M Christine Delea's Blog, page 23

The Lion by Conrad Aiken

The Lion

by Conrad Aiken

The lion is a lordly thing

and rightly of the beasts called King

o yes indeed the King of Beasts

just so it’s not on us he feasts

those golden eyes

how piercing wise

those powerful paws

those cutting claws

and o those mighty jaws

these are enough and more

even without a roar

to give us pause.

Those claws can rip a plank right through

those jaws can chew

a bone in two

he is a fearful sight

by day or night

of might.

But let’s remember too

he has a beauty unsurpassed

see ...

Theme for English B by Langston Hughes

Theme for English B

by Langston Hughes

The instructor said,

      Go home and write

      a page tonight.

      And let that page come out of you—

      Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it’s that simple?

I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.   

I went to school there, then Durham, then here   

to this college on the hill above Harlem.   

I am the only colored student in my class.   

The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,   

through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,   

E...

A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You: Prompt

If you'd like to hear the song that goes along with today's prompt title (The Monkees' "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You"), click here.

Okay, now re-read this small passage from Langston Hughes' poem "Theme for English B."

"yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.

That’s American.

Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.   

Nor do I often want to be a part of you.

But we are, that’s true!"

There is a lot going on in Hughes' poem, and what you take away from this section is but a...

Art Thief by Neal Bowers

Art Thief

by Neal Bowers

(published in his 1997 book, Words for the Taking: The Hunt for a Plagiaris,

W.W. Norton)

All art defines itself

by what's left out:

the city in Gauguin's paradise,

corners in Henry Moore.

Think of Renoir's vase

filled with chrysanthemums,

how the room has disappeared,

the tabletop itself barely a suggestion.

My technique perfects such absences.

It's what astonishes:

the empty hook, the blank place

on the wall, the vacant pedestal.

I leave behind the plaque

to...

With Emma at the Ladies-Only Swimming Pond on Hampstead Heath by Linda Gregerson

With Emma at the Ladies-Only Swimming Pond on Hampstead Heath

by Linda Gregerson

(published in her 1996 book, The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep,

Houghton Mifflin Company)

In payment for those mornings at the mirror while,

                        at her

            expense, I’d started my late learning in Applied

French Braids, for all

                        the mornings afterward of Hush

            and Just stand still,

to make some small amends for every reg-

                        i...

Growing Up: Prompt

Linda Gregerson's wonderful poem, "With Emma at the Ladies-Only Swimming Pond on Hampstead Heath," is today's poem on my blog.

It is a moving look at motherhood, a lyric moment of being in the present and--knowing things will change--wanting to stay there. Anyone who has a strong bond with a child or a parent will read this poem and think, "Oh! I have a new favorite poem!"

Gregerson's poem is the basis of this prompt. Picture a perfect moment with your child or when you were a child with a pa...

Homecoming Tallahassee by Kavita Gandhi

Homecoming Tallahassee

by Kavita Gandhi

(published in The Loch Raven Review, Winter 2009)

We passed into the city

like sterile vessels

aching under the 3 o’clock hour.

Our eyes staggered through

the epileptic cop car lights,

picking still freeze scenes

from the festival blur.

Loud rice cake voices, singing blandly,

motored by, while bass-lines

bucked the soft, dark fat

of the night’s underbelly.

The town was an echo

of beastly thundering.

Alley cat eyes prowled

in aimless acquisition.

Traffi...

Theory I’m Conspiring to Share by Kristin Berger

Theory I’m Conspiring to Share

by Kristin Berger

  (published in her 2022 book, Earthwork, published by The Poetry Box Press)

Love is truth. The heart is a muscle. Children flex it

without thought from birth. They swell with this knowledge.

Kindness is not fake. After a hurricane, first responders

don’t ask anyone’s political party, or ask for documentation,

not even your name, only Can you hear me? We are here!

We become leveled down to bare bones, humanity on the shore

like a strange, day-...

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Creative Prompt

Kristin Berger's poem posted today here on this blog--which you should go and read now!--starts with the sentence "Love is truth." Throughout the poem, she defines love as a variety of things, and contrasts it to fear. It is a beautiful, uplifting poem, and it is the basis of this week's prompt.

I would like you to do a few things that Berger does. Define a positive intangible--such as love, hope, or generosity--multiple ways in your piece. You can start with another tangible, (Love is truth.) ...

Sparus by Tolu Oloruntoba

Sparus                                                                                                                 

  by Tolu Oloruntoba

for Anthony Bourdain

(published in Under a Warm Green Linden, Issue 6, 2018)

This neural mesh, the coral brain of sads, knows

when another of us is sunk. Some speak of Grey Goo,

the mitotic mush that will eat the world. It already

has, and the Sertraline suds of our sewers

have not washed away

the denticulate scum, the flocculant armor, the rafted ...