried, so, instead, her cremains are going to be placed in a sculpted boulder.  It's a beautiful object, but it takes a long time to be delivered and placed.

The goal was to have the interment by about mid-October, before the snow started flying.  It is now two days away from Halloween.  No snow yet.  No stone yet.  I feel as though during these last couple of months we've all been in a kind of limbo, waiting for the final step in letting go of my sister's physical being.  When it does happen, which will be soon (I hope), it will be like tearing the scab off of a wound that's sort of healing.

This afternoon, on my way home from work, I drove by the cemetery where my sister will be laid to rest.  I stared down the road, at the place where her cremation stone will be placed.  For just a moment, I thought I saw my sister standing there.  It was a vision that came and went so fast that I'm not sure I actually saw anything at all.  However, it just reminded me of what remains unfinished.

Forgive my lachrymose mood.  I think it's the time of year.  The cold setting in.  All Souls' Day approaching.  Winter on the doorstep.

Saint Marty needs some kind of closure.  He's having a hard time moving forward.

The Sleeper

by:  Edgar Allan Poe

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!- and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!

O, lady bright! can it be right-
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop-
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully- so fearfully-
Above the closed and fringed lid
'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,
That, o'er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come O'er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress,
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold-
Some vault that oft has flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals-
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone-
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.

Off the Top of My Head

December 13: You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

I realized this morning that there are less than two weeks left before Christmas.  I have a heck of a lot of work to do.  This weekend, I need to send out my Christmas cards.  I wrote my Christmas letter the day after Thanksgiving, but I still have to take a picture of my children to include with the letter.  I used to go to  Wal-Mart for professional portraits, but I got tired of shelling out over $200 every Christmas.

Two years ago, I decided to go rogue.  I took the picture below, since it was my A Christmas Story year.  I had a leg lamp and a Red Ryder B-B gun on my front porch as decoration.  I paid through the nose for the pink bunny outfit below.  It cost me so much that I forced my daughter to go trick-or-treating as Ralphie in the costume.  (By the way, she was the hit of Halloween.  Every adult we encountered looked at her and said, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid.")

I'm not in full panic mode yet.  I won't hit that point until about Thursday or Friday of next week.  I still have to get through my daughter's birthday party tomorrow evening.  Then I will be able to concentrate on my breakdown.

Saint Marty needs to go take his valium now.

My little Ralphie and Randy

October 30: At This Time, Rolling Year, All Souls' Day

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said, "I suffer most.  Why did I walk through crowds of fellow beings with eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode!  Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me?"

I know I have used this passage before, but on this first episode of "Saint of the Week," it is particularly apt to touch upon Marley's penance as a ghost.  Marley wanders the world, seeing all the suffering and anguish he could have helped alleviate while he was living.  It is a terrible eternal punishment, to be in a constant state of regret and mourning.

On November 2, the Catholic Church celebrates All Souls' Day.  On this day, people on this planet can offer prayers and alms for those who have died who are "being purified in the sufferings of purgatory."  By offering these sacrifices, we can help the Marleys of the afterlife pass through the pearly gates and enter heaven.  Now, whether you believe in Purgatory and punishment or not, most Christian churches at this time celebrate those who have died in the past year.  In Mexico, it's a national holiday.  Dia de los Muertos.  That's the day where everybody dresses like skeletons and makes sugar skulls and goes to visit grandma and grandpa at the cemetery, usually bringing them food and drinks.  It's sort of like Halloween, except the trick-or-treaters are dead.

No matter what tradition you celebrate, the end of October and the first days of November are reserved for remembrance, for reflection on those you have lost.  It can be a solemn time, or it can be a time of celebration.  It depends on the culture and traditions.

So, whether you're eating Milky Ways or sugar skulls, or lighting votive candles, I wish you a peaceful All Souls' Day.

Saint Marty will end with a traditional Catholic prayer for this time:  Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.  May they rest in peace.  Amen, Marley, amen.

Happy Halloween, Good All Souls' Day, Merry Dios de los Muertos

October 27: Very Dark, Too Dark, New Cartoon

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was.  A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man..

Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come are in a death chamber.  Scrooge's death chamber, to be specific.  Although Scrooge doesn't want to admit it yet, he knows the body on the bed is himself.  It's a terrifying moment in the novel.  Scrooge is faced with a vision of his end, and it isn't pretty.

Halloween is this Wednesday, and the pumpkins and scarecrows and skeletons are out in full force this weekend.  Tomorrow, I will be carving pumpkins.  I buy two every year, one for my daughter and one for my son.  I held off buying them until this weekend because, last year, I bought and carved the pumpkins too early.  By the time All Hallow's Eve was upon us, the faces on the pumpkins were a little shriveled and sunken.  I didn't want to make the same mistake this year.

So, the only reason I chose the passage above is that it's scary.  Dickens loved ghost stories and anything paranormal.  All of his books are filled with all sorts of creepy, unsavory characters.  Ghost stories were a staple for the Christmas holidays in the Dickens household.  I would bet that, if Halloween had been celebrated in Victorian England, old Chuck would have been known as Father Pumpkin instead of Father Christmas.  In fact, A Christmas Carol might have been A Halloween Carol, and Scrooge might have had a prize pumpkin delivered to the Cratchits instead of a prize turkey.  Since Dickens was single-handedly responsible for the popularizing of many stereotypical Christmas traditions, the world would certainly be a different place if the Inimitable had been into Halloween instead.

But, he wasn't, and so we have Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim celebrating the yuletide season.

Saint Marty prefers that arrangement.  Let Dickens have Christmas.  Leave Halloween to Poe and Bradbury and Stephen King.

Confessions of Saint Marty

October 25: By the Pricking of My Thumbs...

Something wicked this way comes...

Tonight, my book club meets to discuss Shadow Show.  It is a perfect night to commune with Ray Bradbury, rain and fog and thunder.  In some ways, I feel like I've been peaking into the tents of Mr. Dark's carnival, seeing sea monsters and ghosts and disembodied heads.  I am a child again, sneaking into the adult section of the library to peer into books about Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff.  Yes, Frankenstein and Dracula are coming to dinner tonight at my house.

To accompany these guests, we will have soup and warm bread and rolls.  I can't think of a better way to spend a late October evening.  While the fallen maple leaves become slick and cold outside, inside we will huddle together and whisper about the secrets of the Dark carnival.  The pumpkins are grinning on front porches.  Orange lights festoon windows.  And, on the television, screams and howls.

All Hallow's Eve is upon us.  Halloween time.  Bradbury time.

Saint Marty is ready to jump on the carousel.

October 10: Nothing to Say

For this second post of October 10, I have nothing to say.

I have nothing to say about watching Jaws with my film class.  It's a great film, regardless of its popularity.  Nothing can beat Robert Shaw as Quint, telling that story of the U. S. S. Indianapolis.  It's some of the best acting I've ever seen.

I have nothing to say about going to my daughter's chorus concert tonight.  I'm not going to say anything about how difficult it was to get a babysitter, although I had to sell a kidney to secure my sister's services for the evening.

I have nothing to say about how cold it is.  There was snow flying at 4 a.m. as I was driving into work.  It felt like November, not early October.  It doesn't bode well for Halloween, which I fear will be just this side of winter.

I have nothing to say about getting ready for my daughter's dance convention at the Wisconsin Dells.  I'm not going to talk about cleaning out my car or packing my suitcase.  I'm not going to discuss the seven-hour drive or throngs of hyper, tweenaged dancer girls.

Saint Marty simply has nothing to say.  Period.

This says it all...

October 27: Dissecting Penelope, New Poem, Sick Kid

It has been a busy morning, full of the kind of work that makes time pass quickly.  It’s almost noon, and I don’t know how the hours have escaped me.  My daughter has called me a couple of times to cry in my ear, tell me how thirsty she is.  It hurts to swallow, Daddy, she says. I can’t drink.  I really think she has strep throat.  I hate feeling this powerless. I want to be the person who swoops in and makes her feel instantly better.  I’m used to being that person.  The problem-solver.  Daddy-god.

I have to somehow get her healthy before Halloween.  It would be really good if I can get her better by tomorrow afternoon.  I hate for her to miss dance classes.  She looks forward to them so much.  And then, tomorrow night, we’re supposed to have dinner with some friends.  They’re cooking Indian food, and we’re bringing dessert.  Saturday, she has another dance class.  Then, of course, Monday is trick-or-treat day.  She’s been dying to wear her Little Red Riding Hood costume.  I shelled out $30 for her Little Red Riding Hood shoes alone.  She has to get better by tomorrow, or it messes up my, ummmmm, I mean, her life.

Okay, I’m just getting myself in trouble here.

Poem.  I have a new poem for you.  It’s sort of Halloween-ish.  It’s got a corpse in it.  It’s got a corpse and dissection.  So, it’s sort of like Frankenstein.  Or Hannibal Lecter.  Have you forgotten how self-centered I sounded a little while ago?  Not yet?  Hmmmmmmm.

Saint Marty’s just going to cut his losses and sign off.

Dissecting Penelope

We named her Penelope, after Odysseus’s  wife,

Because we liked the story of her fooling

All those guys hungry for her rosy bod,

Making them wait, sunrise to sunset,

For years as she braided, unbraided

Their fleshy need, over and over,

Held their greedy cock crows in check.

We skinned our Penelope the first day

Of the semester, stripped off her hide

The way I imagined Davy Crockett pelted

Beaver or raccoon, the occasional bear.

We started at her neck, sliced a delicate

Ring around it, then peeled the fur

Back, slow as an ice age, scraping

With a scalpel so the pink

Derma remained perfect, smooth

As birth.  We made similar cuts

Around her paws, tail, and anus,

Left small patches of her dark hair,

So that, at the end of the class period,

The muscles of her torso and legs

Gleamed under the fluorescent lights

Like a turkey on Thanksgiving morning.

My lab partners and I lifted Penelope,

Danced her across the table, made jokes

About shaved pussy, splayed her

Legs open like the girls in Penthouse.

When the bell rang, we packed her

In a box, wrote our names on it,

Her name on it, in black marker.

Put her in the storage room,

The place we dubbed the cathouse.

Every day, for the next three months,

We hauled Penelope out, pulled her

Apart, piece by piece, labeling,

Cataloging.  When we got to her womb,

Made the cut, we found them.

Three unborn kittens, alien creatures,

Amorphous as Playdough.  We scooped

Them out, laid them in front of us.

Stared at their unformed faces.

For the first time that year,

We were silent, as if we had just

Unearthed Tutankhamun or discovered

A Dead Sea Scroll.  Something ancient,

Marked with divine knowledge

About creation or life, an almost

Nativity in our teenaged hands.

I wanted to make a comment about

Our promiscuous feline, perhaps

Dig a condom out of my wallet, jam

It into her chest cavity, give a lecture

About safe sex and disease.  Instead,

We took the kittens, tucked them back

Inside Penelope without a word, covered

Them with membrane and tissue,

Left them there, the way my mother

Left pans of bread dough overnight,

To bubble, leaven, rise into Sunday

Morning.  Become something

Fermented, full of the smell of yeast.

Uncooked and waiting, always waiting,

For Penelope to finish her burial shroud.

I'm not going to use a picture of cat dissection

October 27: Heavy Traffic, Pumpkin Day, Thick Rain

Wow, traffic is way up for the blog, and I don’t know why.  Yesterday, Saint Marty attained an all-time high of 145 hits in a day.  This morning, at 5:30 a.m., the site already has 91 pageviews.  That’s an insane amount of people seeking out my brand of wisdom.  A little scary.  But I welcome any new followers and encourage you to become actual disciples of Saint Marty.  It’s easy, doesn’t cost anything, and will help you lose at least 25 pounds.  (It has to do with that diet of locusts and organic honey I encourage.)

It’s quiet in the office at the moment, since I’m the only person here.  My favorite time of the day.  In about an hour’s time, others will start showing up, and then it’s all downhill.  I have a busy day ahead of me.  Getting ready for teaching.  Teaching.  Hosting my book club tonight at my house.  My daughter woke up this morning with a sore throat, so my guess is she’s headed to the doctor’s office.  She has a tendency to get strep throat a lot.  I hoping it’s not that serious.  For God’s sake, winter hasn’t even really started yet.

Speaking of which, I saw some really thick rain as I was driving to work this morning.  Not much.  For about two minutes, very fat, white raindrops were hitting my windshield.  I’m really hoping that form of precipitation holds off until after Halloween.  I’m actually hoping for a pumpkin day that doesn’t require winter coats, hats, boots, and mittens.  In the ten years my daughter has been alive, there has been only one All Hallows Eve that didn’t require major arctic gear.  I’m not asking for seventy-degree temperatures.  I’ll accept anything in the fifties, with no wind or rain.  That’s not too much to ask.

I have been working on a new poem, which I will post later this afternoon.  In some ways, it’s a very appropriate poem for the upcoming holiday.  You’ll see what I mean.

Well, I have a quiz to construct for today’s mythology class and a writing assignment to create.

A saint’s work it never done.

Praying to avoid this scene

October 22: Pumpkins, Flu Shots, New Cartoon

I just got back from a doctor's appointment with my daughter.  She got a flu shot, and the pediatrician and I had to pin her down to get the needle in her arm.  Much crying a gnashing of teeth ensued.  It was not a good scene.  I felt so bad that I took her to Shopko and bought her a new pair of shoes to go with her Halloween costume.  It's been an expensive morning.

Pretty soon, I have to drive my daughter to her dance class, and then we're going pumpkin shopping.  Last year, I made the mistake of buying and carving our pumpkins a couple of weeks before All Hallows Eve.  By trick-or-treating day, both of our jack-o-lanterns looked like residents of a nursing home.  Plus, they gave off an odor that could have come from the grave.  It was not pleasant.  Kids avoided our house because of our zombie squashes.  I guess the little ghosts and SpongeBobs were afraid the pumpkins might roll off our front porch and eat their brains.  We had a lot of leftover Milky Ways and Twixes on November 1.

Tonight, I have to attend a wedding reception for my wife's cousin who got married in Vegas last May.  I know, I know.  It's a little late, but her cousin was about seven months pregnant at the time and in no mood to party when she said, "I do."  Hence the festivities tonight.  We're going to go, get some cake, maybe a cup of punch (or something stronger, if it's available), and then leave.  It's wonderful having a young child to use as an excuse to bug out early from family get-togethers.

Saint Marty has a new confession for you today.  He hopes you enjoy it.

Confessions of Saint Marty