April 5, 2025: "Monarchs," Butterfly Moment, "Things I Learned About Politics from My Dad"

Some moments in life change you irreversibly.  Kindergarten.  First crush and kiss.  High school graduation.  First sex.  College.  Weddings.  Funerals.  Parenthood.  Serious illness.

There's the old saying that the only constant in life is change.  As much as I would have liked to stay chronologically around 25 or 30 years old, time marches on, bringing all kinds of transformations.  Chrysalis into butterfly.  Butterfly into sunlight.

Sharon Olds has a butterfly moment . . . 

Monarchs

by: Sharon Olds

          (for P. W.)

All morning, as I sit, thinking of you,

the Monarchs are passing.  Seven stories up,

to the left of the river, they are making their way

south, their wings the dry red of

your hands like butchers' hands, the raised

veins of their wings like your scars.

I could scarcely feel your massive rough

palms on me, your touch was so light,

the chapped scrape of an insect's leg

across my breast.  No one had ever

touched me before.  I didn't know enough to

open my legs, but felt your thighs,

feathered with red, gold hairs,

          opening

between my legs

like a pair of wings.

The hinged print of my blood of your thighs--

a winged creature, pinned there--

and then you left, as you were to leave

over and over, the butterflies moving

in masses past my window, floating

south to their transformation, crossing over

boarders in the night, the diffuse blood-red

cloud of them, my body under yours,

the beauty and silence of the great migrations.

Olds seems to be writing about her first sexual experience--something intimate and universal at the same time.  There's great beauty in what she says.  However, there's also fear and violence mixed in, as well.  I suppose any "first" conjures up these kinds of mixed emotions.

You've probably noticed that I haven't been posting much recently.  I've been finding it difficult these days to put any thoughts on a page/screen.  The reasons are manifold (writer's block, busyness, exhaustion), but they all boil down to one thing:  truth is stranger than fiction or poetry these days.  Each morning, when I perform my first doom scroll, I don't feel inspired to create anything.  Rather, doing this makes me lose focus, enrages, shocks, and embarrasses me.  

Hence, I've been spending most of my days and evenings doing anything to distract myself from this American horror story, mostly by binging seasons of television cooking shows.  Or watching movies I've already seen 500 times.  Or just laying down and closing my eyes.

Of course I have political thoughts.  Yes, I'm worried that Constitutional freedom of speech is going the way of the dodo.  Certainly, the mass deportations sicken me.  Sure, I get physically ill when I read about college students being disappeared for writing an op-ed criticizing #47.   And let's not forget what else is joining the endangered species list now:  the money in my retirement accounts.

So, I've been distracted quite a bit by the collapse of democracy in the United States.  That's why I haven't been blogging or writing much.  I try not to talk politics much during the day.  I'm not afraid of expressing my opinions.  Just ask my wife.  But I'm not a political poet for the most part, and, in my jobs for the library and university, I'm supposed to remain non-partisan.  

Today, however, I was asked by a good friend to speak at the Hands Off protest in Marquette, Michigan.  My topic:  the dismantling of the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the spending freeze of its grants and awards.  Over 3,500 people showed up and marched and chanted and cheered.  (To put that into perspective:  that's about 1/10 of the entire population of the city.)  There were seniors and kids, college students and military veterans, tribal leaders and poets.

Now, by nature I'm an introvert.  I know that's hard to believe.  My jobs require me to do a lot of public speaking, and I love interacting with audience members at events I attend and/or host.  As I stood listening to the speakers and performers before me this afternoon, I found myself becoming quite anxious.  These individuals knew how to fire up a crowd.  Generally, very few people chant and cheer at poetry readings.  (Perhaps this should change?)

Eventually, my friend called me to the mic, and I climbed the ramp to speak, looked out at the crowd, and opened my mouth.  I can't remember exactly what I said or how I said it.  I had my facts and talking points.  Had gone over them.  And over them.  And over them.  Until they were like breath.  So, when the words started coming out of my mouth, it was almost like singing a song from the 1980s.  I didn't really have to think all that much.  Of course, I ended with a poem.  

And people cheered and laughed and applauded.  If you've never had over three thousand people screaming and clapping for you, I highly recommend the experience.

Of course, the message I was delivering was much more important than the messenger.  I was there to ask people to support their libraries and museums and arts organizations.  That's it.  It's not a controversial message.  Everyone (Democrats, Republicans, straight, LGBTQIA+, citizens, immigrants) benefits from these resources.  

I spoke up and out.  Visited with the a few of the rally's attendees.  Grabbed a cookie.  Left.  It felt good.  Hopeful even.  It changed me.

If we have a presidential election in four years, and a Democrat wins, I think I would make a pretty good inaugural poet.  

Saint Marty wrote about this butterfly moment in his life tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem in which every line begins with the words I remember . . .  Here are some sample lines to help inspire you:  I remember the giant Modess sign on the lawn where we watched fireworks / I remember asking my mother "what's a tampon?" (she did not answer).  For further inspiration, check out Joe Brainard's book, I Remember.  Aim to use fresh, personal, and unexpected language in your poem as you repeat I remember at the opening of every line.

Things I Learned About Politics from My Dad

by: Martin Achatz

I remember him taking me to the John Birch Society

     bookstore some nights, where he would vanish

     into the backroom to listen to someone speak

     while I read Nancy Drew books.

I remember I loved Nancy, her tight-fitting

     sweaters, the mysteries of the melting coins

     or the disappearing diamonds or galloping

     ghost bus.

I remember the radio in the corner playing

     "Wipe Out," its insane laugh, driving drums,

     how I bobbed my head, slapped my fingers

     against my knees, imagined Nancy twisting

     and grinding and jiggling in front of me.

I remember plates of bagels by the store's cash

     register, an old (to me) Black janitor wearing

     a Pearl Harbor baseball cap handing me

     an Asiago dripping with cream cheese,

     telling me how his son loved Nancy Drew,

     too, but was killed by Viet Cong 

     in country, even though I had no idea

     where "in country" was.

I remember my dad collecting me after

     the backroom speaker was done,

     him so angry, talking all the way

     home about commies and pinkos

     and Jimmy Carter.

I remember wondering, in my bed at night,

     if I was a pinko for dreaming of Nancy

     naked while the janitor's son stared up

     at strange, alien stars and surrendered 

     his last breath.

I remember how, when my dad was dying,

     he looked like he was marching

     off to war in his hospital bed,

     his legs kicking, moving,

     his face a loaded gun.

I remember thinking to myself

     this was a case for Nancy Drew--

     The Mystery of the Father's Ghost--

     my dad storming the Pearly Gates,

     trying to Make Heaven Great Again.

     

September 19: An Introvert, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Toast

Merton grows away from God at Cambridge . . .

All the rest were negative. They were only graces in the sense that God in His mercy was permitting me to fly as far as I could from His love but at the same time preparing to confront me, at the end of it all, and in the bottom of the abyss, when I thought I had gone farthest away from Him. Si ascendero in coelum, tu illic es. Si descendero in infernum, ades. For in my greatest misery He would shed, into my soul, enough light to see how miserable I was, and to admit that it was my own fault and my own work. And always I was to be punished for my sins by my sins themselves, and to realize, at least obscurely, that I was being so punished and burn in the flames of my own hell, and rot in the hell of my own corrupt will until I was forced at last, by my own intense misery, to give up my own will. 

I had tasted something of this before: but that was nothing compared to the bitterness that soon began to fill me in that year at Cambridge. 

The mere realization of one’s own unhappiness is not salvation: it may be the occasion of salvation, or it may be the door to a deeper pit in Hell, and I had much deeper to go than I realized. But now, at least, I realized where I was, and I was beginning to try to get out. 

Some people may think that Providence was very funny and very cruel to allow me to choose the means I now chose to save my soul. But Providence, that is the love of God, is very wise in turning away from the self-will of men, and in having nothing to do with them, and leaving them to their own devices, as long as they are intent on governing themselves, to show them to what depths of futility and sorrow their own helplessness is capable of dragging them. 

And all the irony and cruelty of this situation came, not from Providence, but from the devil, who thought he was cheating God of my stupid and uninteresting little soul. 

So it was, then, that I began to get all the books of Freud and Jung and Adler out of the big redecorated library of the Union and to study, with all the patience and application which my hangovers allowed me, the mysteries of sex-repression and complexes and introversion and extroversion and all the rest. I, whose chief trouble was that my soul and all its faculties were going to seed because there was nothing to control my appetites—and they were pouring themselves out in an incoherent riot of undirected passion— came to the conclusion that the cause of all my unhappiness was sexrepression! And, to make the thing more subtly intolerable, I came to the conclusion that one of the biggest crimes in this world was introversion, and, in my efforts to be an extrovert, I entered upon a course of reflections and constant self-examinations, studying all my responses and analyzing the quality of all my emotions and reactions in such a way that I could not help becoming just what I did not want to be: an introvert. 

I, myself, see nothing wrong in aspiring to be an introvert.  In fact, in my line of business (blogging, poetry, now podcasting), I find that being an introvert is absolutely necessary.  Sitting at my kitchen table every evening, pounding out my daily posts, I need silence, focus, and a glass of wine.  My son sits across from me, gaming most of the time, and he can be obnoxiously loud.  I get most of my best writing done after he goes to bed.

In the last 24 hours, however, I've been distracted by something much more upsetting to me--the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  It came across my Facebook feed late Friday evening.  As soon as I saw Justice Ginsburg's face, I knew that she was gone.  And I lost a little faith in the future of the United States.

Now, the woman was 87 years old and suffering from metastatic pancreatic cancer.  Her demise shouldn't have come as a surprise.  Yet, she was indefatigable in her energy and devotion to her calling.  She was working on the current session of the Supreme Court from her hospital bed.  And her last official public statement, given to her granddaughter a few days ago, was this:  "My greatest wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

I am not going to get all political in this post.  Not going to say anything about the hypocrisy of Senate Republicans who started talking about replacing Ginsburg a mere four or five hours after she passed.  (Four or five hours.  Let that sink in.)  Won't be calling out Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham or Donald Trump.  There will be time for that tomorrow and the next day and the next.

Tonight, I honor the memory of a brilliant woman who fought her entire life for justice and equality.  She wasn't perfect.  She would have been the first to admit that.  But she did her best to make the world a better place, and the world IS a better place because Ruth Bader Ginsburg lived.  Ask my daughter who is studying to become a doctor.  Or my sister who is a licensed master plumber and drove trucks at the mine.  Or my friend, Gigi, who was a federal prosecutor.  Or my other friend, Amanda, who's an attorney, too.  Or my friend, Bobby, who's married to the man he's loved for 36 years.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's legacy is long and far-reaching.  That is what I want to say tonight.  She was a warrior in every sense of the word, fighting the hard battles, over and over.  And, for the most part, she won those battles, over and over.

It doesn't matter whether you're Democrat or Republican.  Take out a glass.  Fill it with wine or juice or Coke or milk or whiskey.  Lift that glass in a toast to a tiny, profound, righteous woman who reached down and lifted everyone up.

Saint Marty gives thanks for the miracle of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's life.

January 5: Give Chase to the Leviathon, Mega Millions, Satisfied with Reality

I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place would offer, till the following Monday.

As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizing the business of whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original- the Tyre of this Carthage;- the place where the first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported cobblestones- so goes the story- to throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit?

Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me in New Bedford, ere could embark for my destined port, it became a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,- So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the darkness towards the north with the darkness towards the south- wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don't be too particular.

Ishmael misses the ship he was hoping to sail on.  He is very particular about how he wants to go to sea, doesn't want to whale from a New Bedford ship.  Nantucket whaling is what he has set his mind to.  So, he must wait.  Find somewhere to lodge until he finds a suitable Nantucket ship to crew on.

Like Ishmael, I am a little late to the game this morning.  Had a few too many errands to run.  That's why I am blogging at almost noon today.  It's strange how, even on a vacation, I tend to set up routines for myself.  Breakfast.  Kids to school.  Wife to work.  Blogging.  That's the way my mornings have been running.

However, this routine will be very shortlived.  Unless I win the Mega Millions lottery this evening--or the Powerball tomorrow night--I will have to settle back into my "normal" life on Monday.  That's rather depressing.  My only hope is for the one in 258.9 million possibility that I could become a multimillionaire either today or tomorrow.

Of course, Ishmael holds no fanciful ideas about life on board a whaling ship.  He knows it will be punishing work, will yield little real reward, aside from the salt air and the adventure of chasing a Leviathon through the ocean.  That's enough for him, though.  He's satisfied with that reality.

I have never found much solace in the day-to-day details of my jobs.  That's my own fault.  I have always had a spirit that is constantly trying to make things better, for myself and the people I love.  That's who I am.

I certainly won't find any solace on the Friday before the weekend before the Monday on which I return to my job.  But, I know that what I do is important to the patients I register, to the students I teach.  I am their element, their smiling face.  That's significant.

There's not much I can change about a person's medical problems or university education.  Both are going to be costly to the point of backbreaking, like shipping off on a whaling boat.  However, I can be a friendly face, a helpful guide and mentor.

But not until Monday.  I have three more days to be selfish.

Saint Marty is thankful this afternoon for the opportunity to be an introvert for a little while longer.

February 4: Saintly Fellow, Mask, Unsmiling

Catching his own reflection in a window, Ives, nondescript in an overcoat, hat, and scarf, judged himself a most pleasant looking, perhaps saintly, fellow...

Most people who know Ives see him in this light:  normal to the point of boring, pleasant, spiritual.  He's known as a good man in his neighborhood.  He volunteers at community centers.  Goes to church every Sunday (sometimes more).  Helps his friends in need:  gives them money, takes in their children, finds jobs for their relatives.  Ives is all of these things.  Yet, he's also incredibly sad for most of his life.  Suffers mental and physical afflictions.  He is a complex man, but he wears a mask.  He is Saint Ives to those who meet him at church, on the street, in the hallways at work.

It's pretty tiring wearing a mask every day, only taking it off at home, when the front door is locked.  I know.  I do it all week long.  At work, I'm happy, positive.  I tell jokes, draw cartoons, make everybody laugh.  I don't mind being that person.  I like making people smile.  But if I'm quiet at work, if I don't feel like talking, inevitably someone will ask me, "What's wrong?"

It's exhausting being a good guy all the time.  At night, when I get home and lock the front door, I say very little.  Sometimes, I just sit on the couch and try not to snap or be angry.  It's like I use up all of my goodwill during daylight hours.  It's not fair to my family.  I know that.  Usually, after a little while, I can carry on a conversation without swearing, being critical, or making my daughter cry.  It takes a little while.

I'm an introvert.  While I hide it pretty well, I know that I need solitude to recharge my well of kindness.  I find it at night, right before I fall asleep.  In the morning, before everyone else wakes up.  In my car, as I drive to and from work.  I simply need to be alone.  To not wear a mask.  To be myself, bad disposition and all.

So, if you see me walking across campus at the university or sitting by myself in his car, looking as if I'm trying to solve a some math problem or solve world hunger, don't worry.

That's just Saint Marty being himself for a few, quiet moments.

Take off your mask.  See who you really are.