M Christine Delea's Blog, page 20

Her Perfect Dad by Kathleen Aguero

Her Perfect Dad

by Kathleen Aguero

(published in her 2013 book, after that, Tiger Bark Press)

I'm Carson Drew.

I disappear,

don't interfere,

in court all day.

I won't take pages

to explain:

I've got no wife.

A discreet sex life.

Reasonable.

Manageable.

Any danger,

all adventure,

I approve.

Every girl

wants a dad

like me. I buy the car.

She drives.

YA: Prompt

What are your favorite YA books from when you were young?

Nancy Drew? Darius the Great Is Not Okay? The Poet X? Anne of Green Gables? Lord of the Flies? Tuck Everlasting? Holes? The Hunger Games? The Outsiders? Code Talker? The Crossover? Lisa Bright and Dark? To All the Boys I've Loved Before? Stamped? The Hardy Boys? Beasts of Prey? Me and Earl and the Dying Girl? Like a Love Story? Say What You Will? From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler? Forever? Last Night at the Telegraph ...

Seeing the Eclipse in Maine by Robert Bly

Seeing the Eclipse in Maine

by Robert Bly

(published in 1997, and here)

It started about noon. On top of Mount Batte,

We were all exclaiming. Someone had a cardboard

And a pin, and we all cried out when the sun

Appeared in tiny form on the notebook cover.

It was hard to believe. The high school teacher

We'd met called it a pinhole camera,

People in the Renaissance loved to do that.

And when the moon had passed partly through

We saw on a rock underneath a fir tree,

Dozens of crescents-made ...

Path of Totality by Niina Pollari

Path of Totality

by Niina Pollari

(published in her 2022 book, Path of Totality, by Soft Skull Press)

Something set you into motion. A chain of events. Rain

falling into a series of cups on a chain, then into a small yard

where a small ecosystem drinks it.

Something set you into motion. The love I felt for your father

when we drive past the mountain house and snapped a few

blurred pictures. We talked about the house the whole drive

back to New York. The house, a few weeks later, belonged to...

Path of Totality: Prompt

First, please read Niina Pollari's stunning poem that is posted on my blog today. Then go buy her book. Then come back here and do this prompt.

I could not NOT post this poem this week, given our current eclipse fever. And although Pollari's poem features an eclipse in her poem, the piece itself is not actually about an eclipse. And the title of the poem, which is also the title of the book in which this poem appears, means So Much More in both the poem and the book as a whole.

Your prompt fo...

A Blessing by James Wright

A Blessing

by James Wright

(published in Above the River: The Complete Poems)

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness   

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet s...

Ballad by Sonia Sanchez

Ballad

by Sonia Sanchez

(published in her 2007 book, Homegirls & Handgrenades, White Pine Press)

    (after the spanish)

forgive me if i laugh

you are so sure of love

you are so young

and i too old to learn of love.

the rain exploding

in the air is love

the grass excreting her

green wax is love

and stones remembering

past steps is love,

but you. you are too young

for love

and i too old.

once. what does it matter

when or who, i knew

of love.

i fixed my body

under his and went

to sleep in ...

Good Morning, Starshine--The Earth Says Hello

There are so many upcoming celestial events!

A total solar eclipse on April 8. Saturn and Mars will appear very close together in the sky. On April 11, the planet Mercury passes between Earth and the Sun. From April 16 through the 25, the Lyrids meteor shower will blaze through the sky. The Eta Aquarid meteor shower, with its peak on May 6, runs from April 15 through May 27. On April 23, you can catch the Full Pink Moon. Some of the constellations that will be visible throughout the month inc...

Girl Scouts Visit the FBI, circa 1975 by Jane Satterfield

Girl Scouts Visit the FBI, circa 1975

by Jane Satterfield

(published in The Common, Issue 3, 2012)

Fox’s series the X-Files starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully

Lights fade on this snow-erased suburban street as our screen flickers with roadside

bombs & body count. News is another stalled front,

a season past its prime. The house rattles with gale-force winds & Doppler radar

promises more. In this late hour, wisdom’s

an X-Files rerun...

Can You Really Get By on Three Chords and the Truth? by Ace Boggess

Can You Really Get By on Three Chords and the Truth?

by Ace Boggess

(published in Jenny, Issue 015, Fall 2018)

I like to think of the Ramones as the Schopenhauer of punk

in dirt of the psyche boldly shouting about wanting

to be sedated, sniff some glue, be somebody’s boyfriend.

Theirs was the fatalistic music of half-believing,

self-entrenchment of a kind that would’ve inspired Dostoevsky

to dance or pound his rugged fist in the air. Of course,

Joey Ramone couldn’t be called an attractive ma...