Poem of the Day
1981
By Asiya Wadud
in a world the orange sun resets
in a world the orange sun resets
It was deja vu all over again.
I know this town like the back of my head.
People who live in glass houses are worth two in the bush.
Although I was tenacious, I never learned
the wisdom and will of tenacity;
Although I was persistent, and praised for persistence,
From its crane arm, the massive klieg lamp cast
a notice to the church's tile roof.
The brownstone block with its plywood eyelids
Beautiful little bitch
with your fine bones,
thin and sweet ears,
You call out to the one who walks on castle walls,
wakening the storm lashing trees
to spell the stone steps of a night's curse,
The chopping of the chocolate, the zesting of the orange,
the scalding of the milk,
the pouring of the cream, the folding-in,
Vienna revolts outside; in,
an addict is bent
over everything ever written on dreams
an excert from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure
Not too old, not young anymore,
almost three dozen years gone by.
Not a failure, not a success—
Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises. Vol. 2 (1683–84), the first known manual of printing
i.
J. M. begins his book,
Every thought taken up from the block with a roll
Of the ball and inked on the form,
A Craft of the Hand which cannot be taught by Words:
“I thought to have given these Exercises
The title of Doctrine of Handy-Crafts but when I considered
The true meaning of the word I found the Doctrine
Would not bear it, therefore I shall not undertake