January 7: Poetry Workshop, Richard Blanco, "One Dog"

I led a poetry workshop tonight.  All of the prompts were based on poems written for Presidential Inaugurations.  Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Miller Williams, Elizabeth Alexander, and Richard Blanco.  All of the poems full of light and some brand of hope.

So, on a day where those things seemed pretty scarce in my life, I offer you my attempt at something . . . hopeful.

One Dog

by:  Martin Achatz

after Richard Blanco's "One Today"

Yes, this is one of those dog poems
full of leather tongue, wet noses pressed
into crotches.  Because dogs are all about
hope.  For backyard hunts of gray
squirrels or screeching jays.
For a piece of hotdog bun to flake off,
fall to hardwood floor.  A fly
in the water dish, flash of mouse
in corner dark.  A dog survives
on hope, from first yawn and stretch
to pillow sigh.  Hope is what wags
the leash, digs in a box for a bone-
shaped biscuit.  At night, hope

slams the car door, enters the house,
calls out, sings out, Good girl! or Good boy!
Which is an invocation, a conjuring.
Yes, hope is a four-legged thing
that meets you after a long day
of reports and budgets, shivers its tail,
helicopters on the floor, humps
your shins, circles and circles and circles
until, exhausted, it flops on its back,
waits for your hand to reach down,
scratch its belly until it pisses
all over you in joy.

December 5: Poet Laureate of the U. P. Nominee, Poet of the Week, Maya Angelou, "Glory Falls"

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November 21: Poet of the Week, Miller Williams, "For a Girl I Know about to Be a Woman"

So, there have been five poets who have read at U. S. presidential inaugurations since 1961:  Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Alexander, Richard Blanco, and this week's Poet of the Week--Miller Williams.  Funny enough, all of these poets participated in the inaugural ceremonies of Democratic Presidents of the United States.  John F. Kennedy.  Bill Clinton.  Barack Obama.  You can decide for yourself why no poet has read at the presidential inauguration of a Republican.

There's a big brouhaha on the Internet right now about what poet would read at the inauguration of Donald Trump.  Lots of bad protest verse is being written.  My prediction is that there will not be a poet at the Trump inauguration.  It would be too difficult to get through the crowds in white sheets.  (That is my one and only Trump joke for this post.)

Miller Williams read at the second inauguration of President Bill Clinton.  Williams was a native of Arkansas (just like Maya Angelou four years before).  Later in the week, I will include Williams' inauguration poem.  Tonight, however, I found one that speaks to any father of a teenage daughter.

Saint Marty wishes he had written this poem.

For a Girl I Know about to Be a Woman

by:  Miller Williams

Because you’ll find how hard it can be

to tell which part of your body sings,

you never should dally with any young man

who does any one of the following things:

tries to beat all the yellow lights;

says, “Big deal!” or “So what?”

more than seven times a day;

ignores yellow lines in a parking lot;

carries a radar detector;

asks what you did with another date;

has more than seven bumper stickers;

drinks beer early and whiskey late;

talks on a cellular phone at lunch;

tunes to radio talk shows;

doesn’t fasten his seat belt;

knows more than God knows;

wants you to change how you do your hair;

spits in a polystyrene cup;

doesn’t use his turn signal;

wants you to change your makeup;

calls your parents their given names;

doesn’t know why you don’t smoke;

has dirt under his fingernails;

makes a threat and calls it a joke;

pushes to get you to have one more;

seems to have trouble staying awake;

says “dago” and “wop” and words like that;

swerves a car to hit a snake;

sits at a table wearing a hat;

has a boneless handshake.

You’re going to know soon enough

the ones who fail this little test.

Mark them off your list at once

and be very careful of all the rest.

Robert Frost at President Kennedy's Inauguration

November 19: Turkey Trot, Richard Blanco, "Unspoken Elegy for Tia Cucha"

This coming Thursday, I am going to run a 5K Turkey Trot.  It's sort of become a tradition for me.  Every Thanksgiving morning, I get in my car, travel 20 or so miles, and participate in this race that benefits a local high school orchestra.

When I first started doing this over ten years ago, I used to run the 10K race.  Did it for close to six or seven years.  Then, one year, I injured myself in the summer, and all I could manage was the 5K that year.  I haven't run the longer race ever since, although I keep promising myself that I will.

I think it has something to do with getting older.  I know I am in no shape to run ten kilometers.  I'm barely in shape to run five.  I may end up walking a good portion of the course this year.  Just haven't been running much.  I'm getting older.

My father's recent fall at home has put me in a reflective mood.  Mortality has been looming large in my thoughts.  I'm not getting maudlin about it.  I'm just realizing that I'm not longer in my twenties anymore, when running a 10K would have not even caused a cramp in my side.  Nope.  This Thursday, I will count myself lucky if I cross the finish line without a limp.

Richard Blanco understands this grappling with aging relatives.  My dad will always be the guy who can tear a Detroit phone book in half with his bare hands, even if he can't walk across the living room right now without getting winded.

And Saint Marty will always be able to run a 10K without breaking a sweat.

Unspoken Elegy for Tia Cucha

by:  Richard Blanco

I arrive with a box of pastelitos,
a dozen red carnations, and a handful
of memories at her door: the half-moons
of her French manicures, how she spoke
blowing out cigarette smoke, her words
leaving her mouth as ghosts, the music
of her nicknames: Cucha, Cuchita, Pucha.
I kiss her hello and she slaps me hard
across my arm: ¡Cabrón! Too handsome
to visit your Tía, eh? She laughs, pulls me
inside her efficiency, a place I thought
I had forgotten, comes back to life
with wafts of Jean Naté and Pine Sol,
the same calendar from Farmacia León
with scenes of Old Havana on the wall,
the same peppermints in a crystal dish.
And her, wearing a papery housecoat,
sneakers with panty hose, like she wore
those summer mornings she'd walk me
down to the beach along First Street,
past the washed-out pinks and blues
of the Art Deco hotels like old toys.
The retirees lined across the verandas
like seagulls peering into the horizon,
the mango popsicles from the bodeguita
and the pier she told me was once
a bridge to Cuba- have all vanished.

I ask how she's feeling, but we agree
not to talk about that today, though
we both know why I have come
to see her: in a few months, maybe
weeks, her lungs will fill up again,
her heart will stop for good. She too
will vanish, except what I remember
of her, this afternoon: sharing a pastelito,
over a café she sweetens with Equal
at her dinette table crowded with boxes
of low-salt saltines and fibery cereals.
Under the watch of Holy Jesus' heart
burning on the wall, we gossip about
the secret crush she had on my father
once, she counts exactly how many
years and months since she left Cuba
and her mother forever. We complain
about the wars, disease, fires blazing
on the midday news as she dunks
the flowers in a tumbler- a dozen red
suns burst in the sapphire sky framed
in the window, sitting by the table.

November 18: Before Thanksgiving, Richard Blanco, "Mother Picking Produce"

This weekend before Thanksgiving, I've been thinking a lot about the meals my mother used to prepare for the holiday.  How I would wake up in the morning to the smell of the turkey already in the oven.  Watching the Macy's parade on television while she made Jell-O molds, boiled potatoes, and stirred gravy.  The cranberries on the plate, still ribbed and shaped like a can.

In my mind, Thanksgiving was my mother's holiday.  She worked herself to exhaustion, the whole day.  And then, when everything was on the table, she would sit down to a wine glass filled with Cold Duck.  She would sometimes give me a sip of it, cool and red and bitter.

Now, it's up to us.  We cook the turkey and pumpkin pies.  Mash the potatoes.  Open the cranberries.  Drop the fruit into the Jell-O.  And my mother sits there and marvels at all the food in front of her.  Thanks us for making the dinner.

Saint Marty was an ungrateful kid, not really appreciating anything that his mother did.

Mother Picking Produce

by:  Richard Blanco

She scratches the oranges then smells the peel,
presses an avocado just enough to judge its ripeness,
polishes the Macintoshes searching for bruises.

She selects with hands that have thickened, fingers
that have swollen with history around the white gold
of a wedding ring she now wears as a widow.

Unlike the archived photos of young, slender digits
captive around black and white orange blossoms,
her spotted hands now reaching into the colors.

I see all the folklore of her childhood, the fields,
the fruit she once picked from the very tree,
the wiry roots she pulled out of the very ground.

And now, among the collapsed boxes of yucca,
through crumbling pyramids of golden mangos,
she moves with the same instinct and skill.

This is how she survives death and her son,
on these humble duties that will never change,
on those habits of living which keep a life a life.

She holds up red grapes to ask me what I think,
and what I think is this, a new poem about her-
the grapes look like dusty rubies in her hands,

what I say is this: they look sweet, very sweet.

November 17: A Visit, Richard Blanco, "El Florida Room'

A poet friend of mine just stopped by for a visit.  She used to be a professor at the university where I teach.  Over the years, we have worked on a lot of projects together.  When she was poetry editor of the university's literary magazine, I was her assistant editor.  She directed my MFA thesis and my Master's thesis.  When I'm with her, I feel like a real writer.

The reason for her visit--she wants me to judge a poetry contest with her.  Of course, I accepted the offer.  I haven't gotten too many opportunities to do things like that recently.  When my friend was at the university, we spent many hours combing through poems for the magazine.  It was an exciting time for me.

As she was leaving this evening, she gave me a hug and said, "This will be just like the good old days."

I hugged her back and said, "We still have a lot of good days ahead of us."

I'm still basking in our conversation, which ranged far and wide, from poetry and writers to Donald Trump and racism.  It made me a little nostalgic, I have to admit.  I miss the time when I felt a little more . . . valuable in the English Department.  When my opinion mattered for something.

In tonight's poem, Richard Blanco sort of captures the ache that I felt after my poet friend left.  For a while, it was as if I'd taken a few steps back in time.

Now, Saint Marty is in Trumpland again.

El Florida Room

by:  Richard Blanco

Not a study or a den, but El Florida

as my mother called it, a pretty name

for the room with the prettiest view

of the lipstick-red hibiscus puckered up

against the windows, the tepid breeze

laden with the brown-sugar scent

of loquats drifting in from the yard.

Not a sunroom, but where the sun

both rose and set, all day the shadows

of banana trees fan-dancing across

the floor, and if it rained, it rained

the loudest, like marbles plunking

across the roof under constant threat

of coconuts ready to fall from the sky.

Not a sitting room, but El Florida, where

I sat alone for hours with butterflies

frozen on the polyester curtains

and faces of Lladró figurines: sad angels,

clowns, and princesses with eyes glazed

blue and gray, gazing from behind

the glass doors of the wall cabinet.

Not a TV room, but where I watched

Creature Feature as a boy, clinging

to my brother, safe from vampires

in the same sofa where I fell in love

with Clint Eastwood and my Abuelo

watching westerns, or pitying women

crying in telenovelas with my Abuela.

Not a family room, but the room where

my father twirled his hair while listening

to eight-tracks of Elvis, read Nietzsche

and Kant a few months before he died,

where my mother learned to dance alone

as she swept, and I learned salsa pressed

against my Tía Julia’s enormous breasts.

At the edge of the city, in the company

of crickets, beside the empty clothesline,

telephone wires, and the moon, tonight

my life is an old friend sitting with me

not in the living room, but in the light

of El Florida, as quiet and necessary

as any star shining above it.

November 16: Boring Normal, Richard Blanco, "Since Unfinished"

You know, some days feel like they're never going to end.  It's usually the bad ones.  Funeral days.  Final exam days.  Getting fired days.  Misery seems to slow down the hands of the clock.  On the flip side, some days go by in a wink.  Birthdays.  Wedding days.  Christmas days.  When you want a day to go on forever, it explodes like a beautiful firework and is gone, leaving only a glowing reminder against the stars.

Today, I'm experiencing neither of those things.  It's a normal day.  Nothing too terrible.  Nothing too great, except for the brownie I just ate.  Normal days are okay, too.  They're sort of the connective tissue between the fantastic and the cataclysmic.  While I like the fantastic, I'm very comfortable with normal.  Plain, boring normal. 

I think that's what the poem below is about.  The muscle of life.  The unfinished stuff that holds a person together.

Saint Marty isn't sure he ever wants to be finished.

Since Unfinished

by:  Richard Blanco

I’ve been writing this since

the summer my grandfather

taught me how to hold a blade

of grass between my thumbs

and make it whistle, since

I first learned to make green

from blue and yellow, turned

paper into snowflakes, believed

a seashell echoed the sea,

and the sea had no end.

 

I’ve been writing this since

a sparrow flew into my class

and crashed into the window,

laid to rest on a bed of tissue

in a shoebox by the swings, since

the morning I first stood up

on the bathroom sink to watch

my father shave, since our eyes

met in that foggy mirror, since

the splinter my mother pulled

from my thumb, kissed my blood.

 

I’ve been writing this since

the woman I slept with the night

of my father’s wake, since

my grandmother first called me

a faggot and I said nothing, since

I forgave her and my body

pressed hard against Michael

on the dance floor at Twist, since

the years spent with a martini

and men I knew I couldn’t love.

 

I’ve been writing this since

the night I pulled off the road

at Big Sur and my eyes caught

the insanity of the stars, since

the months by the kitchen window

watching the snow come down

like fallout from a despair I had

no word for, since I stopped

searching for a name and found

myself tick-tock in a hammock

asking nothing of the sky.

 

I’ve been writing this since

spring, studying the tiny leaves

on the oaks dithering like moths,

contrast to the eon-old fieldstones

unveiled of snow, but forever

works-in-progress, since tonight

with the battled moon behind

the branches spying on the world—

same as it ever was—perfectly

unfinished, my glasses and pen

at rest again on the night table.

 

I’ve been writing this since

my eyes started seeing less,

my knees aching more, since

I began picking up twigs, feathers,

and pretty rocks for no reason

collecting on the porch where

I sit to read and watch the sunset

like my grandfather did everyday,

remembering him and how

to make a blade of grass whistle.

November 15: My Father, Richard Blanco, "Burning in the Rain"

Last Thursday, my father fell down a flight of stairs in his home.  He dislocated his shoulder.  The ER doctor put his arm in a sling and told him to keep it immobile.  If my father does that, he won't need surgery, which, at his age (89), is an iffy proposition.

When I saw my dad this weekend, he looked pretty bad.  He was still in his pajamas.  Hadn't shaved for a few days.  Hadn't combed his hair.  He sat in his chair, groaning and coughing.  For the first time in my life, I actually thought he looked old instead of invincible.

I haven't seen my father for a few days now, so I don't know if his condition has improved.  He's always been a tough bastard, never letting anything slow him down.  Until now.  Yes, I am contemplating my dad's mortality.  Looking at him this weekend, I could actually understand that, eventually, he's not going to be around.

I haven't always gotten along with my dad.  We have a complex relationship.  I know he loves me and is proud of me.  However, we just don't see eye-to-eye on a whole lot of things.  Yet, I've never pictured a world without him.

Saint Marty isn't really good at letting go.

Burning in the Rain

by:  Richard Blanco

Someday compassion would demand

I set myself free of my desire to recreate

my father, indulge in my mother’s losses,

strangle lovers with words, forcing them

to confess for me and take the blame.

Today was that day: I tossed them, sheet

by sheet on the patio and gathered them

into a pyre. I wanted to let them go

in a blaze, tiny white dwarfs imploding

beside the azaleas and ficus bushes,

let them crackle, burst like winged seeds,

let them smolder into gossamer embers—

a thousand gray butterflies in the wind.

Today was that day, but it rained, kept

raining. Instead of fire, water—drops

knocking on doors, wetting windows

into mirrors reflecting me in the oaks.

The garden walls and stones swelling

into ghostlier shades of themselves,

the wind chimes giggling in the storm,

a coffee cup left overflowing with rain.

Instead of burning, my pages turned

into water lilies floating over puddles,

then tiny white cliffs as the sun set,

finally drying all night under the moon

into papier-mâché souvenirs. Today

the rain would not let their lives burn.

November 14: Poet of the Week, Richard Blanco, "One Today"

I have chosen a Poet of the Week who makes me feel hope.  Richard Blanco--Cuban immigrant, gay, inaugural poet for President Obama's second term.  I was sick the morning of that inauguration.  Throwing up.  But I remember hearing Blanco read his inaugural poem "One Today" on the television.  Like Elizabeth Alexander's poem four years earlier, Blanco's lines filled me with hope for America.  All America.

That's why I chose Richard Blanco today.  For the hope that kindness will prevail in the world.  That people won't learn to tolerate intolerance.  I need some hope tonight.  It's been a long, disappointing day.

Saint Marty wishes he could go back to that morning in January four years ago, when hope fogged the air like the breath of the tired, hungry, huddled masses, yearning to be free.

One Today

by:  Richard Blanco

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—
bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me—in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn't give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it—together.

January 21: Inaugurations Day, Sickness, "Rye" Dip Monday

I woke up this morning with every intention of going to work.  I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth.  When I started flossing, it was all over.  I don't want to go into great deal here.  Suffice to say, the toilet and I have been on a first-name basis all day long.  Thank goodness I didn't have to teach today because of Martin Luther King Day.  I was able to lie in bed and listen to the Inauguration festivities on the TV.

I listened to President Obama's speech.  I listened to James Taylor and Kelly Clarkson and Beyonce sing.  The only thing I watched was Richard Blanco read his inauguration poem, "One Today."  At first, I wasn't sure I liked it, but it built momentum and ended up being quite moving.  You judge for yourself:

One Today

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,

peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces

of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth

across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.

One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story

told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,

each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:

pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,

fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows

begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—

bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,

on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—

to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did

for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,

the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:

equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,

the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,

or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain

the empty desks of twenty children marked absent

today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light

breathing color into stained glass windows,

life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth

onto the steps of our museums and park benches

as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk

of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat

and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills

in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands

digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands

as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane

so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains

mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it

through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,

buses launching down avenues, the symphony

of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,

the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,

or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open

for each other all day, saying: hello| shalom,

buon giorno |howdy |namaste |or buenos días

in the language my mother taught me—in every language

spoken into one wind carrying our lives

without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed

their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked

their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:

weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report

for the boss on time, stitching another wound 

or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,

or the last floor on the Freedom Tower

jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes

tired from work: some days guessing at the weather

of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love

that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother

who knew how to give, or forgiving a father

who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight

of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,

always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon

like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop

and every window, of one country—all of us—

facing the stars

hope—a new constellation

waiting for us to map it,

waiting for us to name it—together 

I'm not sure if the line and stanza breaks are correct, but this is the full text of the poem, delivered by Richard Blanco this morning at President Obama's second inauguration.  He is the first Cuban American to deliver an inaugural poem.  He is the first gay American to deliver an inaugural poem.  He is the youngest person to ever deliver an inaugural poem (he's younger than me).  And I officially hate him.

Well, it is Monday, which means I owe you a Rye dip.  My question today is very simple:

Will my body stop exploding any time soon?

And the answer from Holden and company is:

...She was laying there asleep, with her face sort of on the side of the pillow.  She had her mouth way open.  It's funny.  You take adults, they look lousy when they're asleep and they have their mouths way open, but kids don't.  Kids look all right.  They can even have spit all over the pillow and they still look all right.

There you go.  Phoebe looks all right asleep, not sick or throwing up or rushing to the toilet.  That means I'm going to be all right soon.

Saint Marty's going to take that one to the bank.  Or at least to the bathroom.

My newest person to hate