M Christine Delea's Blog

Bars Fight by Lucy Terry Prince August, twas the twenty-fifth, Seventeen houndred forty-six, The Indians did in ambush lay, Some very valiant men to slay Twas nigh unto Sam Dickinson's mill, The Indians there five men did kill. The names of whom I'll not leave out, Samuel Allen like a hero foute, And though he was so brave and bold, His face no more shall we behold. Eleazer Hawks was killed outright, Before he had time to fight, Before he did the Indians see, Was shot and killed immediately.......

Duplex by Jericho Brown A poem is a gesture toward home. 
It makes dark demands I call my own.                Memory makes demands darker than my own:
               My last love drove a burgundy car. My first love drove a burgundy car.
 He was fast and awful, tall as my father.                Steadfast and awful, my tall father
              Hit hard as a hailstorm. He’d leave marks. Light rain hits easy but leaves its own mark 
Like the sound of a mother weeping again....

The Carousel by G.C. Oden I turned from side to side, from image to image to put you down.—Louise Bogan An empty carousel in a deserted park rides me round and round, ’forth and back, from end to beginning, like the tail that drives the dog. I cannot see: sight focusses shadow where once pleased scenery, and in this whirl of space only the indefinite is constant. This is the way of grief: spinning in the rhythm of memories that will not let you up or down, but keeps you grinding through a...

In the Dream by Natalie Korman Everything seems whole and completely formed. Like a Hollywood movie, you don’t know what they leave out. It looks like it’s all there on the screen. Charismatic performers, fire, time travel, celebrity, humiliation, glory. Some of them are classics: I have to take a test I have not studied for.  Or the house I grew up in has been bulldozed. The dead visit me with notable frequency. Sometimes I am in control and mostly I am not. I am naked and ashamed, but then......

Etymological Dirge  by Heather McHugh           'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear.   Calm comes from burning. Tall comes from fast. Comely doesn't come from come. Person comes from mask.   The kin of charity is whore, the root of charity is dear. Incentive has its source in song and winning in the sufferer.   Afford yourself what you can carry out. A coward and a coda share a word. We get our ugliness from fear. We get our danger from the lord. I cannot believe that I never posted...

November by Jun Fujita On a pale sandhill A bare tree stands; The death-wind Has snatched the last few leaves. A Leaf by Jun Fujita The November sky without a star Droops low over the midnight street; On the pale pavement, cautiously A leaf moves. These poems appeared in the June 1921 issue of Poetry . From the Academy of American Poets: " The tanka is a thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken line. A form of  waka , Japanese song or verse, tanka translates as...

Lessons by Pat Schneider I have learned that life goes on, or doesn't. That days are measured out in tiny increments as a woman in a kitchen measures teaspoons of cinnamon, vanilla, or half a cup of sugar into a bowl. I have learned
 that moments are as precious as nutmeg,
 and it has occurred to me 
that busy interruptions 
are like tiny grain moths, 
or mice.
 They nibble, pee, and poop,
 or make their little worms and webs 
until you have to throw out the good stuff 
with the bad. It took......

Harlan County, USA (2019) by Pauletta Hansel Maybe it is a revelation to you, but miners know how to stop a train. Maybe you think that love of coal means love of the company. Let me tell you what we love about coal. It’s the paycheck. The one we don’t have. It’s the food that’s not on the table, the new backpack that won’t be on his back, my boy’s first day of school. The doctor his granny won’t be seeing for her heart. Remember, we’re used to the dark. We can see inside your pockets lined...

Dancing with Poets by Ellen Bryant Voight "The accident" is what he calls the time he threw himself from a window four floors up, breaking his back and both ankles, so that walking became the direst labor for this man who takes my hand, invites me to the empty strip of floor that fronts the instruments, a length of polished wood the shape of a grave. Unsuited for this world-- his body bears the marks of it, his hand is tense with effort and with shame, and I shy away from any audience, but I......

Autumn Leaves by Marilyn Chin The dead piled up, thick, fragrant, on the fire escape. My mother ordered me again, and again, to sweep it clean. All that blooms must fall. I learned this not from the Tao,     but from high school biology. Oh, the contradictions of having a broom and not a dustpan! I swept the leaves down, down through the iron grille and let the dead rain over the Wong family’s patio. And it was Achilles Wong who completed the task.     We called her:...