May 26, 2025: "Topography," Memorial Day, "Taps"

Yes, it is Memorial Day in the United States.  Every year, on the last Monday of the month of May, we celebrate and honor members of the U.S. armed forces who sacrificed their lives to defend our nation.  This year, more than any other, it's even more important to remember the true meaning of this day--the preservation of freedom and democracy against tyranny, hatred, and authoritarianism.

Sharon Olds writes about the United States . . . 

Topography

by: Sharon Olds

After we flew across the country we
got in bed, laid our bodies
intricately together, like maps laid
face to face, East to West, my
San Francisco against your New York, your
Fire Island against my Sonoma, my
New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho
bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas
burning against your Kansas your Kansas
burning against my Kansas, your Eastern
Standard Time pressing into my
Pacific Time, my Mountain Time
beating against your Central Time, your
sun rising swiftly from the right my
sun rising swiftly from the left your
moon rising slowly from the left my
moon rising slowly from the right until
all four bodies of the sky
burn above us, sealing us together,
all our cities twin cities,
all our states united, one
nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, Olds' poem is about sex.  It's not very subtle in that regard.  However, it's also about the freedom of speech (that's the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for all those MAGA readers who've never read the document upon which our entire country is based).  Olds can write a sex poem using the United States metaphorically and parodying the Pledge of Allegiance simply because it's her Constitutional right.

In other countries ruled by fascist dictators, poets have been thrown in jail for criticizing political leaders.  Stalin did it.  Putin is still doing it.  Fortunately, the Constitution prevents President 47 from doing it in the United States (for now).  All those brave members of the U.S. military who fought and died in armed conflicts did so in order to bear "true faith and allegiance to the Constitution" (that's in the oath all enlisted personnel take--check it out if you don't believe me).  They sacrificed their lives so Olds could exercise her Constitutional rights as a U.S. citizen.

I was raised to respect and honor all military veterans.  From a very young age, I knew that Memorial Day wasn't just about a three-day weekend and hotdogs and corn on the cob.  It's about who we are and what ideals we should all hold dear, regardless of political affiliation.  

I went to a Memorial Day parade with my family today.  Then, we attended a Veterans of Foreign Wars service at a local cemetery.  We placed flowers at the graves of relatives, including my father, who was a military veteran.

I am not a hater or war-monger or xenophobe.  I believe in the worth of everyone, no matter where you come from, what you believe, or who you love.  As a Christian, I was taught that all human beings are children of God.  Kindness and compassion should be the guiding force of everything we do.

If you don't agree with these ideals, you are NOT a true patriot and you are NOT a true Christian.  Sorry, not sorry.  Read the Constitution and the Bible.  It's pretty straightforward.

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

Write a poem where the first word starts with "A" and the last word of the poem ends with "Z."  Somewhere in the poem mention the alphabet or alphabetical order.  Have the poem be about something that has nothing to do with the alphabet.  For extra credit, try to use a word that begins with each letter of the alphabet.

Taps

by: Martin Achatz

At my father's grave today,

a flag licks the bright

air as if whispering 

his name, mustering  him

to attention, him standing

straight as a cornstalk

as my mother's ashes

sigh beside him, tell

him to settle down,

relax until the angels

blow "Reveille" and all

the war dead fall in,

waiting to be counted

one last time before marching

off to that final reckoning, 

from Private Second Class

Achatz to Staff Sergeant Zamora.

June 8: Tony Awards, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

The 2014 Tony Awards are on tonight.  Even though I haven't seen any plays in New York for, oh, let me see, 13 years, I will watch the show.  I haven't been to a play in a couple of years.  I used to have season tickets to the university's theater season, but it became a little too expensive.  I think the last musical I saw was Shrek with my daughter.  It was a traveling Broadway production that stopped in Green Bay, and I took my daughter for her birthday.

I love theater.  I used to act and direct in local productions all the time.  Then, life happened.  Children.  Work.  Mental illness.  I had to prioritize, and theater ended up far down on my list of important activities.  It still is.  But, one night a year, I unleash my theater geek.  Tony night.

I love theater people, because they're a very accepting group.  It doesn't matter whether you're straight or gay, short or tall, fat or thin, red or yellow or black or white.  Theater people accept you for who you are or who you aren't.  Tolerance is their creed.

That's what today's episode of Saint Marty is about.  Tolerance.  It first aired three years ago.

June 8, 2011:  Hatred, New Poem, Tolerance

Today, I've been thinking a lot about hatred and intolerance.  It always amazes me to encounter blatant bigotry--racism or sexism or ageism.  Homophobia.  Since my wife was diagnosed with bipolar, I've encountered a great deal of misunderstanding about mental illness.  All biases are based on fear.  People are afraid of things they don't understand, that are out of their scope of experience. Mental illness, unless you suffer from it or know a person who suffers from it, generates a great deal of discomfort.  It's a category of illness that is still socially acceptable to mock, fear, or reject.

I have spent the last ten years battling the hatred and fear of mental illness.  It's easy to blame a person with mental illness for being different.  My wife once bought a pair of mountain bikes for five hundred dollars when she was manic.  She couldn't control herself.  It was her illness.  Most people in my family don't understand that.  People can't control skin color or gender, but most people can control their behaviors.  Unless brain chemistry gets in the way.

I'm teaching a Good Books class this fall.  I've decided to focus on novels and memoirs dealing with mental illness, because I want to promote understanding and acceptance.  People need to realize that mental illness isn't a personal choice.  An African American can't choose to be white.  A man or woman, for the most part, can't choose a gender.  And a person with a mental illness can't choose to be mentally sound.  That's what I want my students to get this fall.

I know people who hate.  For the most part, their hatred stems from personal insecurity.  They feel somehow inadequate in their own lives, so they look for people who are weaker to attack, to blame for their problems.  Rather than hate the haters, maybe I should pity them, try to understand them.  That's not an easy task.  But it's a task, as a Christian, I'm supposed to accept, even embrace.  Dammit.

My new poem is about a person who hates.  I use humor.  I mock.  I try to point out the absurdity of hatred.

Sing with Saint Marty:


We shall overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall overcome someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.

Parable of Hate

There was once a proctologist

Who went on vacations

To meet new people to hate.

He traveled to Texas

So he could say the words

Spic and wetback, slap

Locals on their shoulders,

Drink tequila shots, eat

Rattlesnake cooked over

Fires filled with smoke, venom.

He flew to San Francisco,

Ogled fags and queens,

Watched them parade along

Streets, up and down hills

In heels and fishnets,

Wished he could breathe

His repulsion into their

Bloodstreams, got nostalgic

For the early days of AIDS.

His next stop, the Upper Peninsula

Of Michigan, where he hit

A doe with his rented Audi,

Told his traveling companions

The problem with the U. P.:

Too many deer and Indians.

He blamed the Blacks

Of New Orleans for being

Too stupid and poor

To flee the waters of Katrina.

His latest trip, scuba diving

In the seas of Guam,

A place peopled by fat,

Lazy Polynesians, heifers

So unhealthy he couldn’t

Eat the whole week,

Survived on straight shots

Of spite and scorn.  The proctologist

Always returned from his journeys

Sure of his place in the world.

Doctor.  Healer of assholes.
Physician, heal thyself.
 

Code dickhead, Code dickhead

Confessions of Saint Marty

June 8: Hatred, New Poem, Tolerance

Today, I've been thinking a lot about hatred and intolerance.  It always amazes me to encounter blatant bigotry--racism or sexism or ageism.  Homophobia.  Since my wife was diagnosed with bipolar, I've encountered a great deal of misunderstanding about mental illness.  All biases are based on fear.  People are afraid of things they don't understand, that are out of their scopes of experience. Mental illness, unless you suffer from it or know a person who suffers from it, generates a great deal of discomfort.  It's a category of illness that is still socially acceptable to mock, fear, or reject.

I have spent the last ten years battling the hatred and fear of mental illness.  It's easy to blame a person with mental illness for being different.  My wife once bought a pair of mountain bikes for five hundred dollars when she was manic.  She couldn't control herself.  It was her illness.  Most people in my family don't understand that.  People can't control skin color or gender, but most people can control their behaviors.  Unless brain chemistry gets in the way.

I'm teaching a Good Books class this fall.  I've decided to focus on novels and memoirs dealing with mental illness, because I want to promote understanding and acceptance.  People need to realize that mental illness isn't a personal choice.  An African American can't choose to be white.  A man or woman, for the most part, can't choose a gender.  And a person with a mental illness can't choose to be mentally sound.  That's what I want my students to get this fall.

I know people who hate.  For the most part, their hatred stems from personal insecurity.  They feel somehow inadequate in their own lives, so they look for people who are weaker to attack, to blame for their problems.  Rather than hate the haters, maybe I should pity them, try to understand them.  That's not an easy task.  But it's a task, as a Christian, I'm supposed to accept, even embrace.  Dammit.

My new poem is about a person who hates.  I use humor.  I mock.  I try to point out the absurdity of hatred.

Sing with  Saint Marty:


We shall overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall overcome someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.

Parable of Hate

There was once a proctologist

Who went on vacations

To meet new people to hate.

He traveled to Texas

So he could say the words

Spic and wetback, slap

Locals on their shoulders,

Drink tequila shots, eat

Rattlesnake cooked over

Fires filled with smoke, venom.

He flew to San Francisco,

Ogled fags and queens,

Watched them parade along

Streets, up and down hills

In heels and fishnets,

Wished he could breathe

His repulsion into their

Bloodstreams, got nostalgic

For the early days of AIDS.

His next stop, the Upper Peninsula

Of Michigan, where he hit

A doe with his rented Audi,

Told his traveling companions

The problem with the U. P.:

Too many deer and Indians.

He blamed the Blacks

Of New Orleans for being

Too stupid and poor

To flee the waters of Katrina.

His latest trip, scuba diving

In the seas of Guam,

A place peopled by fat,

Lazy Polynesians, heifers

So unhealthy he couldn’t

Eat the whole week,

Survived on straight shots

Of spite and scorn.  The proctologist

Always returned from his journeys

Sure of his place in the world.

Doctor.  Healer of assholes.
Physician, heal thyself.

 


Code dickhead, Code dickhead