January 5, 2025: "Nevsky Prospekt," Last Day, "Walt Whitman Reads a Poem at the Inauguration of Donald Trump"

I woke this morning, the last day of my holiday vacation, confused and panicked, thinking I had Rip Van Winkled myself into Monday.  For several moments, I lay in bed, full of dread, cataloguing a list of duties and responsibilities in my head.

Then, my wife reminded me it was only Sunday.

I've never dealt well with transitions, moving from one state of being to another.  Ask anyone who knows me well, and that person will most likely tell you that I'm a creature of habit and routine.  I eat the same breakfast every day.  (Crackers, hardboiled eggs, grapes.)  Watch the same movie over and over for days, sometimes weeks.  (My current obsession--Ken Burns' documentary on the life of Mark Twain.)  Write in my blog about the same poet for an entire year.  (Mary Oliver two years ago.  Billy Collins last year.  This year, Sharon Olds.)  

So, having to establish a new routine after these two weeks of downtime is going to be r-o-u-g-h.  In a week, I start teaching two classes for the university, and, in two weeks, the Felon in Chief becomes President of the United States again.  Can I have some Xanax with a chaser of Prozac, please?

Of course, I have poetry to calm my agitated heart and soul and mind.  When I write, I gain some sense of control over my life.  I don't feel quite so overwhelmed with my pen and journal in my hand.  Usually.

More about the dead from Sharon Olds . . . 

Nevsky Prospekt

(July, 1917)

by: Sharon Olds

It is an old photo, very black and

very white.  One woman

lifts up her heavy skirt as she runs.

A man in a white jacket, his hands

tied behind his back, runs,

his chin stuck out.  An old woman

in massive black turns and looks behind her.

A man throws himself onto the pavement.

A child in heavy boots is running

but looks back over his shoulder

at the black and white heap of bodies.

The wide gray stone square

is dotted with fallen inky shapes

and dropped white hats.  Everything else is

heaving away like a sea from the noise we

feel in the silence of the photograph

the way the deaf see sound:  the terrible

voice of the submachine guns saying

This is more important than your life.

The question Olds' poem poses is pretty simple:  what is something you would die for?  Olds is writing about the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, when the government cracked down in a violent way against protestors.  Between 1917 and 1923, seven to 12 million individuals died in the Russian Revolution.  That's a lot of people laying down their lives for what they believed in.  

Me?  I would lay down my life for my kids.  Any parent would say the same.  And I would do practically anything to ensure that my daughter and son have brighter, more promising futures.  The Iroquois have this concept called the Seventh Generation Principle, which basically means that decisions made now should result in a better world seven generations into the future.  It's a pretty powerful concept.

I'm not sure my blog posts are going to make that kind of difference in the world.  Or my poems.  Seven generation from now, I can predict with about 99.99% certainty that nobody is going to be interested in reading my Bigfoot stuff.  But I do recycle, conserve water, support Planned Parenthood, and vote in every election.  I'm not sure all that counts, but it's the best I could come up with tonight.  

Saint Marty has a new poem about the future, based on today's prompt from The Daily Poet:  

Write a poem in the voice of someone other than yourself that offers a glimpse or hints at another possible outcome or future.  Consider going back in history and writing about Abraham Lincoln deciding to stay home from yet another play, or write from the present about an event that has not yet happened or may never happen.  For example, write from the point-of-view of snowboarders imagining all of the snow in the world has melted from global warming or someone preparing for an event (a wedding, an earthquake, a funeral, etc.) that may of may not actually happen.  Allow history to rewrite itself or allow a new future for you or someone else to unfold.

Walt Whitman Reads

a Poem at the Inauguration

of Donald Trump

January 20, 2025

by: Martin Achatz

Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Americans Everywhere,

At this bright winter moment, with the echo of cannon and gun 

in my ears, smoke stinging my eyes and nose, I wish

to tell again of a vigil strange I kept one night beside a boy 

(for he was just that, with unwhiskered cheeks)

who surrendered his youth, life, kisses unkissed, for me,

for you, for friend and enemy, for Jew, Gentile, dark-skinned,

light-skinned, for the crust of his mother's biscuits, brute

embrace of his father's arms, for all things we hold dear.

Yes, this dearest comrade, this brave child fell, never to rise

again.  I remind you, gentlepeople, of this embracer now

embraced in rib, skull, femur, tibia, fibula by cold, cold

sod so that you might think hard of the hard cost

of pitting brother against brother, child against parent,

neighbor against neighbor, a war terrible fought to bring

us all together, one people, if such a thing possible after so bold

and bloody a conflict.  I commend to you today the memory

of his cold knuckles against my palm, his startled gaze

blind to the rising of another day.  Hold his chill fingers

in yours, stare into his sightless eyes, promise him this teeming

soil that now cradles his perfect, beautiful body is still

free for all--citizen, soldier, tired, poor, wretched, huddled--

whose lips are pressed, hungrily, like a newborn's, against 

the fresh and stinging bosom of this morning's promise.

July 28: Calm and Steady, Parable, Old Donkey

Santiago eats, even though he's not hungry

"It is a strong full-blooded fish," he thought. "I was lucky to get him instead of dolphin. Dolphin is too sweet. This is hardly sweet at all and all the strength is still in it."

There is no sense in being anything but practical though, he thought. I wish I had some salt. And I do not know whether the sun will rot or dry what is left, so I had better eat it all although I am not hungry. The fish is calm and steady. I will eat it all and then I will be ready.

"Be patient, hand," he said. "I do this for you."

Doing something that you don't feel like doing.  Because it's the right thing to do.  

I think everybody has moments like that.  Eating a food you don't like because it's polite.  Watching a movie you hate because another person loves it.  Working a job that brings you no happiness because you need the money.  I could go on, but you get the idea.

This is going to be one of those posts where I can't really give specifics.  I need to protect both the innocent and guilty.  I absolutely could name names and point fingers.  However, that will do no good.  It won't change the situation, and it would only make me feel better temporarily.  So, I will speak as generically as possible, perhaps in parable.

There once was an old donkey that spent its days plowing fields for its master.  From sunup to sundown, it toiled in hot weather and cold.  Rain and snow.  It did the best it could, because it needed the oats its master provided in order to live.

One day, the donkey's master came to the stable and said to the donkey, "I had a meeting with the owner of the farm.  The owner isn't happy.  He needs a donkey that can work more fields and longer days.  So, I have to go to the village square this morning and buy a new donkey.  Today is the last day I can give you oats."

With that, its master gave the donkey one last trough of oats to eat, patted the donkey on the head, and said, "Good luck, old donkey."  Then, the master opened the gate to the donkey's stall so that the donkey could leave after it was done eating.

The donkey ate and then left, not sure where it was going or what it was going to do.  

The master bought another donkey that went to work in the owner's fields.  The new donkey worked hard, and the harvest was greater than the previous year.  The owner got even richer than before.

The old donkey, tired and broken, wandered into the wilderness and was never heard from again.

Moral of the story:  sometimes, no matter how hard you work, somebody is always looking for a better piece of ass.

Saint Marty's blessings:  drinks with some friends at the end of a long day, and a beautiful sky on the way home.

 

April 4: Five to One Against, Last Day, I Did My Best

Zaphod Beeblebrox is anxious about having Arthur and Ford on board the Heart of Gold, the spaceship he has stolen . . .

Zaphod Beeblebrox paced nervously up and down the cabin, brushing his hands over pieces of gleaming equipment and giggling with excitement.

Trillian sat hunched over a clump of instruments, reading off figures.  Her voice was carried round the tannoy system of the whole ship.

"Five to one against and falling . . ."  She turned her microphone off--then turned it back on--with a slight smile and continued:  "Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem.  Please relax.  You will be sent for soon."

Zaphod burst out in annoyance, "Who are they, Trillian?"

Trillian spun her seat round to face him and shrugged.

"Just a couple of guys we seem to have picked up in open space," she said.  "Section ZZ, Plural Z.  Alpha."

"Yeah, well, that's a very sweet thought, Trillian," complained Zaphod, "but do you really think it's wise under the circumstances?  I mean, here we are on the run and everything, we must have the police of half the Galaxy after us by now, and we stop to pick up hitchhikers.  Okay, so ten out of ten for style, but minus sever million for good thinking, yeah?"  

Worked my last day at the medical office of the surgery center.  Probability of me returning to it at this point:  less than one and falling.  I tried to keep myself focused on work--registering patients, putting together patient charts, packing up my personal belongings at the end of my shift.

The busyness of the day was good.  It kept me from getting too nostalgic or sad.  I've been in this situation before.  About five years ago, I was forced to leave my job at the surgery center.  It had to do with the fact that my sister was the supervisor of the facility.  It was either her or me.  So I went to work in a cardiology office for a couple years.  Then my sister was diagnosed with lymphoma of the brain.  She died in August of 2015.  A little less than a year later, my old job became available.  I posted for it and was rehired.

That's how I came to this day--leaving the surgery center again, this time for good.  In a month or so, the place will no longer exist.

After work, I drove to the cemetery with my friend, Missy, and paid a visit to my sister.  As I was standing my her stone, I said, "Well, Sal, I kept it going as long as I could.  I did my best."  Then I started crying.  I pretty much cried all the way home.

I will say that it doesn't seem quite real at the moment.  Like next week, I'll be punching the time clock and opening up the surgery center office, like any other day.  I suppose that reality will set in soon.  One or two days of being at my new job.

Tonight, however, I'm going to lead a poetry workshop.  This will help with the sadness, I think.  And I'll be surrounded by some of my best friends.  

Chances of me crying again tonight:  even.

Saint Marty doesn't take sucker bets.

April 6: Quiet and Trusting and Beautiful, Last Day, Walk to the Cemetery

Even though Billy's train wasn't moving, its boxcars were kept locked tight.  Nobody was to get off until the final destination.  To the guards who walked up and down outside, each car became a single organism which ate and drank and excreted through its ventilators.  It talked or sometimes yelled through its ventilators, too.  In went water and loaves of blackbread and sausage and cheese, and out came shit and piss and language.

Human beings in there were excreting into steel helmets which were passed to the people at the ventilators, who dumped them.  Billy was a dumper.  The human beings also passed canteens, which guards would fill with water.  When food came in, the human beings were quiet and trusting and beautiful.  They shared.

I love the end of this passage, where all of the people in the boxcar are working together, helping each other, pulling together.  It's a wonderful image of humanity at its best.

Today, I said goodbye to one of my best friends at work.  She's not leaving my life.  She simply took another job, so I won't be seeing her every day.  That makes me more than a little sad.  After work, we went to visit my sister's grave.  Had hot chocolate and cheese and crackers.  It really was a celebration of friendship and love.

We have been through a lot together.  Bad times and good times.  I'm going to miss her.  Thank goodness I head off to the Wisconsin Dells tomorrow morning for a weekend of fun and forgetting.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for water slides and Ferris wheels.

November 10: Heavy Rains and Hail, Warm Weather, D. H. Melhem, "Last Day," Off the Top of My Head

Nodding, Paul rapped Ives on the shoulder and for a moment, as they stood near the wall overlooking the river, something benevolent and fleeting passed between them but neither said a word.  Then, as they started homeward, the sky began to darken; over the river, low to the horizon, a bank of bottom-heavy clouds, shaped like a man on his back.  Later, within the hour, there would be a storm and heavy rains and hail would begin to fall.

A chance meeting between Ives and Paul, a young man who will eventually marry Ives' daughter.  But I didn't pick this passage for the interaction between Paul and Ives.  I picked this passage because of the description of weather.  The dark clouds.  Rain and hail.

It is late, and I am quite tired.  So tired, in fact, that my head is aching and I'm having trouble focusing on the computer screen.  I have been awake since 4 a.m..  It is now pushing 11 p.m.  That's close to 15 hours of work and school and whatnot.  (See, I'm so tired that I can't even remember everything I've done today.)

I am thankful for the weather today.  It was warm and sunny.  A change is coming tomorrow--rain and cold and, later in the day, snow.  I am not thrilled by that last prediction.  I was kind of hoping for a dry November.  Doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Today, however, I am thankful for warm weather.  That's about all I got tonight. 

In a few minutes, Saint Marty is going to be thankful for his bed and pillows and blankets.

How about a poem about weather...

Last Day

by:  D. H. Melhem

Behind our cabin
cloud lay on the mountain
like a gray loaf
that thunder waits
to cut.

Off the Top of My Head

October 12: Last Day, Back at It, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

Welcome to day three of the Wisconsin Dells.  My daughter is exhausted.  My son almost got us kicked out of the hotel because of an extremely loud temper tantrum he threw at midnight in our suite.  (Yes, hotel security showed up at our door.)  I have no idea how the rest of this day is going to pan out.  My sister wants to go to a fancy restaurant.  My wife wants to take a nap.  And here I sit, in the middle, trying to stop our struggling band of vacationers from killing each other.

Don't get me wrong.  It has been a really good weekend, aside from the little visit from the Kalahari version of Mall Cop Paul Blart early this morning.  And I'm sure the rest of the evening will be enjoyable, as well.  Maybe some waterpark action.  Maybe some amusement park action.  Certainly we'll watch tonight's episode of Halloween Wars on the Food Network.

Of course, in a day, I'll be back at it.  My normal existence of work and teaching and bad news followed by crisis.  However, I'm not going to think about that right now.  I prefer to focus on the present.  I'll leave the future where it belongs:  in the realm of possibilities.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty comes from the first year of this blog, when it wasn't called Saint Marty.  It was called Feasts and Famines, which sounded too much like a cooking blog.

Saint Marty is going to try to relax now.  In a day, relaxation will be a thing of memory, along with daily freedom and happiness.

October 13, 2010:  Blessed Magdalen Panattieri
 
I'm currently buried under a stack of essays I need to grade.  I'm having a hard time with them, not because they're particularly bad, but because I just can't muster up the energy to complete the task.  I've managed to correct around ten out of 50.  I try to grade in small amounts, one or two papers at a time.  Then I don't get quite so overwhelmed.  However, this time 'round, even grading one essay seems to take forever.  It's not good.  I've got four more batches of papers to get through this semester.  That's approximately 200, five-page essays.  One thousand pages of grading.  It's enough to make me want to call in sick for the next three months.

The problem, obviously, is one of motivation.  I don't feel particularly inspired as a teacher this autumn, and this attitude is spilling over into my work ethic on grading.  I don't mind going into the classroom and talking about books and writing journal entries and making insightful comments.  Yes, I can be insightful at times--just not about my own, personal issues.  I prefer denial.

I'm in this place where I don't feel a whole lot of what I'm doing makes much of a difference.  I look at a stack of ungraded essays and think, "No matter how many times I explain what a comma splice is, these people are never going to be able to write an elegant sentence."  I'm not sure if that qualifies as losing faith in humanity, but, after I correct five or six essays, I'm ready to pull a Unabomber--move to an isolated, mountain cabin and write long, rambling letters on the hopelessness of the future (minus mailing bombs to people).  If a class of 25 students can't write a simple, declarative statement and punctuate it correctly, I get a little discouraged.  And cranky.  I'm the Una-cranker.

I know it's my job to try to help my students become better writers.  But, if I'm going to be completely honest, the students who hand in an "A" paper for their first assignment end up with "A's" for the class.  The same is true for students who turn in "B" papers.  And "C" papers.  You get the idea.  Seldom do I see students who actually learn to become better writers.  I'm not sure if this fact is a reflection of me as a teacher or my students as unmotivated, lazy writers.  As a person who indulges in a great deal of guilt, I usually choose the former.  As a realist/pessimist, I sometimes opt for the latter.  Depends on the day.

I just don't feel like I make much of an impact with my teaching sometimes.  I should probably take a page out of the life of today's saint, Magdalen Panattieri.  Born in 1443 in Trino, Italy, she lived her entire life in her childhood home.  For 60 years, she prayed, ministered to children and the poor, and gave "spiritual talks to women and children and later to priests and religious as well."  She didn't do anything earth-shattering in her life--no miracles, no levitations, no multiplying of spaghetti and loaves of garlic bread.  She just did her thing, day after day.  And she obviously made some kind of impact on the world.  I mean, she's one step away from being a saint.

I wonder if anyone ever became a saint for grading freshmen composition essays.  It's not meditation or prayer.  I'm not healing a one-footed, blind leper with a stutter.  I don't have stigmata.  However, I did have a student once tell me it looked like I bled all over his paper because of the red ink.  Maybe that counts.  I'll have to contact the Vatican.

So, I guess the message today is to just keep plugging along, one fragment and run-on sentence at a time. I might be making a difference without even knowing it.

Confessions of Saint Marty

July 31: Last Day

It is the last day of July.  For some reason, I entered this month with the expectation that something big was going to happen for me.  I don't know why I had this expectation, but I did.

The "something big" could have been anything.  I applied for a job at the university.  I entered a few writing contests.  Take your pick.

Well, the university job fell through fairly early in the month, and, as July gives way to August, I think my chances of winning any of the writing contests are about as probably as E. L. James winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Not bloody likely.

Of course, this whole month of "something big" is a fabrication of my mind.  Somehow, I actually convinced myself that my life was going to change in a really positive way.  That's sort of like buying a lottery ticket and making myself believe I'm absolutely going to win.  It's delusional.  By association, I am, therefore, delusional, as well.

July is going out with a whimper instead of a roar.

And Saint Marty needs to be heavily medicated.

At least be better than July

August 13: Last Day, Poetry Book, "Carol" Dip

Today is the last day of my vacation.  I have a few things planned.  As soon as I'm done typing this post, I'm going for a run.  Then, I'm going to take my kids swimming at a local pool.  This afternoon, I'm taking my daughter to see the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie.  It's going to be a daddy-daughter date.  With lots of buttered popcorn.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time searching around for some other topic to expound upon in this post.  I do have a question for Carol dip Monday.  It's a question that's been on my mind since last Friday, when I got the news about the poetry competition.  My question for the great book of Dickens is:

Will I get my new  book of poems published this year?

And the answer from Chuck is:

My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it...

So, it's a done deal.  Scrooge's nephew Fred knows it.  The Ghost of Christmas Present knows it.

And now Saint Marty knows it, too:  my book will be published.

...at least for one more day

June 14: Neglected Grave, Mortal Coil, Last Day

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.

Most of my disciples can probably guess where this little paragraph occurs in A Christmas Carol.  It is the culmination of the visit of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.  In it, Scrooge is given the unpleasant revelation of his imminent demise.  Judging from all the evidence, Scrooge's death is fast approaching.  Not ten years down the line.  Not five years down the line.  The impression I've always gotten from reading the book is that Scrooge is going to die within a year. 

The main clues for this assumption come from the death of Tiny Tim.  The Ghost of Christmas Present predicts, "If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race...will find him here."  That means that Tiny Tim will be dead within a year.  In the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come stave, Scrooge sees Bob Cratchit mourning over his son's body.  A few scenes later, the paragraph above appears.  That means that Scrooge is already planted in the ground by the time Tiny Tim shuffles off this mortal coil.  Scrooge has less than a year to live at this point in the narrative.

I've posed this scenario to my Good Books students in the past:  if you suddenly heard God's voice in your ear, and God's voice told you, "You will die next Tuesday at 3:17 p.m. EST," what would you do?  The answer I invariably receive is not sit in a classroom with me, talking about Great Expectations or The Grapes of Wrath.  They would be out with their family or girlfriends or boyfriends.  They would spend their remaining time with their kids.  They wouldn't worry about their finances.  In fact, 100% of my students don't even mention money, unless they intend to purchase gifts for loved ones.  That last mortgage payment for J. P. Morgan Chase doesn't even make a blip on the radar.  It doesn't even make the top 100 list of things to do.

Certainly, when Scrooge is faced with the reality of his untimely end, it changes him.  Actually, it scares the shit out of him.  He can no longer go back to his old life and old habits.  He must embrace a different way of thinking and acting.  I know, if I were in the position of knowing my final dance was approaching, I wouldn't be blogging.  I wouldn't be working.  I wouldn't be doing a lot of the things I normally do every day.

That's what makes the difference for Scrooge.  It should make a difference for everybody.  There's no guarantee, when you eat that bowl of Rice Krispies this morning, that you will be around to finish off the box of Rice Krispies tomorrow.  That should make us hug our daughters a little longer.  Enjoy that Milky Way bar a little more.  Listen to those birds singing for a few extra minutes.  I know it would change my day(s) drastically.

Maybe I should live today like it is my last day.  Make choices that really count, that make me happy.

Saint Marty needs to go.  He has a family-size bag of Cheetos and a pan of brownies to eat.

Judgement Day is here.  Grab a spoon.

December 9: Abandonment Issues, Last Day, Coworker

Today is my friend/coworker's last day of working with me.  On Monday, she moves to her new department full-time, and I am, once again, the sole business office person at the surgery center.  That means I register all the patients, assemble all the charts, charge all the accounts, type up all the surgical estimates, answer all the e-mails and phone calls, take all the surgical schedulings, send everything to the medical records department, check everything back from the medical records department, and clean the business office from top-to-bottom once a week.  All with a smile.  I'm sure I've forgotten a few tasks, but that gives you a pretty good idea of my days.  Oh, plus I have teaching at the university (which I actually love doing, but it's not enough to pay all my bills or provide medical insurance for my family).

I don't hold it against my coworker that she's leaving.  She needs to.  She has to pay her bills and provide for her family.  She didn't have a choice, and my rational mind understands that.

However, there's a part of me (a really ugly, snotty, tubercular part) that is feeling panicked and abandoned.  I've been fighting these abandonment issues for a few years now.  I know it goes back to the time my wife chose her addictions over me and our family.  When that happened, I was in a pretty dark place for a very long time (almost a year-and-a-half).  Not feeling worthy or loved in any way.  I can feel those same emotions sitting in my head this morning.  I don't want to feel this way, but I do.  It cuts pretty close to the bone for me.

Now, I can hear a ton of you saying, "Oh, for Christ sake, get over it."  I've said the same thing to myself a million times.  However, it's just not that easy.  Even though I know my wife's choice five years ago had nothing to do with me, I still felt somehow responsible, as if I could have done something to prevent her from leaving at the time.  My friend/coworker leaving today has nothing to do with me, and, yet, I still take it personally.

Abandonment is not an easy thing to overcome, no matter what age you are.  I don't think I'm going to be able to say goodbye to my friend when I leave work this afternoon.  I'm probably going to have to say "see you on Monday," just to stay in a better place for a while longer.

Parting is never easy.  Saying goodbye sucks.

Once again, Saint Marty is just a mess.