M Christine Delea's Blog, page 49

The Tool Shed by Kasey Jueds

The Tool Shed

by Kasey Jueds

published in Superstition Review

How can I explain the way

I kept coming back—to that box

of trapped shadows with its concrete

floor, its constant chill even

on the most blazing August days. To

the stacked cans of paint with their stuck-shut lids

like the eyes of animals burrowed

in the farthest reach of forest. To the locked-in

air trembling, dense with the chemicals

that fumed from ancient bottles of pesticides & herbicides

lining the cinderblock walls, e...

The Heat Is On: Poetry Prompt

With climate change making our weather less hospitable and a heat wave roasting much of the planet, heat is on my mind. And it is the focus of this week's writing prompt.

Write about heat in any of its forms/meanings; below are some suggestions to get you started.

heat, as in passion

Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago by Eric Klinenberg

heat and some of its slant and near rhymes: heart, hear, hare, head, heaven, heavy, heal,

heap, heath, heave, health, hearse

"Heat Wave" by Ma...

Four Definitions For the Use of Time by Carolyn Moore

Four Definitions For the Use of Time

by Carolyn Moore

published in Cider Press Review

1

Your book club neighbor chats across the fence

of marginalia you’d feel rude to halt.

You’re late for the doctor’s bad news redefining

late as good. (Here, time as minutes saved

before the clock’s face and hands tic with fear.)

2

Our dead forget all of their favorite colors

but not how we felt when our red wine stained

their table’s open grain. (Time as rebuke,

selective as trout hungry for nymphs,

a...

Moths & Origami Children by Ojo Taiye

Moths & Origami Children

by Ojo Taiye

published in Whale Road Review, Winter 2018

i taste my mother’s sicknessin my mouth & analyzethe spittle: (grief lies foldedin a woman’s hand)what we’ve left behindcan be disturbing can i touch your throat?a pile of daylight composedof many meaningsnames emerge from the centreof each thing love. butterfly fields of daisies. mother blood. moths are burning mid-flight &...

Master of Disaster: Poetry Prompt

Disasters happen daily, but unless they are especially horrific, international, or deadly, we might not hear about them. In our online world, we can certainly find out about disasters that happen on "smaller scales" elsewhere in the world, or past disasters that may be largely forgotten these days.

Choose a disaster from the list below (or use as inspiration one you know about) and write a poem about it. There are many choices as far as perspective--someone who survived but was a victim, a firs...

The Man-Moth by Elizabeth Bishop

The Man Moth

by Elizabeth Bishop

published in The Complete Poems, 1926-1979

Man-Moth: Newspaper misprint for “mammoth.”Here, above,cracks in the buildings are filled with battered moonlight.The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.It lies at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on,and he makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon.He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties,feeling the queer light on his hands, neither warm nor cold,o...

The Empty Pool by Sue Ellen Thompson

The Empty Pool

by Sue Ellen Thompson

published in The Summerset Review, Spring 2010

This is the place where my sisters and I

lay all afternoon on plastic rafts,

too listless to shift our weight

or direct our idle drifting. At the click

of the gate, we'd lift our heads

as if from our sickbeds, and there

our mother would be: white shorts,

white shirt, hair fading to gray,

with a tray of cold drinks and sandwiches.

This is the place where, on a hot June day

five summers ago, I pulled myself

fr...

Who Do You Love?: Poetry Prompt

Today's poem on my blog is called "Love Poem," but it is not a Hallmark card sentiment. No cliche images of hearts, no angsty desires with sighs, no moon-June-tune. Rather, there are surprising words and images, all in ten lines. A love poem with words like contract, tiller, pairing, ochre, clamor, ice-dark, drift, exchange--lots of hard sounds, and nothing typical or expected. But the feeling is there.

For this week's prompt, write a ten line poem (or a ten sentence micro story or a ten paragr...

Love Poem by Margot Wizansky

Love Powm

by Margot Wizansky

published in Poetry East, 2004

All winter you contract--

one tiller, one boat, one bay,

one light that shows no nuance.

You need this paring down.

In these small hills gone ochre,

think of me. Hold a deep regard

for yourself; resist the ice-dark

clamor of your soul.

Drift can take you.

Love is a fair exchange.

Good Fences by Dana Sonnenschein

Good FencesWolf Conservation Center, NY

by Dana Sonnenschein

published in Kosmos Journal

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall— I’ve seen the wolves here leap and climb chain-link and claw dirt down to buried steel and stone. But in this artificial wilderness with acres for each pack and roadkill deer shared out, no one fights for new turf or old. So those who might have died by bite and slash live long enough to watch neighbors raise pups beneath New England oak and hickory...