December 7, 2025: “The Spouses Waking Up in the Hotel Mirror,” Almost Migraine, “Writing Life of Charles Dickens”

Being a poet and blogger is sort of like constantly looking at yourself and your life in a mirror, but not in an egotistical way.  You look to understand and interpret, maybe to find something beautiful.

I’ve been a writer my whole life.  I have a box of old diaries and journals under a bed.  They go all the way back to the fifth or sixth grade.  It was at that time that I decided I wanted to record my thoughts and feelings and experiences.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez has a short story about a family who finds an angel in the backyard; they tie the angel up and charge people money to see him.  I first read that story when I was in ten or eleven, right around the time I started my career as a diarist.  (By the way, I’ve never had the courage to go back and reread those old notebooks.  I’m afraid of what I’ll find out about myself.)

Sharon Olds spends some time gazing at herself in a mirror . . . 

The Spouses Waking Up in the Hotel Mirror

by: Sharon Olds

The man looked like himself, only more so,

his face lucent, his silence profound as if

inevitable, but the woman looked

like a different species from an hour before,

a sandhill crane or a heron, her eyes

skinned back, she looked insane with happiness.

After he got up, I looked at her,

lying on her back in the bed.

Her ribs and breasts and clavicles had

the molded look of a gladiator’s

torso-armor, formal bulge of the 

pectoral, forged nipple, her deltoid

heron-elongated,

I couldn’t get her provenance

but the pelvic bone was wildly curled,

wrung.  I could see she was a skeleton

in there, that hair on her body buoyant

though the woman was stopped completely, stilled as if

paralyzed.  I looked at her face,

bloom-darkened, it was a steady face,

I saw she was very good at staring

and could make up her mind to stare at me

until I would look away first.

I saw her bowled, suffused forehead,

her bony cheeks and jaws, I saw she could

watch her own house burn

without moving a muscle, I saw she could light

the pyre.  She looked very much like her father, that

capillary-rich face, and very

much like her mother, the curlicues

at the corners of the features.  She was very male

and very female.

very hermaphroditical,

I could see her in a temple, tying someone up

or being tied up or being made nothing

or making someone nothing,

I saw she was full of cruelty

and full of kindness, brimming with it—

I had known but not known this, that she was human,

she had it all inside her, all of it.

She saw me seeing that, she liked that I saw it.

A full life—I saw her living it,

and then I saw her think of someone who

ignores her rather as her father ignored her,

and the clear, intransigent white of her eyes

went murky grey, the sections of her face pulled

away from each other like the continents

before they tore apart, long before they drifted.

I saw that she had been beaten, I saw her

looking away like a begging dog,

I averted my eyes, and turned my head

as the beloved came back, and came over to her

and came down to me, I looked into his iris

like looking at a rainstorm by moonrise, or a still

winter lake, just as its cleavages

take, or into crystal, when crystal

is forming, wet as nectar or milk

or semen, the first skein from a boy’s heart.

Looking at yourself closely can be an unpleasant experience.  Olds sees the woman in the mirror not as a reflection of herself.  Rather, she’s able to step outside of her body and appraise herself honestly, without flinching, each hair and scar and blemish mapping her skin like roads and rivers.  The spouse in the poem ignores these imperfections.  He comes to her at the end, his irises looking like “a rainstorm by moonrise, or a still winter lake . . .”  To put it another way, he sees her true self.

So, now it’s my turn to look at myself in the mirror today.  I played keyboard for two church services this morning.  Then I attended the annual Tuba Christmas concert, live-streaming it for the library.  (If you’ve never read heard 30 tubas and euphoniums in one enclosed space playing Christmas carols, you don’t know what you’re missing.  Or maybe you do.)  Then, some shopping.  (I purchased two really ugly Christmas sweaters for myself.)  Finally, dinner (grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches with chicken noodle soup) and a Zoom poetry workshop (the best part of my day).

My whole weekend was like that—one thing after another thing after another thing.  I haven’t really had a whole lot of downtime.  When I got home from Tuba Christmas and shopping, I sat down on the couch to relax for a few minutes.  I turned on the TV, and suddenly my head started pounding and my vision blurred.  My first thought:  I’m having a stroke.  My second thought:  at least I won’t have to grade my students’ final papers.

I lay back on the couch and closed my eyes.  I could feel the room spinning behind my lids.  In the past, I have suffered from bouts of vertigo.  Only once have I experienced a migraine.  After about a half hour, I opened my eyes and got up to help my wife do the dinner dishes and pans.  I could still feel a dull throb in the back of my head, but the world wasn’t merry-go-rounding anymore.  My vision was clear.  

I think I was on the verge of a migraine.  So, I had an almost migraine, I guess.  When I described my symptoms to my wife, she said, “It was a migraine.  You’ve been so stressed.”

My wife was my mirror tonight.  After she made that comment, I thought about the last couple weeks—Thanksgiving, a blizzard, Christmas trees, grading, programs.  Plus all the normal holiday hubbub.  And 30 tubas and euphoniums.  She was right.  Stress + Tuba Christmas = Almost Migraine.

I’m doing better now.  The poetry workshop was the highlight of the weekend.  A couple hours writing with some really good friends was just the medicine I needed.  I’m not quite ready for a new week, but I’m not cemented to a couch with a pillow over my face to block out the light.

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

Write a poem in the form of a to-do list, preferably a to-do list of a famous literary figure.  What would Henry David Thoreau have on his to-do list?  How about Gustav Flaubert?  Perhaps Emily Dickinson’s to-do list would include practicing her scales, writing a letter, baking a ginger cake, ironing her white dress, identifying wildflowers, witnessing a funeral, and quarreling with her sisters or brother.  You will likely need to spend some time to get the order of your list just right, saving the best for last.  Your poem may be humorous or grave/poignant.

Writing Life of Charles Dickens

by: Martin Achatz

Writing 

is like

a long midnight walk

through London streets

when even pickpockets

have gone to bed

in some dark alley

Elizabeth Tower caped

in fog and frost

lost

save for the chimes

quarter past, half past,

quarter to it, the hour

itself—Ga-dooong!

pens lined above

a sheet of Foolscap

well filled with ink

black as a grave

a cup

of strong tea

steeped black

served with a lemon

wedge and biscuit

hawthorn

currant

oolong

a child’s cry 

for water 

after a nightmare,

to douse 

fear blazing 

in his chest

a sunrise

so dazzling

it hurts

to even 

step outside

January 12, 2025: "The Eye," Expectations, "Undressing with Walt Whitman"

It has been snowing all day.  As I sit on my couch, typing this post, I can hear the city plows rumbling down the street, and the guy who clears my driveway is hard at work.  I totally didn't expect this little storm.  (Then again, I haven't really looked at the weather forecast for almost a week, so any type of precipitation would have caught me off guard.)

Expectations are tricky things.  They can fill you with hope and joy, but they can also dish up some serious disappointment.  I learned that lesson over and over as a parent.  Dirty dishes in the sink--disappointment.  Straight A's on a report card--hope and joy.  Skipping school--disappointment.  A handmade card for my birthday--hope and joy (and maybe a tear or two).

Sharon Olds is disappointed with her grandmother . . . 

The Eye

by: Sharon Olds

My bad grandfather wouldn't feed us.

He turned the lights out when we tried to read.

He sat alone in the invisible room

in front of the hearth, and drank.  He died

when I was seven, and Grandma had never once

taken anyone's side against him,

the firelight on his red cold face

reflecting extra on his glass eye.

Today I thought about that glass eye,

and how at night in the big double bed

he slept facing his wife, and how the limp

hole, where his eye had been, was open

towards her on the pillow, and how I am

one-fourth him, a brutal man with a

hole for an eye, and one-fourth her,

a woman who protected no one.  I am their

sex, too, their son, their bed, and

under their bed the trap-door to the

cellar, with its barrels of fresh apples, and

somewhere in me too is the path

down to the creek gleaming in the dark, a

way out of there.

Sharon Olds had an expectation of her grandmother--the she would protect the young Olds from the grandfather's drunken cruelties.  Of course, that expectation leads to disappointment.  Her grandmother turns a blind eye to her husband's actions.

Not all expectations are unrealistic.  For instance, tomorrow morning, I expect it to be cold.  Tomorrow afternoon, I will teach my first class of the winter semester, and tomorrow night, I will probably be second guessing everything I did during the day.  All these things I expect, and I would bet money I won't be disappointed.

On the other hand, tonight, I led a Zoom writing workshop on self love and worth.  For two hours, we basically wrote love poems to and about ourselves.  In all honesty, I didn't think it was going to be a great night.  Don't misunderstand.  I love the people who attended, and we read poems by some of my favorites, including Maya Angelou and Lucille Clifton.  I just had so much on my mind--teaching and work and appointments and lesson plans.  

However, it turned out to be a great night of writing and sharing.  Everyone seemed to have a good time, and the poems people produced were funny, profound, silly, and serious.  I even got a few things that I'll be able to use.  In short, I expected the workshop to be shitty, and it turned out to be therapeutically and artistically wonderful.

You just never know.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem for one of his muses who never disappoints him.  It's based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem addressed to any artist, living or dead.  It can be an artist you admire or one whose work you do not particularly like.  Do not feel you need to limit yourself to painters, as you are welcome to write a letter to any type of artist, including dancer Twyla Tharp, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, or cartoonist and creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening.  The poem can be to an artist in any field, including (but not limited to) literary, visual arts, dance, music, or performing arts.

Undressing with Walt Whitman

by: Martin Achatz

You probably walked naked through rooms

in your home, sat at your writing desk

with the silver curls on your chest,

under your arms, between your legs

breathing the fine, cool air.  At night,

I imagine you stood bare in your yard,

drenched in moon, looking like a grounded

comet, your bright shadow sparking

in the grass between your toes.  Will you

meet me on the shores of Lake Superior

tonight, after several inches of fresh

January snow?  I'll bring towels,

a thermos of hot, black coffee.  You'll pull

off your wool socks, pants.  Set aside

your wide-brimmed hat.  Unbutton your

long johns, shed them the way a snake

sheds its skin.  When we're both naked, 

we'll wade into the water together,

feel it grab our feet, urge us deeper,

deeper until we're unsexed by the cold,

become merely muscle, tendon, bone, 

blood in the frozen surf, even our

breaths--the words, lines--stripped

to just sound, music.  We'll sail out

and out and out toward that place

where water and stars tumble together

and our bodies' electrons collide,

dance, surge with naked longing.

December 22, 2024: "Lucky Bastards," Clarence Odbody, Successful Suicide

My favorite Christmas movie of all time is It's a Wonderful Life.  Some people say it's not a Christmas movie because most of the film's action takes place outside of the holiday season.  I disagree.  It's a film that screams Christmas to me.

At the conclusion of the movie, Clarence Odbody, the angel sent to save George Bailey's/Jimmy Stewart's life, inscribes a book to George thusly:  "Remember, no man is a failure who has friends."  George's friends literally save the day (and his life).

Billy Collins learns about the primacy of friendship . . . 

Lucky Bastards

by: Billy Collins

From the deck of the swimming pool

you could see the planes taking off from LAX

and whenever my father visited his friend there,

the two of them would sit in the sun with their drinks

and kill the time between golf and dinner

by betting on whether the next plane would break

left or right, and if you picked the long shot--

one continuing straight over the ocean--you got double.

The time I was there with them, I watched

the singles and fives changing hands

as they laughed "You lucky bastard!"

and I learned again the linkage between friendship and money

and the sweet primacy of one over the other,

which is not to say that Sandburg's six-volume

biography of Lincoln or the writings of Lao Tzu

are not also excellent teachers, each in its own way.

I'm a pretty lucky bastard.  

My life is crowded people who love me.  I'm still not quite sure what I've done to deserve all this kindness and affection.  Since I've been writing about my mental health struggles these last 30 or so days, I've received lots of encouragement from my loyal disciples and friends.

I'm not gonna lie.  A couple times this past month, I've been standing on the bridge with George, staring down at the roiling black waters.  Don't worry.  I'm not going to jump.  I got past the moment, and I will get past it again if it recurs.  I've personally seen the aftermath of loved one's of a "successful" suicide.  (Such a weird juxtaposition of words--"successful" plus "suicide.")  I would never put my family through that.

This evening, I led a Zoom poetry workshop.  Only three people showed up--one really good poet friend, my wife, and myself--but it was a great time.  The theme of the workshop was Christmas.  We wrote about cards, ornaments, places, and people.  We laughed a lot.  Got a little teary, too.  At the end, we wished each other safe, peaceful, happy holidays.

I know I'm not a failure.  I have friends.  A lot of them.  Poets.  Musicians.  Teachers.  Librarians.  Artists.

They rescue Saint Marty from the bridge every day.

December 11: "Why I Wake Early," Crazy Hours, Good Night

How Mary Oliver starts her days . . . 

Why I Wake Early

by:  Mary Oliver

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who make the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and the crotchety--

best preacher that ever was,

dear star, the just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light--

good morning, good morning, good morning.

watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness.

I wake early, like Mary Oliver.  I don't, however, do it to start my day in happiness or kindness.  I do it because my son has to get to school and my wife to work.  Seeing sunrises is not a choice I make.  It is a happy benefit of the crazy hours that I keep.

As I sit on my couch typing this post, I can sense exhaustion overtaking me.  It has been a long day, and tomorrow's going to be a long day, and the next day after that, as well.  My long days aren't going to end until well past Christmas.  

This morning, I received an email from one of my best friends.  He attended a Zoom poetry workshop I led last night.  The theme for the workshop was "joy."  My friend apologized for not writing about joy in response to any of my writing prompts during the workshop.  Instead, he wrote very real, very human reflections about his unquiet spirit and mind.  

Tonight, I received an email from another of my best friends.  We've known each other for over 40 years.  She's been struggling with health issues, children issues, spouse issues.  Recently,, she spent several days in the hospital recovering from meningitis.  In her email, she talked about darkness, as well.  Of juggling eight balls at once, trying not to drop a single one of them.  Of craving rest and peace.

These two best friends are kind people.  Loving people.  Creative people.  They care about the mess of the world deeply.  And, like me, they don't put up with bullshit.  Yes, we love sunrises.  Yes, we think Donald Trump is a criminal.  Yes, we would do anything for each other.  My friends' emails were tonics to my tired spirit.

I will wake early again tomorrow morning.  Drive east, into the rising sun.  Smile and try to keep the darkness at bay.

But, right now, Saint Marty says good night to the world.  Good night, good night, and good night