May 8: "Zen Backfire," Mindless Activities, "Existential Sundae"

Billy Collins gets all philosophical again . . .

Zen Backfire

by: Billy Collins

The only time

I cut myself shaving

is when I'm aware

that I'm shaving.

Most of the things I do in a day are mindless activities, including shaving.  I don't think about how to shave each time I lift a razor to my face.  And I don't review all the rules of driving before I sit behind a wheel and turn the key in the ignition.  I rely on muscle memory.  My body, through continuous repetition, simply knows how to shave in the morning and drive to work.

Billy Collins is right, though.  The moment you start thinking about shaving or operating a motor vehicle is the moment bad things happen.  I tie my shoes all the time, but, when my daughter was young and asked me how to tie her shoes, I had a hell of a time explaining the steps.

It is one day past the end of the semester now, and I had to think, really think, about what I was going to do today.  After having the same routine for almost five months, I now need to retrain my mind and body.  I'll have to do the same at the end of August when I start teaching again.  Every three or four months, I have to reinvent myself.

In a lot of ways, writing a poem has become muscle memory for me.  I've been creating poetry for so long that I almost immediately recognize things like weak verbs, trite imagery, clunky lines.  That doesn't mean every time I sit down with my journal I write "The Emperor of Ice Cream" or "The Pope's Penis."  But I can and often do avoid very common mistakes made by less-experienced poets.

When I meet a stranger, usually one of the first question I get asked is "What do you do?"  There are easy answers to that question.  I teach at a university.  I schedule programs at a public library.  I play the pipe organ at a few different churches.  But the answer that is closest to who I am is:  I am a poet.

Try saying that to a complete stranger and see what kind of reaction you get.  If you're at a party, suddenly your conversation partner becomes infatuated with the bean dip.  If you're on an airplane, your seatmate will begin staring out the window at the clouds.

Truth frightens people.

My name is Saint Marty, and I am a poet.  Run for the hills.

Existential Sundae

by: Martin Achatz

If I define a sundae

as ice cream with hot fudge,

is it still a sundae

if I add whipped cream

and a maraschino cherry?

February 2: I Was Born For, a Calling, Poetry

Santiago engages in a little self reflection . . . 

"I wish the boy was here," he said aloud and settled himself against the rounded planks of the bow and felt the strength of the great fish through the line he held across his shoulders moving steadily toward whatever he had chosen.

When once, through my treachery, it had been necessary to him to make a choice, the old man thought.

His choice had been to stay in the deep dark water far out beyond all snares and traps and treacheries. My choice was to go there to find him beyond all people. Beyond all people in the world. Now we are joined together and have been since noon. And no one to help either one of us.

Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman, he thought. But that was the thing that I was born for. I must surely remember to eat the tuna after it gets light.

My favorite part of this passage?  That final paragraph, where Santiago questions being a fisherman and then makes that statement:  "But that was the thing that I was born for."  He is so sure in his belief.  There's no regrets about lost opportunities.  No old loves or stalled ambitions.  Santiago is doing what he was intended to do with his life.

I don't think a lot of people can say that about themselves.  I know I can't.  It has taken me a long time to get to the place I'm at right now.  Along the way, I've been a busboy, hospital housekeeper, painter, and bookseller.  I worked for over 25 years in the healthcare industry.  Through most of my adult life, I've taught university-level English courses, even when I was scraping blood off the floors of surgical rooms.  Aside from teaching, I can't say that I felt a calling to do any of those other occupations.  They were simply a means to an end--a way to pay the bills and support my family.

Now, I find myself working for the largest public library in the Upper Peninsula, scheduling readings and concerts and workshops.  Submitting grants to the National Endowment for the Arts.  Talking with doctors and art historians and United States Poets Laureate.  Some days, I sit in my office, wondering at my dumb luck.  To be able to do something you love and get paid for it, that's a true blessing.

Don't get me wrong.  I still struggle and stress.  Get angry and depressed.  That's all part of being a broken human in a very broken world.  My posts from the last few weeks have been a chronicle of pain and loss.  (Health crises.  A car accident thrown in for good measure.)  Every time I've faced challenges these last 14 or so days, I didn't fall on my knees and give thanks to my risen savior and Lord.  Nope.  I pretty much did what Santiago does in the passage above--question my actions and life choices.  

I am a poet.  I understand the world through words.  When I face difficulties in life, I turn to language.  Tomorrow night, I am leading a poetry workshop.  These past two weeks, I have been working on a poem that I will read at my sister's funeral this Saturday.  Poetry helps me make sense of senselessness.  I have been gifted with this ability.

Some people are fisherman.  Some are doctors.  Cooks.  Nurses.  Mechanics.

Saint Marty was born for poetry.  And chocolate.

May 16: Missing in Action, My Gravestone, Immortality

And the Germans told everybody else to form in ranks of five, with Billy as their pivot.  Then out of doors went the parade, and through gate after gate again.  There were more starving Russians with faces like radium dials.  The Americans were livelier than before.  The jazzing with hot water had cheered them up.  And they came to a shed where a corporal with only one arm and one eye wrote the name and serial number of each prisoner in a big, red ledger.  Everybody was legally alive now.  Before they got their names and numbers in that book, they were missing in action and probably dead.

So it goes.

Billy--and the rest of the Americans--were the walking dead before the German corporal recorded their names in his red ledger.  Billy could have easily died and disappeared on the train ride to the prison camp.  His name and serial number would have simply evaporated into history.  A name on a monument somewhere.  So it goes.

I think that everybody wants to be remembered in some way.  I don't want to evaporate when the name on my gravestone is too worn out to read.  Maybe that's why I became a writer.  From the time I was four or five (I'm not exaggerating), I've wanted to be an author.  (I did have a brief lapse from ages eight to ten when I wanted to be a movie director, but I came to my senses.  Bestselling author is a much more attainable goal.)  There's something very real and permanent about a book.  Something that can't be erased.

Of course, that's not the reason I am a poet.  I'm also in it for the money.  The dozens and dozens of dollars that I have earned from my verse have made my life so much more comfortable.  The problem is that the most famous poets really don't become famous until after they've died.  That means that my children will be the subject of interviews where the interviewer will ask questions like, "What was it like growing up with a genius?" and "Can you describe your dad's writing habits?" and "When did you become aware that your father was truly touched by God?"

That is true immortality.  William Shakespeare.  John Milton.  Dante Alighieri.  Emily Dickinson.  Robert Frost.  Saint Marty.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful for the gift of words.

Another option.