Poem of the Day
1981
By Asiya Wadud
in a world the orange sun resets
in a world the orange sun resets
I came from life from living I arrived
Nowhere in the midst of God in the midst of God
God is a city in which no one has ever lived
So quick were the men to agree to circumcision.
They all stumbled around the city for days.
Then my brothers killed them. Bless their rampaging
sal salt-torn and and split salzgeriss rissen
the limbmap of me li lifted
ju juniper bud risen salthead
he unsung me from sound scattered bright my red eye eyes unhooked now from the circle of cedar pine cedar silver the beetles went went silent then stonebite one bite burst the rhythm of the sky of a field of of air electric
Who would have thought—too much simultaneity:
The Swan Planters hovering above the windbeaten
Statue of the Virgin Mary who casts her gaze down
I swipe myself again in my rawest spot, my logical dyslexia. I cannot shape up
to formal reasoning any more than I can cope with the tax year.
As, many times, motive is inaccessible, must we get used to the art of the
plausible, and let live? And thrive as prats do on chat shows, toasting
each other in bat juice, and coasting?
Why such irony in re the mystical context when a graph of even the most commonplace exchange would appear perplexed; when we drop out from the plainest statement in the posture of a bat?
Because cemeteries are too pricey
I would like to be deposited on a public bench
and not in the earth
You must rock your pain in your arms
until it’s asleep, then leave it
in a darkened room