August 11, 2025: “Bathing the New Born,” Good and Bad, “Radioactive Wasp Nests Have Been Found Near Former Nuclear Weapons Production Site”

I woke up today, and everything was great.

Then I got out of bed and went to work.

Two simple, declarative sentences that pretty much sums up my day.

Sharon Olds writes about a good moment in her day . . . 

Bathing the New Born

by: Sharon Olds

I love with an almost fearful love
to remember the first baths I gave him,
our second child, so I know what to do,
I laid the little torso along
my left forearm, nape of the neck
in the crook of my elbow, hips nearly as
small as a least tern's tail
against my wrist, thigh held loosely
in the loop of thumb and forefinger, the
sign that means exactly right. I'd soap him,
the violet, cold feet, the scrotum 

wrinkled as a waved whelk, the chest,
hands, clavicles, throat, gummy
furze of the scalp. When I got him too soapy he'd
slide in my grip like an armful of buttered
noodles, but I'd hold him not too tight,
I felt that I was good for him,
I'd tell him about his wonderful body
and the wonderful soap, and he'd look up at me,
one week old, his eyes still wide
and apprehensive. I love that time
when you croon and croon to them, you can see
the calm slowly entering them, you can
sense it in your clasping hand,
the loose spine relaxing against
the muscle of your forearm, you feel the fear
leaving their bodies, he lay in the blue
oval plastic baby tub and
looked at me in wonder and began to
move his silky limbs at will in the water.

Giving a newborn a bath constitutes a pretty good moment.  You simply can’t be angry or sad when something so fragile and tiny is smiling up at you in toothless delight.  That’s Olds’ point.  Those first baths are filled with grace and blessing.

I did experience a blessing today.  I learned a wonderful writer friend of mine was chosen as Writer of the Year for the 2025 Marquette Art Awards.  She’s simply a force of nature and art and poetry and prose.  She’s also one of the most generous, modest individuals you’ll ever meet.  I’ve known her for many years, and she has lifted me up in some very dark times.  I’m absolutely thrilled she’s being recognized.

That’s the good thing.

My wife sent me a text around noon today.  It basically said:  “You know how lucky we are?  Our daughter is smart and funny, our son is smart and caring (when not crabby).  We both have jobs and food on the table and a roof over our heads.  We are so blessed.”

That's the second good thing.

The rest of the afternoon was fairly uneventful.  I had a lot of busy work to get done, but it was painless.  It was when I picked up my wife from work that things took a turn.

As my wife got into the car, she said to me, “I have some bad news.”

I put the car in park and said, “Okay.”

“I got let go today,” she said.

“What?!”

“The company that bought the business is using a remote call center,” she said, “so they involuntarily terminated me.”

Now, you may recall that my wife left her other job five months ago to accept her current position.  She was excited, loved her coworkers, and enjoyed what she did.  But, as we all know, corporate America doesn’t really care about all that.  (If there’s one thing the current administration in the White House has taught us, it’s that large business enterprises only worry about making money and saving money.  Saving money usually involves downsizing, layoffs, and firings.  AI has only made this worse.)

That’s bad thing number one.

When we got home, my wife and I discussed our next steps.  Over the past year, we have been diligently stashing money away for emergencies.  We’d accumulated close to $1500.  I went to count how much money we actually had, and I found the envelope almost completely depleted.  There was about $148 left.  That’s it.

We have no idea what happened to the cash, although we have our suspicions.  Nothing that we will ever be able to prove, however.  We could file a police report, but we have no evidence, aside from a mostly empty envelope.  It’s a complicated situation, and I can’t really say more than that.

I was upset.  My wife was upset.  Our son was upset.  Part of the reason we started the fund was to finance a family vacation next summer after our son graduates from high school.  That possibility has become less possible now.

That’s bad thing number two.

So, the plan is to start rebuilding.  My wife is going to file for unemployment and begin looking for another job.  I’m going to start booking more readings.  And we’re all going to have to live more frugally, at least until my wife lands a new position.

I don’t know what I did to piss off God, but I sure had a few choice words for Him this evening, most of them expletives.  It’s going to take some time before things are on an even keel again.

Good and bad go together like peanut butter and jelly.

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

Find a newspaper or go to your favorite Internet news source and write a poem inspired from one of the headlines. For extra credit, choose a headline about something specific and write a poem that has little to do with that topic.

Radioactive Wasp Nests Have Been Found

Near Former Nuclear Weapons Production Site*

by: Martin Achatz

On days like today,

I wonder what

I’ve done

to deserve 

what happened.

Maybe I watched 

too much porn

when I was

younger, or maybe

pissed off 

some undercover

angel dressed like

a radioactive wasp,

or maybe

the smoke 

from Canadian 

wildfires is so

thick the miracles

that almighty bastard

upstairs sent my way

got lost, ended

up falling

on the head 

of a drunk

at a racetrack

who hit it

big on a 50 to 1

long shot, took

his winnings

back home, 

and drank himself

to death.

At least

the fucker died

happy, with enough

cash stuffed 

under his mattress

to pay for a funeral

and a nice

marble headstone.

* headline from abcnews.go.com

October 13: "The Great American Poem," Driving Downpour, Marquette Art Awards

It rained pretty much all day.  A hard, driving downpour.  It was the kind of rain that makes you not want to get out of bed or brush your teeth or do anything productive.  Except maybe read a good book.  Something with a dog or star-crossed lovers.

I did not not do any of that.  (Read that sentence over a few times.  It makes sense.)  I played two church services.  Took my dog for a muddy walk then gave her a bath.  Went grocery shopping.  Attended the 2024 Marquette Art Awards.  Got a little drunk.

If I were a Stephen King character, I'd probably be on about page 50 and a zombie would crash through my living room window to eat my brains about now.  But I'm not a protagonist in a horror novel.  I'm a poet who had really busy Sunday.

Billy Collins isn't a character in a novel or a novelist, either . . . 

The Great American Poem

by: Billy Collins

If this were a novel,

it would begin with a character,
a man alone on a southbound train
or a young girl on a swing by a farmhouse.

And as the pages turned, you would be told
that it was morning or the dead of night,
and I, the narrator, would describe
for you the miscellaneous clouds over the farmhouse

and what the man was wearing on the train
right down to his red tartan scarf,
and the hat he tossed onto the rack above his head,
as well as the cows sliding past his window.

Eventually—one can only read so fast—
you would learn either that the train was bearing
the man back to the place of his birth
or that he was headed into the vast unknown,

and you might just tolerate all of this
as you waited patiently for shots to ring out
in a ravine where the man was hiding
or for a tall, raven-haired woman to appear in a doorway.

But this is a poem, not a novel,
and the only characters here are you and I,
alone in an imaginary room
which will disappear after a few more lines,

leaving us no time to point guns at one another
or toss all our clothes into a roaring fireplace.
I ask you: who needs the man on the train
and who cares what his black valise contains?

We have something better than all this turbulence
lurching toward some ruinous conclusion.
I mean the sound that we will hear
as soon as I stop writing and put down this pen.

I once heard someone compare it
to the sound of crickets in a field of wheat
or, more faintly, just the wind
over that field stirring things that we will never see.

I really enjoy being around creatives.  Dancers.  Educators.  Painters.  Jewelry makers.  Poets.  That's my scene.  As a poet, I can vouch for the fact that artists don't really get acknowledged or celebrated very much.  That's why I love attending the Marquette Art Awards.  It's a time to reward great people and organizations for just being really damn cool.

This year, a poet friend received the award for Writer of the Year.  I couldn't have been more thrilled for her.  Generally, poets don't receive a whole lot of recognition, unless your last name happens to be Collins or Angelou.  The last time the Nobel Prize in Literature was given to a poet was in 2020, when Louise Glück won.  Before that, you'd have to go back to 2011 (Tomas Tranströmer), and then to 1996 (Wislawa Szymborska).  Like I said, poets are the redheaded stepchildren on the literary world.

So this evening's ceremony was a really great ending to the weekend.  Saint Marty got to hang out with some of his best friends, drink, and eat cheese and crackers.  It was like being at a Diddy party without the sex, drugs, rape, or pedophilia.  

June 24: "Bad Hotel," Head Lice, "Lake Superior Sunrise Poetry Reading"

Billy Collins should check for bedbugs . . . 

Bad Hotel

by: Billy Collins

I told the woman

from housekeeping,

who was eager to do my room,

to just come in

and pretend I'm not here,

which is exactly 

what I had been doing

ever since I checked in.

When traveling, we've all stayed in rooms that look like breeding grounds for head lice.  Most of the time when checking in, before I even unpack my clothes, I check the mattresses and dressers for creepy crawlies.  In one instance, because of a drawer full of many-legged creatures, we received an upgrade to a suite with five bedrooms, two Jacuzzis, a kitchen, four TVs, and a huge balcony.  This place was probably reserved for U. S. Presidents, rock stars, and Clarence Thomas on "vacation."

As part of my job at the library, I frequently book rooms for visiting writers and presenters.  Because I live in the area, I know which hotels are good and which ones should be flea bombed.  As a visiting poet myself, I've had rooms booked for me by my hosts, and, generally, I've had positive experiences.  There's only been a couple times where I've been tempted to sleep in my car instead.

However, I always appreciate the efforts at hospitality.  Reading poetry at a library is a privilege.  Getting paid to share my poems, a blessing.  A free hotel room and continental breakfast, bonus on top of bonus.  Poets don't usually command a whole lot of money or resources for public appearances.  I semi-joke that I'm used to getting paid in brownies and wine.

This morning, I found myself standing on the shores of Lakes Superior at sunrise.  It was one of those rare occasions where I was asked to read at a public event.  Because I was selected as Writer of the Year by the City of Marquette last October, I was commissioned to compose a poem for the opening of Art Week.

So, at 5:45 a.m., there I was with a group of about 12 or 14 people on the beach, watching the sun unzip the horizon.  And, as the water began to shimmer and spark, I read the poem I'd written.  It was an incredibly moving experience.  Elemental.  My voice mixing with waves and seagulls.  I'm not sure if everybody felt the same, but I felt part of something sacred.

And Saint Marty didn't even have to check his body for ticks or lice afterward.

Lake Superior Sunrise Poetry Reading

by: Martin Achatz

I recite my words just before

the sun takes the stage,

seagull screams nearly drowning

out my voice as if I'm opening

for John, Paul, George, and Ringo

on The Ed Sullivan Show.

October 15: "Blackberries," Marquette Art Awards, Writer of the Year

Mary Oliver finds prizes along the road . . . 

Blackberries

by:  Mary Oliver

I come down.

Come down the blacktop from Red Rock.

A hot day.

Off the road in the hacked tangles

blackberries big as thumbs hang shining

in the shade.  And a creek nearby:  a dark

spit through wet stones.  And a pool

like a stonesink if you know

where to climb for it among

the hillside ferns, where the thrush

naps in her nest of sticks and loam.  I

come down from Red Rock, lips streaked

black, fingers purple, throat cool. shirt

full of fernfingers, head full of windy

whistling.  It

takes all day.

It has been a long day. Drove home from Calumet this morning. Didn't see any blackberries along the highway, but autumn colors were in full blaze.

Tonight, I attended the 2023 Marquette Art Awards, where I was presented with the Writer of the Year recognition. It was an inspiring night, full of friends and artists and performers (including a poetry reading from me). Some of my favorite people were in my cheering section.

It's late now, and I'm pretty exhausted. However, I wanted to share something from tonight's awards ceremony.

Below is Saint Marty's acceptance speech and the poem he read this evening . . .

Acceptance Speech:

My story begins on a farm in downstate Michigan, where my father skated through manure, fed chickens, vowed he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life pitching hay. And in a house not far from the St. Clair River and auto factories of Detroit, where my six-year-old mother spoon-fed potato soup to her father dying of stomach cancer.

Of course, beginnings aren’t really beginnings. I stand here tonight on the shoulders of a whole clan of greats, great-greats, great-great-greats who looked across the Atlantic and saw something better, a life of promise in houses, villages, cities, towns built on stolen lands on the backs of stolen people.

I am a plumber’s son from a plumber’s family. In my five-plus decades of breath, I have carried that label as honorific, as badge to my working-class roots, the hard-as-cement hands of my father, brothers, and sisters.

I am a plumber’s son told by two mentors—Drs. Raymond Ventre and Ron Johnson—that I needed to study and write, needed to cast my net further and further out, where shadows of whales swim

I am a plumber’s son who, one afternoon in the office of his Cajun conjurer, writer, teacher, friend, Dr. Beverly Matherne, heard her make this pronouncement like an eleventh commandment: “You are a poet.”

I am a plumber’s son surrounded by a multitude of shades, people, breathing and breathed, who have held my hand, guided me like Virgil through the circles of this poetic life. Helen Haskell Remien, comet of joy, who still burns bright in so many of heaven’s hearts. Janeen Pergrin Rastall, for teaching me to laugh loud and long and hard in order to keep darkness at bay. So many names—B.G., Gala, Ronnie, Christine, Rosalie, Roslyn, Lynn, Gail, Esther, Milt—that to say them all would take an encyclopedia, a Wikipedia of time.

I am a plumber’s son who bows before the great gardeners of art in this city on Superior—Tiina, Amelia, and Tristan.

I am a plumber’s son blessed by a partner who has never asked me to be anything but a poet, by a son and daughter who have been served syllables and words for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and never wanted peanut butter and jelly instead.

I am a plumber’s son whose plumber father, six months before he became moment and memory, came to a poetry reading and introduced himself to a stranger thusly: “I am the poet’s father.”

I am a plumber’s son now reduced to just two syllables, two bites of air, two breaths: “Thank you.”

Poem:

Growth Triptych

by:  Martin Achatz

October 15, 2023

1. The Art of Growth

A coworker carries her granddaughter
around the office, showing off
her dark curls and serious eyes.
I am amazed how much the child
has grown, size her up
like a blue-ribbon squash.
The last time I saw her,
she fit into the fold of my arm,
a mitten of sleep. Now,
in this thick June, she is
all height and weight, a moving
field of sprout and fruit.

My coworker knows the art of growth,
the moisture and heat it needs,
the cycles of sowing and reaping.
With her daughter, she kneads manure
into black earth, thick with cow smell,
watches her granddaughter plow
dirt with her fingers.
I wonder if she is ever astonished
by the size of her roses,
the yellow of her daylilies.
I wonder if she ever listens
to her garden at night,
the way I used to listen to my daughter
stretch and grow in the dark.

2. In the Garden

I can put my fist in the hole
in my sister’s flank, see rib
white against slick muscle.
When she sleeps, her body cries
for healthy blood and skin and scar.
I sit beside her hospital bed, listen
to her breaths, wonder if she dreams
of dog bites, sharp glass,
the thick kiss of a dead love.
The man down the hall moans
“Clara” in the dark,
a two-syllable prayer
for deep winter, pine cones,
cool fingers on his naked back.
My sister’s hand flutters on the sheet.
I touch her wrist, trace the blue veins
under the skin. Her face smooths
like a snowdrift, and I see
the pulse leap in her temple,
nostrils black with air,
eyes vagrant beneath their lids.

Her wound has not healed for two years,
and I joke she has stigmata like Padre Pio,
beg her to touch my head, bless me.
She laughs, crosses the air.
When the priest visits her, my sister says,
“I feel like someone forgot to bury me.”
He anoints her forehead, hands, and feet.
During her next dressing change,
my sister grips the rails of the bed,
bites her lip until it bruises, splits
The nurse examines the discharge,
smells the wound for infection, then leaves.
My sister cradles her stomach, as if afraid
her heart may spill onto the floor.

Pio’s wounds smelled of violets,
the petals of his fingers raising
full-moon hosts to heaven
during mass, roses blooming
on the snow of his bandages.
He bled all day, enough to fill
a chalice to its golden lip,
For five decades, he nursed
the stigmata like fragile orchids
rooted in his body’s soil.
At night, in his cell, he stripped
his dressings, allowed his suffering
to breathe the dark air, nerve endings
sparking in his ragged skin
like fireflies in tall grass.
In the few hours he slept,
his body opened, unfurled
the deep ovule of his pain
until the floor, walls, ceiling
blossomed with his bruised fragrance.

Tonight, my sister rests.
The IV fills her, the way rain fills
a summer garden. She holds
her side, blooms in her bed,
a fresh and open miracle.

3. Genesis

In seven days, what can I
create? If I open my lips,
can I speak something to life—
a charm of hummingbirds, flood
of dolphins, riot of Queen
Anne’s lace in an August
culvert? If I say Let there be
poem, will green shoots
press through soil, rise
against the soles of my feet,
stretch vermillion toward
sun and cloud and blue,
petals singing thanks
to the wild, wild universe?
Did you ever think God
has been revising us
since he first scribbled our names
in the fields of his journal?
Maybe God is Walt Whitman,
adding, subtracting, hoeing,
watering, pruning, harvesting.
Maybe Eden is the borning
breath my daughter suckled,
or the last breath my sister
held in her lungs. Maybe
we’re all apples just waiting
to be plucked and eaten
by someone who wants
to taste how sweet this world
really is.

August 16: "Mockingbirds," Writer of the Year, Blueberry Muffin

Mary Oliver has nothing better to do . . .

Mockingbirds

by:  Mary Oliver

This morning                                         and blessed them.

two mockingbirds                                  When the gods rose

in the green field                                   out of their mortal bodies.

were spinning and tossing                     like a million particles of water

                                                              

the white ribbons                                   from a fountain,

of their songs                                         the light

into the air.                                            swept into all the corners

I had nothing                                         of the cottage,

better to do                                            and the old couple,

than listen.                                             shaken with understanding,

I mean this                                             bowed down--

seriously.                                               but still they asked for nothing

In Greece,                                              beyond the difficult life

a long time ago,                                    which they had already.

an old couple                                         And the gods smiled as they vanished,

opened their door                                  clapping their great wings.

to two strangers                                    Wherever it was

who were,                                              I was supposed to be

it soon appeared,                                   this morning--

not men at all,                                       whatever it was I said

but gods.                                                I would be doing--

It is my favorite story--                         I was standing

how the old couple                                at the edge of the field--

had almost nothing to give                    I was hurrying

but their willingness                              through my own soul,

to be attentive--                                     opening its dark doors--

and for this alone                                   I was leaning out,

the gods loved them                              I was listening.

Mary Oliver has opened up the doors and windows of her soul in this poem, listening to the mockingbirds singing in the green fields, perhaps thinking they may be angels or gods.  And maybe they are.  If there's one thing the stories of the Bible and mythologies teach us, it's that divinity comes in many shapes and sizes, with wings and without.

It has been kind of a crazy day, full of divine encounters for me.

My morning started with writing on the library roof with one of my best friends, who is also a hell of a poet.  It was gorgeously warm, with a slight breeze.  For a little less than an hour, we sat up there, scribbling in our journals, admiring the distant waves of Lake Superior.

Then, as I was settling into my office for the rest of the day, there was a knock on the door.  In came three friends from the Marquette Arts and Culture Center.  One of them was carrying a box from Babycakes, my favorite baker to buy muffins in the morning.  Another friend was carrying an award with a sticky note on it that read "Writer of the Year 2023 Marty Achatz."  

I was completely gobsmacked.  I hugged them.  Thanked them.  Hugged them all again.   I may have said something like "You're kidding me!" a few times.  I couldn't believe it.  After they left my office, I sat down in my desk chair and cried a little bit.  Okay, cried a lot.

Then, after I had finally regained control of myself, I started to work again.  The library's PA sounded:  "Attention patrons.  If you happen to see Marty today, please congratulate him.  Marty was been chosen to receive the 2023 Marquette Art Award for Writer of the Year."  And I started crying again.

The entire day was blessing after blessing after blessing after blessing.  So many friends and family members reaching out with love and well wishes.  One of my favorites:  "Duh!  All-around Human of the Year, I'd say."

So, the doors and windows of my heart were blown wide open today, and an angel or God stepped right in and got comfortable.

Maybe Saint Marty should have shared his blueberry muffin, but he didn't.

A poem from this morning:

Being Mary

by:  Martin Achatz

Last night, I lay on my couch,

listened to my neighbors gathered

around their firepit with friends 

and Martha, their Great Dane.  

I couldn't hear their words,

the stories they were telling each

other, only their laughter, the knuckle

snaps of the fire, and Martha's loud,

insistent barks rising into the night

like sparks.  And I thought of all

the things I should have been doing.

Laundry to fold.  Dishes to wash.  Papers

to grade.  Poems to write.  But I didn't

move.  Instead, I took in those gentle 

sounds of happiness outside my window,

knew that I was being Mary, 

sitting at the feet of Jesus

as he told jokes, gave advice, while 

my sister Martha made dinner, 

swept the table of crumbs, maybe

poured more wine into everyone's mugs.

I didn't feel guilty.  I just sat

there, amazed at Jesus' toes

flashing under the stars.