September 5: "Poetry," Illness, Reality Check

It has been a day of illness for me.  At first, I thought I was suffering from allergies--runny nose, cough, blocked ears.  As the day and my symptoms progressed (fever, aches, more mucous than Slimer from Ghostbusters), I surrounded myself with an Appalachian range of used Kleenexes and tissues.  My eyes are gushing, and my throat stings.

Before you ask, I did test for COVID.  Twice.  Both tests came back negative.  So, I can't even claim that distinction.  Basically, I just have a very nasty cold.  Annoyingly ordinary.  Nothing to write home or a poem about.  

Billy Collins tries to define poetry . . . 

Poetry

by: Billy Collins

Call it a field where the animals

who were forgotten by the Ark

come to graze under the evening clouds.

Or a cistern where the rain that fell

before history trickles over a concrete lip.

However you see it,

this is no place to set up

the three-legged easel of realism

or make a reader climb

over the many fences of a plot.

Let the portly novelist

with his noisy typewriter

describe the city where Francine was born,

how Albert read the paper on the train,

how curtains were blowing in the bedroom.

Let the playwright with her torn cardigan

and a dog curled on the rug

move the characters

from the wings to the stage

to face the many-eyed darkness of the house.

Poetry is no place for that.

We have enough to do

complaining about the price of tobacco,

passing the dripping ladle,

and singing songs to a bird in a cage.

We are busy doing nothing--

and all we need for that is an afternoon,

a rowboat under a blue sky,

and maybe a man fishing from a stone bridge,

or better still, nobody on that bridge at all.

I couldn't even be a poet tonight, even though Collins says that poets are "busy doing nothing."  I didn't even have the energy to do nothing.  I was supposed to lead an online poetry workshop this evening.  After debating with myself for close to an hour, I came to the conclusion that I would have looked like extra from The Walking Dead if I got on Zoom and tried to write with anyone.  

So I simply grabbed a pillow and blanket and fell asleep on the couch.  Every once in a while, I would climb to the surface of consciousness long enough to take a drink of water or blow my nose.

Eventually, I woke up and decided to type this post.  Now that I'm done, I'm ready to collapse.  Literally.  I think these last few weeks of little sleep and lots of work have caught up with me.  My body is giving me a reality check.  

Here's the reality:  Saint Marty is exhausted.

September 19: The Whale Watch, Autumn Cold Again, Poetry Workshop

The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart; one, far to windward; one less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern. These last three were brought alongside ere nightfall; but the windward one could not be reached till morning; and the boat that had killed it lay by its side all night; and that boat was Ahab's.

The waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale's spout-hole; and the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled flickering glare upon the black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight waves, which gently chafed the whale's broad flank, like soft surf upon a beach.

Ahab and all his boat's crew seemed asleep but the Parsee; who crouching in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally played round the whale, and tapped the light cedar planks with their tails. A sound like the moaning in squadrons over Asphaltites of unforgiven ghosts of Gomorrah, ran shuddering through the air.

Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee; and hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the last men in a flooded world. "I have dreamed it again," said he.

"Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, that neither hearse nor coffin can be thine?"

"And who are hearsed that die on the sea?"

"But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage, two hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not made by mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in America."

"Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee!- a hearse and its plumes floating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-bearers. Ha! Such a sight we shall not soon see."

"Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old man."

"And what was that saying about thyself?"

"Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy pilot."

"And when thou art so gone before- if that ever befall- then ere I can follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still?- Was it not so? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot! I have here two pledges that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it."

"Take another pledge, old man," said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted up like fire-flies in the gloom- "Hemp only can kill thee."

"The gallows, ye mean.- I am immortal then, on land and on sea," cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision;- "Immortal on land and on sea!"

Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came on, and the slumbering crew arose from the boat's bottom, and ere noon the dead whale was brought to the ship.

Another uplifting little chapter about the promise of death.  In particular, Ahab is contemplating his own demise and what form it will take.  Of course, he believes that he will live long enough to see the death of Moby Dick.  In fact, Ahab intends to administer the killing blow himself.  The Parsee makes a different prediction:  "Hemp only can kill thee [Ahab]."

Day two of an autumn cold, and I'm still feeling like that dead whale.  Last night, after a two-hour nap and a dose of Claritin, I was feeling much better.  However, today, I've been pushing through tar.  I've already worked eight hours and taught one class.  Now, I'm trying to muster enough energy for three hours of composition tonight.  I'm not being very successful. 

I don't know how long I'm going to last this evening.  Maybe the full three hours.  I'm thinking less probably.  There are things I must accomplish:  1) collect an essay; 2) listen to group presentations; 3) hand out the next writing assignment; and 4) maybe talk about a chapter in the textbook.  If I get through all of that, it will be a miracle.

Frankly, I'm less concerned about teaching tonight than about a poetry class I'm leading this weekend.  For one hour on Saturday morning, I have to guide kids through the writing of a poem.  It's for the homecoming festivities at the university where I teach.  I'm looking forward to it, but I don't want to look like a refugee from The Walking Dead. 

So, after tonight, it's all about rest and recuperation. 

Saint Marty will be thankful tonight for his bed and Nyquil.

October 16: Halloween Poems, Burlee Vang, "To Live in the Zombie Apocalypse"

So, as we are fast approaching All Hallow's Eve, I have decided that, for the next two weeks, I'm going to feature Halloween poems.

The first, in honor of the late George Romero, director of one of my favorite films, Night of the Living Dead, I have a zombie poem.  For those of you who don't know Romero or that movie, I have one thing to say:  the zombie apocalypse did NOT start with The Walking Dead.

Saint Marty wishes you all pleasant dreams!

To Live in the Zombie Apocalypse

by:  Burlee Vang

The moon will shine for God
knows how long.
As if it still matters. As if someone

is trying to recall a dream.
Believe the brain is a cage of light
& rage. When it shuts off,

something else switches on.
There’s no better reason than now
to lock the doors, the windows.

Turn off the sprinklers
& porch light. Save the books
for fire. In darkness,

we learn to read
what moves along the horizon,
across the periphery of a gun scope—

the flicker of shadows,
the rustling of trash in the body
of cities long emptied.

Not a soul lives
in this house &
this house & this

house. Go on, stiffen
the heart, quicken
the blood. To live

in a world of flesh
& teeth, you must
learn to kill

what you love,
& love what can die.

September 24: Lone Sailor, Stolen Affairs, "The Walking Dead"

I am passionately interested in where I am as is a lone sailor sans sextant in ketch on the open ocean.  What else is he supposed to be thinking about?  Fortunately, like the sailor, I have at the moment a situation which allows me to devote considerable hunks of time to seeing what I can see, and trying to piece it together.  I've learned the names of some color-patches, but not the meanings.  I've read books . . .

In the writing of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard had a lot of time to do all the things that writers are wont to do:  go for long walks in nature, research a lot of information that nobody else is interested in, sit in solitude and write.  She filled twenty notebooks with her musings on nature and God and life before starting Pilgrim.  She wrote the first half at her home and the second half in a library overlooked the roof of a building.  No worries about money or health insurance.  Just scribbling and thinking and scribbling some more.

My writing times are more stolen affairs.  In between registering patients and correcting essays.  Before I leave for work at 5:30 in the morning, after I get home from teaching.  Waiting for football games to start.  Waiting for dance lessons to end.  Five minutes here.  Forty-five minutes there.  Sometimes, on a really good night, two hours in my university office with the doors closed and my desk light on.

I wish that I had the discipline to get up two hours before I went to work in order to write.  However, that would allow me to get an average of about three to four hours of sleep a night.  I may be able to do that for about two or three weeks.  Then I would transform into a refugee from the cast of The Walking Dead.

So, for now, it's just tiny writing moments.  Like right now.  I'm sitting in McDonald's, sipping Coke Zero, and typing this post.  When I'm done, I will take out my journal and start working on a new poem.  I have about an hour left before I have to drive my daughter to her dance lesson and my zombie apocalypse of a day begins.

Saint Marty--the McDonald's Poet Laureate.

August 4: Live Seasons, Liquid Nitrogen, "The Walking Dead"

These are our few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present.

Simple advice from Dillard.  It's all about living in the present, not grasping into the darkness for tomorrow or next week or next month.  Today--right now--that's all we have.

I have been working and grading all day long.  Just finished up a batch of papers, starting into another batch of papers tomorrow.  Then final exams.  That's my right now.  That's my tomorrow, as well.   And probably my Saturday and Sunday.  I can be fairly confident in that prediction.

I am beat right now.  And my nose and forehead are burning.  I went to a doctor's appointment today, and I had a couple of things on my face burned off with liquid nitrogen.  I'm supposed to blister and then slough.  So, basically, this weekend I am going to look like a reject from The Walking Dead.

I am ready for bed.  Not ready for work tomorrow.  I just want to got to sleep and stay asleep for a few days.  That is the extent of my wisdom tonight.

In the present, Saint Marty is a zombie.

September 1: Lazy Day, Rainy Day, "Web" Dip Day

It's a lazy day.  I actually slept in 'til almost 10 a.m.  I never sleep that late.  There's a part of me that feels like I've wasted a good portion of my day if I stay in bed that long.  Obviously, my cold got the better of me.  It's amazing how an over-abundance of mucus can screw up your entire system.

It's also a rainy day.  An all-day soak, I think.  I'm sitting in Hardee's at the moment, having lunch with my wife and son.  My teenage daughter is taking advantage of her last day of summer vacation.  She's awake, but not really energetic.  She opted to stay home and do what teenage girls do with computers and iPods and cell phones.  Watch videos.  Text friends.  Play Minecraft.  OK, maybe not all teenage girls play Minecraft.  Mine does.

I pretty much did all of my class preparation yesterday, so I have no pressing work to do this Labor Day.  I have one little task to complete for the university's literary magazine.  As the new poetry editor, I have to submit a short bio for the magazine's website.  Something that says "Here's who I am and here's what I've done and please be impressed."

Well, I'm in a fairly positive mood right now.  My health is improving (I don't feel like I'm a cast member of The Walking Dead any longer).  I'm pretty much set for work for the week (just a little lesson planning and quiz making left).  And I know what I'm doing for dinner tonight (barbecue at my parents' house, if the rain lets up).

My question for this Web dip day is pretty simple:

Am I going to have a good week?

And the answer from Mr. White is:

"Is this true?" he asked.  "Is this appetizing yarn of yours true?  I like high living, and what you say tempts me."

"It is true," said the old sheet.  "Go to the Fair, Templeton.  You will find that the conditions at a fair will surpass your wildest dreams.  Buckets with sour mash sticking to them, tin cans containing particles of tuna fish, greasy paper bags stuffed with rotten..."

OK, so Templeton is going to rat Nirvana at the Fair.  That's a fairly definitive answer.

Saint Marty's week is going to be filled with sour mash and rancid tuna fish.  Fantastic.

I'm feeling better than this guy

April 24: Shameless Post

This last week of posts haven't received a lot of views, so I've decided to write a shameless post, designed to bring in readers through labels like "blowjob" and "Miley Cyrus nude."  Yes, I'm not above cheap ploys.  So, here's a list of things you won't hear about in this post:  Kate Upton topless, The Walking Dead, anything to do with Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, porn, nude selfies, or Obamacare.

There, that should get Saint Marty some unsuspecting readers.

None of this

March 27: Wasps and Bees, My Book Bag, "The Incorruptibles"

"Oh, Avery," chuckled Mrs. Arable.  "Avery is always fine.  Of course, he gets into poison ivy and gets stung by wasps and bees and brings frogs and snakes home and breaks everything he lays his hands on.  He's fine."

Avery is a normal young boy, into all the things that normal young boys are into:  wasps and bees and frogs and snakes.  He's basically an earthquake with legs.  Avery is my five-year-old son.

I wasn't into the normal young boy things when I was Avery's age.  Didn't really care to be out in the woods where poison ivy resides.  I didn't like touching frogs.  Didn't like even stepping foot in the reptile house at the Detroit Zoo.  Too many large, scaly things with fangs.  I was a reader and a writer and a doodler.

However, I did have a weakness for the macabre.  I loved Vincent Price movies and Fangoria magazine.  At camp in the summers, I'd read those comic books full of zombies and empty graves.  And, as a good Catholic boy, I was into stories about the lives of saints, especially martyrs.  The grislier a saint's demise, the more I liked it.

In my book bag tonight is a little tome titled The Incorruptibles, by Joan Carroll Cruz.  It was one of my favorite reads as a kid.  Basically, it's about saints whose bodies remain incorrupt.  They don't decay or turn to dust.  In fact, many of these holy men and women simply look like they're taking a nap.  For some, their naps have lasted centuries.

It's not the greatest written book in the world.  Its style is matter-of-fact, history-book prose.  Nothing flowery or poetic.  Yet, the biographies of the saints are fascinating for their violent and, sometimes, gruesome description.  For instance, this description of the remains of Saint Catherine Laboure:

We cut the sternum on the median line.  The bone showed a cartilaginous, elastic consistency and was easily cut by the surgeon's knife.  The thoracic cavity being opened it was easy for us to remove the heart.  It was much shrunken but it had kept its shape.  We could easily see within it the little fibrous cords, remains of the valves and muscles.  We also took out a number of the ribs and the clavicle.  We disjointed the arms--these two will be conserved apart.  The two knee caps were taken out.  The fingers and toe nails were in perfect condition.  The hair remained attached to the scalp.

Terrifying.  This little saintly autopsy is better than anything found in an episode of The Walking Dead.  That's why I loved this book as a kid.  It wasn't made-up.  It was real, sometimes with real photos.

So, Saint Marty wasn't into wasps and bees as a boy.  He was into disjointed arms and knee caps.

The body of Saint Catherine Laboure--died in 1876

October 13: Last Day in the Dells

Second day at the Showstopper Dance Convention.  My daughter's feet are sore.  My nerves are more than a little frayed.  I just had a bath battle with my five-year-old son.  He didn't want to take a bath, and I was in the line of fire.  I was slapped, bitten, kicked, and punched.  By the time I finally got him in bed, he looked like a cast member from The Walking Dead.

However my daughter had a great time.  From 7:40 a.m. until 5 p.m., she hip hopped, jazzed, krumped, locked, and popped herself silly.  She is on dance overload right now.  Like my son, she has passed out in her bed.  She did not slap, bite, kick, or punch me.  She simply mumbled something like "I'm hungry pizza to brush with iPod" and stumbled into the adjoining room.

It was a lovely weekend.  I know I'm supposed to do a Classic Saint Marty today, but I'm too tired.  I'm not going to apologize or feel guilty.  Guilt is something I indulge in way too much.  It's my constant companion.  I should be working on a poem.  I have a stack of quizzes to grade.  I yelled at my son tonight when he refused to get undressed for his bath.  My daughter danced all weekend without hip hop shoes because I couldn't afford to get her a pair that fit her.  Tomorrow is my eighteenth wedding anniversary.  I haven't even purchased a Hallmark card.  Like I said, I'm a master at guilt.

No guilt tonight, though.  Exhaustion, yes.  Sore muscles, yes.  A smidgen of anxiety about upcoming bills, yes.

Saint Marty has plenty of time for regrets tomorrow.

P. S.  Saint Marty apologizes for any typos.  Too tired for proofreading tonight.

My daughter and her favorite dance instructor, Dena Rizzo

December 27: One Day Left, Holden by a Nose

I have one day left of work for the year 2012.  Less than 24 hours.  I thought for a while, when my wife lost her job last month, I was going to cancel my vacation.  I could get a lot of extra hours in those two weeks.  However, after much deliberation and soul-searching, I decided to keep my time off.  It will make for a tight January, financially, but I need a break before I have to start dealing with college students again.

I’m not going anywhere for my vacation.  I’m not doing anything.  I’m not making any plans.  I want to read.  I want to write.  I want to relax and not worry about anything.  (That last thing is not going to happen.  I will worry.  Can’t help it.  It’s in my DNA.)  However, I will de-stress my life as much as possible without heavy alcohol use.  By this time tomorrow night, I plan to have my feet up, a cup of spiked hot chocolate in my hand, and an episode of The Walking Dead on the DVD player.

By the way, the last time I checked, Holden Caulfield is still ahead by a nose in the 2013 Book Race.  To be honest, I’ve received only one response, but it was from a person whose judgment I trust.  I’m waiting to see if I get any other book suggestions, but, at the moment, it looks like The Catcher in the Rye will be the book of choice for next year.

If you don’t like J. D. Salinger, you better let Saint Marty know pretty soon. 

J. D. Salinger by a nose so far

October 28: Einstein's Brain, Pumpkin Guts, New Cartoon

It has been a long day.  My wife has been to the ER twice this weekend.  On Friday, she had ear infections and a sore throat.  This morning, she woke up with a case of conjunctivitis.  So, while my wife made her second trip to the hospital, I made lunch for our son and daughter.

My daughter got her pointe shoes for ballet this afternoon.  We met her dance teacher at the store, and, after about half an hour of trying on shoe after shoe, my little Cinderella had her glass slippers.  She was so excited that she held her shoes in her lap like a new puppy all the way home.  She even took a picture of herself with them.  She's planning on wearing them to bed tonight.  (Her dance teacher said that was OK.  It will help the shoes mold to her feet.)

Then we picked up two pumpkins to carve tonight.  My daughter picked out a "super" pumpkin and a "medium" pumpkin.  The pumpkin patch was picked pretty clean, but we ended up with some nice squashes.  After dinner, I gutted them and sifted through the innards for seeds.  My son, who usually wants to roll in mud like a pig, wanted nothing to do with pumpkin guts.  He looked like a cast member of The Walking Dead, trying to avoid zombie contamination.

Now, I am at home, and my daughter is doing homework.  She's tired and more than a little cranky.  I'm also watching Nova on PBS.  It's about Einstein's brain.  Pretty gross and fascinating at the same time.  It's the public television version of a Halloween special, I think.  I had no idea that Einstein's brain was removed illegally and chopped into 40 blocks.  The guy who did the autopsy actually took pictures of Einstein's brain after it was removed, before he diced and sliced it.  When he eventually left Princeton, he took the brain with him.  Einstein's brain travelled all over the Midwest of the United States.  When Dr. Igor, the brain thief, died, Einstein's brain was returned to Princeton, where it is kept under lock and key these days.

Yes, I am tired.  Yes, I find pictures of a dissected brain more than a little disgusting.  Yes, I am ready to go to bed.  Yes, I want to go to sleep and not get up for about two or three days.  I wonder if Einstein ever got this tired.  I'm sure he did, but, when Einstein's head hit the pillow, he probably counted prime numbers or light years or abstract algebraic equations.  When I finally go to bed tonight, I will think about Bugs Bunny or Tweety Bird.  I am not Albert Einstein.

Marty is just a tired saint, facing another week of labor, with trick-or-treating thrown in for fun.

Confessions of Saint Marty

October 22: "Psycho" and Shadows

I have been doing two things in the last couple of days.  I have been watching Psycho in preparation for showing it to my Intro to Film classes.  And I have been reading that Ray Bradbury tribute collection of short stories, Shadow Show.  Well, these two tasks have put me in a definite Halloween frame of mind.  Serial killers and ghosts and monsters and whatnot.  It's dark material, but I don't mind it.  As a kid, I subscribed to a film magazine titled Fangoria that revelled in showing full color pictures of the goriest scenes from current horror flicks.  I waited each month for this magazine to show up in my mailbox.

Yes, I was a slightly creepy kid.  However, my reading of Fangoria, and my knowledge of how movie makeup and effects work, made me immune to the scary parts of horror films.  I was also a huge fan of Stephen King novels as a teenager, as well.  My proclivity for gore and monsters and zombies drew me to darker, more serious films and books as an adult.  For example, when I teach Good Books at the university, there is one novel I have used more than any other.  It's a Christmas story by Oscar Hijuelos titled Mr. Ives' Christmas.  It's about a man whose son is gunned down on the street outside a church on Christmas Eve.  It's full of violence and ghosts and death and redemption.  It's one of my favorite novels of all time.

Perhaps I'm a slightly creepy adult, as well.  I will say that, as a parent, I'm appalled by some of the gornography released to theaters these days.  Saw and Hostel and the like.  However, every once in a while at night, I just want to kick back and watch an army of zombies eat some brains.  Thank God for The Walking Dead.

Saint Marty is looking forward to spending some time with Norman Bates this week.

I actually own two copies of this issue

May 24: Unseen Eyes, Shudder, Mornings

Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched hand.  When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly.  It made him shudder, and feel very cold.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come freaks Scrooge out.  For good reason.  The Ghost, as the passage above hints, is the embodiment of the Grim Reaper.  He is death incarnate, shrouded in black, hooded, mysterious.  He isn't your normal yuletide figure.  Picture a character in a Wes Craven film.

I leave my home at around 4:30 a.m. to go to work.  It's always dark.  My front porch is usually in shadows because the streetlight is blocked by a tall hedge of lilac bushes.  On windy days, the shadows of the branches sway and crawl like living things.  It kind of spooks me.

Ever since I started watching the series The Walking Dead last summer, I've had this recurring image/thought/idea about coming out of my house in the morning, walking to my car, and seeing a horde of zombies swaying down the street toward me.  It's totally irrational, but I think about it each and every morning.  It causes me to walk a little faster to my car, my heart pumping with adrenaline.  I always make sure the key to my Freestyle is in my fist before I step outside.  This morning, I got a start from a raccoon ambling the sidewalk.  Actually, it was more than a start.  It was a yell and then a sprint for my vehicle.

Yes, I am a weirdo.  Even though my rational mind knows these fears are completely unfounded, I give into them each and every day.  (This morning, driving down the highway, I came across the scene of a fresh roadkill.  I passed by quickly, but the blood was everywhere.  I couldn't identify what type of creature was the victim.  But, again, my mind went to The Walking Dead.)  I'm not a coward.  I don't live my life in fear.  I just have a few eccentricities.  I also have problems with rodents, clowns, and Precious Moments figurines.  (They're creepy.  Big balloon heads.  Huge eyes.)

Don't judge Saint Marty for this confession.  And don't ever come to his house dressed as Emmett Kelly.

Sure, it looks cute, but so did Charles Manson as a baby

April 30: Over and Done, Doctor, Good News

I'm over and done with grading and finals and teaching for the semester.  I've handed back the tests and papers to my students who wanted them back.  The rest will reside on my desk in my office for the summer.  Then, I may consign them to the recycle bin, even though I'm supposed to somehow retain all unclaimed papers and tests for, like, two decades.  If I actually followed that rule, I'd need to rent a storage shed for all the trees killed by my students over the years.

Tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to see my doctor.  I'm still not feeling that great, and, with a long weekend of driving and dance competition ahead of me, I don't want to feel like an extra from the TV series The Walking Dead the whole time.  I should have had a check-up a few months ago, so my fever and cough have forced me to face the music.  To be honest, I'm just tired of being sick.

I did receive some good news tonight.  The head of the English Department from the university called me a little while ago, and he offered me two intro to film classes to teach.  I've never taught intro to film before, but I love movies.  That's gotta count for something.  I'm really excited by the offer.  Of course, I said "yes" immediately.  Now, I've got a few months to figure out what the hell I'm going to do.

Saint Marty is ready to take some Motrin and kick back.

I got an offer I couldn't refuse