Poem of the Day
Yellow Striped Pajamas
By Shamsher Bahadur Singh
walking silently on his paws, he emerges from the semidarkness and disappears into it.
walking silently on his paws, he emerges from the semidarkness and disappears into it.
A hears by chance a familiar name, and the name solves a
riddle of the past.
B, in love with A, receives an unsigned letter in which the
Privileges of Travel
You can’t forget you purchased it;
this private tour moves you
Sad always, always sad
At Passover, at picnics, at the zoo
Sad as you soaped me in the bath
The sore trees cast their leaves
too early. Each twig pinching
shut like a jabbed clam.
Soon there will be a hot gauze of snow
How quickly we’re skimming through time,
leaving behind us
a trail of muffin crumbs
and wet towels and hotel soaps
like white stones in the forest.
But something’s eroded them:
we can’t trace them back
to that meadow where we began so eagerly
with the berry-filled cups, and the parents
who had not yet abandoned us
to take their chances in the ground.
I do not do well without my chattel.
I do not do well without doing what I will with my chattel.
My chattel my bodies my buildings my land.
From the sky to the heavens’ heavens
From the heavens’ heavens to the darkness on high
From the darkness on high to the upper dwelling
I will go rent a U-Haul, and move to Hackensack,
And a cheap condo buy there, the driveway freshly tarred,
Hard by the Jersey turnpike, a swingset in the back,
I knew a girl who also had a ghost
living in her mouth-what we called dumb
Claude, be still, light
is what you're seeing now:
the moon contained in dusk,