February 12, 2025: "Ecstasy," Good Mood, "Donald Trump Meets the Ghost of Abraham Lincoln in the LIncoln Bedroom"

Okay, I have to admit that I spend a good deal of time every day doom scrolling, intentionally looking for social media posts designed to piss me off or frighten me.  It doesn't take long to find the latest insanity being perpetrated by the Republicans and the South African immigrant.

Now don't get all judgmental.  I'm an intelligent person who knows to fact check everything I see on Facebook (since Mr. Zuckerberg no longer gives a shit about truth in any way).  When I see something truly outrageous, I investigate, as any person with any kind of IQ should do.  (Public Service Announcement for MAGA Republicans:  Donald Trump's posts to Truth Social do not constitute credible, non-biased information.)  The crazy thing is:  most of the time, these outrageous social media claims about the Republican Party's blatant disregard of the current Constitutional crisis taking place in the United States end up being absolutely true.  

So, I have to limit my intake of this insanity mindfully.  I even set timers for myself when I dive into Facebook.  Then, I look for videos and posts that make me laugh or feel good about the human race.  Believe it or not, they're still out there.  I choose joy over .  . . whatever it is the Republicans are doing.

Sharon Olds writes about happiness and pleasure . . . 

Ecstasy

by: Sharon Olds

As we made love for the third day,
cloudy and dark, as we did not stop
but went into it and into it and
did not hesitate and did not hold back we

rose through the air, until we were up above
timber line. The lake lay
icy and silver, the surface shirred,
reflecting nothing. The black rocks
lifted around it into the grainy
sepia air, the patches of snow
brilliant white, and even though we
did not know where we were, we could not
speak the language, we could hardly see, we
did not stop, rising with the black
rocks to the black hills, the black
mountains rising from the hills. Resting
on the crest of the mountains, one huge
cloud with scalloped edges of blazing
evening light, we did not turn back,
we stayed with it, even though we were
far beyond what we knew, we rose
into the grain of the cloud, even though we were
frightened, the air hollow, even though
nothing grew there, even though it is a
place from which no one has ever come back.

Yes, it is a hard picture Olds paints of sexual union with her significant other.  There's orgiastic pleasure, sure.  But there's also a precipice that Olds is standing on the edge of--one false step, and she and her lover will plunge into that "place from which no one has ever come back."

I spent some time with my friend, Jody, today.  She was in the library, leading a teen crafting class, and I was with her because I needed my spirits lifted, which is something at which she excels.  We laughed, commiserated, bitched about the current state of politics.  It was cathartic, and I found myself genuinely full of joy.  Jody has always had this superhuman power to drag me, kicking and screaming, from darkness into light.  Today was no different.  

So, I'm in a good mood tonight, because of Jody.  We both share the same fears and anxieties.  Yet, we also lift each other up, even in the most difficult of times.  We've seen each other through a lot of shit.   

Saint Marty wrote a poem tonight in honor of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Today is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States.  Lincoln is said to have stated that "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not themselves."  For today's exercise, write a poem that includes someone or something being set free.  Example:  a zoo animal, a caged chicken, a tethered dog, a human being (either you or someone you know).

Donald Trump Meets

the Ghost of Abraham Lincoln

in the Lincoln Bedroom

by: Martin Achatz

Lincoln stands thin as a leaf 

of grass before Donald, stares

at him as if regarding the dead

at Gettysburg, face stricken

with sadness so deep a stone

would never find its bottom.

When Lincoln opens his mouth,

all Donald hears are cannons,

rebel whoops, four million slaves

groaning under the crack and slash

of four million whips.  Lincoln

gutters in the darkness like a firefly,

senses civil war in Donald's

limbs and organs--Sherman

marching through his bowels,

Lee charging his temples.

As Donald takes a deep breath,

opens his lips, Lincoln thinks

of that bullet his skull ate,

how it filled his head with

a universe of black blossoms,

spinning over an endless field,

souls lined up horizon to

horizon, free at last, hallelujah.

Donald blows Lincoln out 

like a birthday candle, without 

making a wish.  Lincoln hangs 

above his head like smoke above 

a battle that hasn't been fought.

February 5, 2025: "The Connoisseuse of Slugs," Mystery, "42"

I like to think I have good taste in some things--poems, movies, books, music, friends.  Trying to define what makes a good poem or film or friend is difficult, mysterious.  It's like trying to understand the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Yet, I know good poems by the way they leave me breathless at the end.  Good films if I'm still thinking about them three days later.  Good friends by how much of my shit they will put up with.

Sharon Olds is an expert on something . . . 

The Connoissseuse of Slugs

by: Sharon Olds

When I was a connoisseuse of slugs
I would part the ivy leaves, and look for the
naked jelly of those gold bodies,
translucent strangers glistening along the
stones, slowly, their gelatinous bodies
at my mercy. Made mostly of water, they would shrivel
to nothing if they were sprinkled with salt,
but I was not interested in that. What I liked
was to draw aside the ivy, breathe the
odor of the wall, and stand there in silence
until the slug forgot I was there
and sent its antennae up out of its
head, the glimmering umber horns
rising like telescopes, until finally the
sensitive knobs would pop out the ends, 

delicate and intimate. Years later,
when I first saw a naked man,
I gasped with pleasure to see that quiet
mystery reenacted, the slow
elegant being coming out of hiding and
gleaming in the dark air, eager and so
trusting you could weep.

It's a wonderfully weird poem from Olds--one only she could and would write.  And it's all about being an expert.  The slug imagery mixes with sexual imagery, until, in the concluding lines, Olds stuns us with beauty and longing.  It takes my breath away,  Hence, it's a good poem.

I had lunch with one of my oldest (not chronologically) friends.  We both worked at a local book store back in the 1990s, and we quickly bonded.  Through the years we've seen each other through a lot:  divorce, depressions, births, deaths, graduations.  Jody was in the birthing room when my wife was having our daughter.  She filled my university office with balloons for my birthday one year.  We both cuss like sailors and enjoy dirty jokes.  Through the decades we've known each other, she's put up with a lot of my shit.

And that makes her a really good friend.

Friendship is a mystery.  You're never sure where or when it's going to strike.  Jody is about a foot shorter than me with a Southern accent.  The first time I met her, she pointed at me and shouted, "Oh my God, a 4.0 GPA!"  (She'd looked over my resumé when I came in for my interview at the book store.)  I liked her immediately, but I never dreamed that--over 30 years later--we'd still be so close.  

It has been a long week, full of all kinds of stress at work (some induced by the President Musk and the Republicans):  a huge programming series funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, if federal funding isn't "paused" again for review; my annual evaluation for the university; issues with computers; issues with students.  In short, a shit show.  And Jody went out to eat with me and let me vent, hugely.  

When I dropped her off at her apartment complex after lunch, she gave me a kiss and a hug and said, "Take care of yourself, for fuck's sake.  I love you."  (I may be paraphrasing a little.)

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight on mystery, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet;

In celebration of the first Reader's Digest publication on this date in 1922, head to the Reader's Digest home page and click on Jokes:  http://www.rd.com/jokes.  After reading several jokes, draft a poem that riffs on scenarios and punchlines that most intrigue you.  Alternatively, write a poem of three or four sections in which each section begins with a well-known riddle.  Examples:  What time is it when an elephant sits on a fence?  What's black and white and red all over?  Why did the chicken cross the road?

42

by: Martin Achatz

1.

What can you catch but not throw?

Tonight, I caught wind in a pine,

jumping branch to branch like

a hungry crow, scraping the air

with the rusty blade of its voice.

2.

What can cry without eyes and fly 

     without wings?

An angel crashed in my backyard,

its feathers gummed with sap,

eyes filled with more salt than

the Atlantic.  I kissed her cheek, tasted

my mother's last breath.

3.

What gets bigger the more you take away?

Something gibbous walked down

the street, searching for 

a puddle of eclipse

to quench its bright thirst.

4.

What can you break without touching it?

I woke when I heard frost tap

on the pane, write a love 

letter to morning on the glass.

December 2, 2024: "Central Park," Self Pity, Jody

I apologize if my posts these last few days have been downers.  Some people might even say that I'm wallowing in self pity.  

Believe me, that is not my intent.  I'm simply trying to write my way out of the deep valley in which I'm currently stuck.  It's no fun to feel overwhelmed as soon you open your eyes in the morning.  Or to wake up in the middle of the night and cry for an hour or so.  How about feeling inadequate in just about everything you attempt to do?

I'm not looking for attention.  I'm just just trying to survive.

Billy Collins feels sorry for himself . . . 

Central Park

by: Billy Collins

It’s hard to describe how that day in the park
was altered when I stopped to read
an official sign I came across near the great carousel,
my lips moving silently like the lips of Saint Ambrose.

As the carousel turned in the background,
all pinions and mirrors and the heads of horses
rising to the steam-blown notes of a calliope,
I was learning how the huge thing
was first designed to be powered
by a blind mule, as it turned out,
strapped to the oar of a wheel in an earthen
room directly below the merry turning of the carousel.

The sky did not darken with this news
nor did a general silence fall on the strollers
or the ball players on the green fields.
No one even paused to look my way,
though I must have looked terrible
as I stood there filling with sympathy
not so much for the harnessed beast
tediously making its rounds,

but instead of the blind mule within me
always circling in the dark —
the mule who makes me turn when my name is called
or causes me to nod with a wooden gaze
or sit doing nothing on a bench in the shape of a swan.

Somewhere, there must still be a door
to that underground room,
the lock rusted shut, the iron key misplaced,
last year’s leaves piled up against the sill,
and inside, a trace of straw on the floor,
a whiff of manure, and maybe a forgotten bit
or a bridle hanging from a hook in the dark.

Poor blind beast, I sang softly as I left the park,
poor blind me, poor blind earth turning blindly on its side.

Unlike Collins, I'm not walking around, quietly singing, poor blind me.  In fact, for most of today, I put on my game face.  I taught, answered emails, interacted with coworkers and students.  And nobody noticed anything amiss.

This evening, one of my oldest friends taught a needle felting class at the library.  Jody and I have known each other for over 30 years.  We worked together at a local bookstore.  That's where we first met.  Tonight, before her class, when we were visiting in my office, I told her about my current struggles and started to cry.

Jody came over to me, put her arms around my shoulders, and just held on.  She kept saying, "You're going to be alright.  You're going to be alright.  You'll get through this."  It was a healing mantra and made me feel a little less alone.

I know Jody would do anything for me, and she knows I would do the same for her.  That is the kind of friend everyone should have in their lives:  someone who just loves you, even when you're at your lowest.  

Saint Marty might be lost in a dark wood right now, but he has a friend who has left a candle burning in the window for him.

October 9: "Baby Listening," Jody, John Lennon

I remember those nights when my daughter and son were infants, and I would lay in my bed, unable to sleep, listening, listening, listening for any sound--a whimper, cry, burp, or (most frightening) nothing at all.  Even now--with my daughter living with her significant other in a town 20 miles distant, my son a high school junior and secretive as an oyster--I still worry about them every day.

Billy Collins gets into baby listening . . . 

Baby Listening

by: Billy Collins

According to the guest information directory, 

baby listening is a service offered by this seaside hotel. 

Baby listening—not a baby who happens to be listening, 

as I thought when I first checked in. 

Leave the receiver off the hook, 

the directory advises, 

and your infant can be monitored by the staff, 

though the staff, the entry continues, 

cannot be held responsible for the well-being 

of the baby in question. 

Fair enough, someone to listen to the baby. 

But the phrase did suggest a baby who is listening, 

lying there in the room next to mine 

listening to my pen scratching against the page, 

or a more advanced baby who has crawled 

down the hallway of the hotel 

and is pressing its tiny, curious ear against my door. 

Lucky for some of us, 

poetry is a place where both are true at once, 

where meaning only one thing at a time spells malfunction. 

Poetry wants to have the baby who is listening at my door 

as well as the baby who is being listened to, 

quietly breathing into the nearby telephone. 

And it also wants the baby 

who is making sounds of distress 

into the curved receiver lying in the crib 

while the girl at reception has just stepped out 

to have a smoke with her boyfriend 

in the dark by the great sway and wash of the North Sea. 

Poetry wants that baby, too, 

even a little more than it wants the others.

Worrying about your kids is a lifelong habit.  Tonight, I hosted an event at the library that included the son of one of my best friends.  Jody (my friend) sat next to me for the entire concert, listening to her son sing John Lennon tunes, play piano, and strum a guitar.  He even recited a poem.  She cried several times during the show.

Jody and I are the same age, with just six months separating us.  She has three grown children.  I have one grown daughter and one almost-grown son.  We both worked at the same bookstore in the 1990s.  Eventually, we both earned advanced degrees in English and taught college composition courses.  In short, we are each other, even though Jody has a Southern accent thicker than Andy Griffith.  

I've known Jody's son since he was four or five, I think.  Jody was at the hospital when my daughter was born, and Jody was also one of the first people to hold her.  We're both amazed at how much our kids have grown while we've remained exactly the same.

Jody and I sat and listened to her son sing "Strawberry Fields Forever," and it was both sublime and disconcerting.  Sublime because I remember the day John Lennon was murdered, the outpouring of grief that followed for days.  Disconcerting because I remember the day John Lennon was murdered and the ensuing display of collective grief.

It was a really good night, made better by the presence of Jody and Jody's son.  But friends always make life more joyful.

And Saint Marty didn't have to listen to any baby's, either.

August 19: "Absence," Chunky Monkey, "Strawberry Picking"

It has been a strangely emotional couple days for me.

I woke on Sunday feeling a little . . . sad.  I guess that's the best word I can come up with.  I'm not saying that I'm sitting on the couch crying with a quart of Chunky Monkey and a spoon.  No, nothing quite so dramatic.  Just a general malaise.  A weight sitting on my shoulders.

Today, I did what I usually do when I feel a blue mood descending on me.  I kept myself busy.  I worked on my October events for the library.  Put together my syllabi for the fall semester at the university, which begins next Monday.  Helped move some things around the library (we're in the middle of a little reorganization).  In the evening, I hosted a great concert by one of my favorite local bands (two of its members are the sons of one of my best friends).

All of that kept my mind and heart busy.  Now, sitting at home, everyone else asleep, I know the blue mood is sitting on the couch beside me as I type these words.  It's like a presence and absence at the same time.

Billy Collins on being present and absent . . . 

Absence

by: Billy Collins

This morning as low clouds
skidded over the spires of the city

I found next to a bench
in the park an ivory chess piece –

the white knight as it turned out –
and in the pigeon-ruffling wind

I wondered where all the others were,
lined up somewhere

on their red and black squares,
many of them feeling uneasy

about the saltshaker
that was taking his place,

and all of them secretly longing
for the moment

when the white horse
would reappear out of nowhere

and advance toward the board
with his distinctive motion,

stepping forward, then sideways
before advancing again –

the same move I was making him do
over and over in the sunny field of my palm.

I realized about midway through today that it was the anniversary of my sister's death.  Nine years ago.  I also realized that in another day it will also be the anniversary of my friend Helen's death.  Two years ago.  It's strange how the body and heart realize things like this before the brain catches up.  Basically, I'm carrying around two chess pieces in my hand, the black and white queens.  They're both here and not here.

Don't worry.  I'm fine.  I got to spend a few hours with my friend, Jody, at the concert.  Some other good friends were there, as well.  The music was loud and joyful.  People were laughing and clapping and bobbing their heads, moving their hips.  

I think, when you are keenly aware of absence in your life, it makes you appreciate presence even more.  That was me tonight, giving thanks for all the people who were with me--important pieces on the chess board of my life.  My wife.  My son.  My friend Jody.  My friend Ronnie and his son.  And so many more.  

Life is short, folks.  If I'm lucky, I'm not going to find myself in checkmate for a very long time.  But it's important for me to remember those who I've lost.  Those chess pieces that are missing, who can't simply be replaced by salt shakers.

Marty is a lucky, lucky saint.

A poem for my sister . . . 

Strawberry Picking

by: Martin Achatz

for Sally

You took me strawberry picking
once, drove out to a farm
where we paid to squat in green
beds laced with tongues of red.
I could feel my ears and neck
tighten under the punishing
sun as we filled Morning Glory
ice cream buckets with our
harvest, each berry looking to me
like some vital body part,
an organ or muscle necessary
for life. You sat on your haunches,
fingers staining red, as if you
were some battlefield surgeon
patching up the fallen with only
your hands. Every now and then,
you would lift a berry to your lips,
eat it in a hummingbird moment,
smiling the smile of the freshly
healed at Lourdes, where miracles
are common as empty wheelchairs
or dandelions in a July field.

The days since you’ve been gone,
I see strawberries everywhere,
in a welt of blood on my lip
after shaving, a stop sign,
a friend’s dyed hair,
my son’s sunburned shoulders,
oxygen in the gills of a perch.
Last night, I stood outside, under
ribbons of borealis, watched
them glide between the stars
like garter snakes in a midnight
Eden. The Bible says that, in the cool
of the day, Adam and Eve heard
God taking a stroll through
the garden. There were probably
peacocks nesting in the pines,
a stream talking with moss and stone,
the scurry of mole and spider
in the ferns.

That’s what I believe you heard
in your last moments of breath.
You heard peafowl screams,
brook trout leaps. Grasshopper wing
and corn silk. And you heard
his divine toes in the grass, walking
along. When he came to you,
he couldn’t resist. He reached down,
plucked you from the stem. You were
ripe. Sweet. Ready. He put you
in his Morning Glory bucket, continued
on into the dew and sunlight

August 5: "Class Picture, 1954," Best Friends, Jody

This is a picture of me with one of my best friends.  Jody and I both worked at a now defunct bookstore called Book World.  I was newly married and had just moved back to the U.P. from downstate Michigan where I'd been teaching and attending graduate school.  My wife was the main breadwinner at the time, spending most of her days substitute teaching.  I was struggling to find a paying job.

Now, close to 30 years later, Jody and I are still best friends; Book World has been converted into a microbrewery; and my wife now works in a call center, having left substitute teaching in her rearview mirror when our daughter was a toddler.

There is the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words.  That might be true.  Certainly, the picture above shows two people who are obviously very fond of each other.  We've both been through a lot since that first day I walked into Book World.  Jody's divorced now, and she has three grown children.  (When we first met, Jody was married and had two small kids.)  My wife and I didn't have any kids in my bookseller days.  I quit working for Book World when my wife was six months pregnant and I was going into an MFA program for poetry.

For a while after she graduated from college and was newly single, Jody moved back home to Georgia to teach.  (Did I forget to mention that Jody is as southern as grits and cornbread?)  But we still stayed in touch.  I remember one night, when I was in the middle of some marital turmoil and single-parenting my five-year-old daughter, Jody and I talked on the phone for about two or three hours.  She listened to my wale of toe, and I listened to hers.  (Yes, I intentionally typed "wale of toe.")  Jody always makes me feel better about my life, putting things into perspective for me.  

I'm not sure a picture can catch all that history.  Maybe in the wrinkles on our faces that weren't present 30-some years ago.  Or my distinct lack of hair follicles.  Perhaps in our smiles, which, to me, say, "Yeah, we've both been through a lot of shit together and survived."  

Billy Collins' poem for today is sort of dealing with the same thing . . . 

Class Picture, 1954

by: Billy Collins

I am the third one

from the left in the third row.

The girl I have been in love with

since the 5th grade is just behind me

to the right, the one with the bangs.

The boy who pushes me down

in the playground

is the last one on the left in the top row.

And my friend Paul is the second one

in the second row, the one

with his collar sticking out, next to the teacher.

But that's not all--

if you look carefully you can see

our house in the background

with its porch and its brick chimney

and up in the clouds

you can see the faces of my parents,

and over there, off to the side,

Superman is balancing 

a green car over his head with one hand.

It's an amazing little poem that reinforces how we're all still little kids.  That fifth grade boy that crushed on the pretty girl with bangs--he hasn't disappeared.  There are people and experiences that simply stay with us, no matter how old we are, and no matter how much we try to overcome or forget them.  Traumas and disappointments can't be erased.  (Notice that Collins writes the entire poem in the present tense--he's still that frightened child waiting for Superman to come rescue him.)

Jody gets me.  I get Jody.  We both swear like sailors on shore leave after five years at sea.  We love the same books and poems and art.  We celebrate each other's victories and grieve each other's losses.  And we both hate a certain former President of the United States.  My life is infinitely better with Jody as my friend, balancing a green car over her head with one hand.

Saint Marty may need to airbrush the next picture he takes--since he and Jody haven't aged a day in the last three decades.

July 1: Meeting a Friend

I stopped at Walmart this evening, and I met one of my best friends there.  She was going out, and I was coming in.  I've known Jody for close to 20 years.  She's an English teacher, like me.  She's been trying to get a full-time job at the university, like me.  She thinks that most people in higher education are full of shit, like me.  We're a match made in academia.

We talked for close to an hour as the normal crowd of Walmart shoppers shuffled around us, passing along their communicable diseases.  We exchanged current phone numbers and addresses.  We're going to get together in a week or so for a longer visit.

Saint Marty celebrates friendship tonight.

My pal

June 4: Old Friend, Southern Belle, Peace

This morning, as I was working at my desk, I heard somebody say my name.  I looked up, and standing before me was one of my best friends in the whole world.  Now, I'm not going to get all Hallmark Card here (mainly because Jody, my friend, hates that shit), but I have to say that my heart skipped a beat when I saw her.  Several years ago, she moved to Georgia to teach at a college, and I've seen her a total of two times in the space of eight years.  So, seeing her in front of me was a shock of pleasure.

The first thing we did was hug each other--hard--for about a full minute.  Neither one of us wanted to let go.  And I have to say that, until I had that direct physical contact with her, I didn't really believe it was her.

Jody has seen me through a lot of things in my life.  She was there when my wife was in labor with my daughter.  She was there when my wife was diagnosed bipolar.  She was there when I found out about my wife's sexual addiction.  When my wife moved out, Jody called me on the phone.  A lot.  I remember one night telling her how much I missed the physical intimacy of my wife.  I said to her, "Just one night, could you call and tell me that you're in your underwear?"  She laughed and said (imagine a thick, Southern accent), "There's an image you don't want in your head."

Jody and I started talking this morning, and we didn't stop for over an hour.  I loved hearing her voice and laugh.  I loved that fact that she's sounds so Southern she could put Scarlett O'Hara to shame, but every other word out of her mouth is "fuck."  Even though we talked about being broke and unemployed and sick, basically being people with graduate degrees in English, we were happy just to be with each other.

Jody is my trash-talking Southern belle.

And Jody brought peace into Saint Marty's world today.

Jody would hate this picture, but it's the only one I got