M Christine Delea's Blog, page 22

Chimera by Vievee Francis

Chimera

by Vievee Francis

(published in her 2016 book from TriQuarterly Books, Forest Primeval)

She's not "maternal," she's dangerous.

                       —Jamaal May

I have no charms. Admittedly.

No gold comb can move through

This mane. My skin is not translucent.

Mine is a tail to fear. I know.

And though a mother may destroy,

She too sees fit to create beauty

That would eventually grow into forms

I would swallow if I gave in

To my hungers. But, up from my wounds—

From this goat's body...

Before We Photographed Every Little Thing

we only took pictures of special events. Film was expensive and getting photos developed was even more costly. And we got charged for every photo that was printed--the blurry one, the one of my finger accidentally in the shot, the one that went diagonal, etc.

If I sound like I am bemoaning the past, I am not. Things change.

But we are going to focus on photographs in this week's prompt, as did Judith McCombs in her poem "Advice to the Photographers of Atrocities" which I posted on my blog toda...

Advice to the Photographers of Atrocities by Judith McCombs

Advice to the Photographers of Atrocities

by Judith McCombs

(published in The Anthology of Women Poets, 1973, edited by Pamela Victorine,

Dremen Press; originally published in The Carolina Quarterly)

There is a problem of number.

You must not show us

A fieldful of victims

They will look like clothing,

Or abandoned wreckage,

We will not react.

Too many bodies

Are cordwood, numerals

Irrelevant similes.

There is a problem of distance.

In the far, clean air

Overkill has its beauty,

Symmetry...

Poem for My Love by June Jordan

Poem for My Love

by June Jordan

(published in the 2005 collection, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan)

How do we come to be here next to each other   

in the night

Where are the stars that show us to our love   

inevitable

Outside the leaves flame usual in darkness   

and the rain

falls cool and blessed on the holy flesh   

the black men waiting on the corner for   

a womanly mirage

I am amazed by peace

It is this possibility of you

asleep

and breathing in the quiet ai...

Above and Below: Creative Prompt

Maybe it's because I posted a poem about submarine warfare. Or maybe because I always long for the ocean. It could be because I just finished reading a wonderful book by Rebecca Boyle, Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are, and that, I think, is what caused my two most recent poems to be about celestial events.

But you don't necessarily want to know where I get my inspiration for prompts, right?

So let's get to it!

For thi...

Life on a Killer Submarine by Jimmy Carter

Life on a Killer Submarine

by President Jimmy Carter

(published in North Dakota Quarterly, 60:1, 1992)

I had a warm, sequestered feeling

deep beneath the sea,

moving silently, assessing

what we heard from far away

because we ran so quietly ourselves,

walking always in our stocking feet.

We'd often hear the wild sea sounds.

the scratch of shrimp, the bowhead's moan,

the tantalizing songs of humpback whales.

We strained to hear all other things

letting ocean lenses bring to us

the pulse of scr...

Ode to the Maggot by Yusef Komunyakaa

Ode to the Maggot

By Yusef Komunyakaa

(Published in his 2021 book, Every Day Mojo Songs of Earth;

Farrah, Straus and Giroux)

Brother of the blowfly

And godhead, you work magic

Over battlefields,

In slabs of bad pork

And flophouses. Yes, you

Go to the root of all things.

You are sound & mathematical.

Jesus, Christ, you're merciless

With the truth. Ontological & lustrous,

You cast spells on beggars & kings

Behind the stone door of Caesar's to...

Ode to the Maggit by Yusef Komunyakaa

Ode to the Maggot

By Yusef Komunyakaa

(Published in his 2021 book, Every Day

Mojo Songs of Earth; Farrah, Straus and

Giroux)

Brother of the blowfly

And godhead, you work magic

Over battlefields,

In slabs of bad pork

And flophouses. Yes, you

Go to the root of all things.

You are sound & mathematical.

Jesus, Christ, you're merciless

With the truth. Ontological & lustrous,

You cast spells on beggars & kings

Behind the stone door of C...

Comfort Sounds: Prompt

"The Saturday Afternoon Blues" is one of my favorite (maybe even my favorite) Wanda Coleman poems, in large part because of the sounds in the poem: rhyme and repetition add a strong musical quality. Read it here.

For this prompt, I would like you to think about sound in a different way. Of course, you are free to emulate (if you are writing a poem) Coleman's expert sound play.

The main point of this prompt is to think of a sound that, whenever you hear it, immediately takes you back to the pas...

The Saturday Afternoon Blues by Wanda Coleman

The Saturday Afternoon Blues

by Wanda Coleman

(published in her book, Imagoes, 1983, Black Sparrow Press)

Can kill you

can fade your life away

friends are all out shopping

ain't nobody home

suicide hotline is busy

and here i am on my own

with a pill and a bottle for company

and heart full of been done wrong

i'm a candidate for the coroner, a lyric for a song

saturday afternoons are killers

when the air is brisk and warm

ol' sun he steady whispers

soon the life you know will be d...