Poem of the Day
Study of Children
By Asha Futterman
did you know
that you all work for me?
I asked them as a joke
did you know
that you all work for me?
I asked them as a joke
The Lion sleeps with open eyes
That none may take him by surprise.
The Son of God he signifies
In a prominent bar in Secaucus one day
Rose a lady in skunk with a top heavy sway,
Raised a knobby red finger—all turned from their beer—
Though it is not our right to claim that the poets represented in the following portfolio would have remained in dark unfathomed caves of ocean had it not been for The Paris Review, surely all are among those writers whom this magazine has helped make known.
Three hot-eyed kids hard on a fix’s heels.
Enraged that the cash he had on him was small,
Did in James Edmondson, famed vaudeville’s
The apparition of these faces in the bough;
Crowds on a wet, black petal.
The apparition of these boughs in the face;
Crowds on a wet, black petal.
The Venetian Republic regarded the art of mirror-making as a state secret, to be conserved by any sanction necessary, including the most extreme.
•
Scuola Veneziana, copia di un alfresco perduto, secolo
I got this from a man on the street
in Richmond, circa 1964, who
offered me an easy job in his hotel
I sit by the window all morning
watching the planes make final approaches.
Each of them gathers and steadies itself
Now the Bluejay comes in
for a landing, like a SAC bomber
after a day of patrolling the ozone,
She looks pretty. She always dresses up when she goes downtown.