Poem of the Day
1981
By Asiya Wadud
in a world the orange sun resets
in a world the orange sun resets
A Narrator will read the numbers and text aloud starting with this statement:
The city sleeps with the lights on.
The insomniac wants it to be morning.
The quadruple amputee asks the night nurse what time it is.
I wear a suicide belt I detonate
And make my City of Light
A coprophagic tomb.
I turn into the man they photograph.
I think I’ll ask him for his autograph.
He’s older than I am and more distinguished.
You wonder who in the world are the people who actually use stool cards.
They’re the very same scum who sell drugs to little kids in school yards.
The doctor tells you do this, do that.
Putting my lenses in, I see No Man’s Land in the mirror—
Which makes me think of times in Tokyo so long ago
When, on some subway station platform, in a crowd,
I was walking down Roupell Street,
Avoiding all the drunks.
I live in a little house
Snow is falling on Broadway
Through weeping willows of fog.
I know that my Redeemer liveth
You’re born that way—or else you’re not.
It’s snowing—or else it’s hot.
It’s like the strangeness, that’s also natural,
You wait forever till you can’t wait any longer—
And then you’re born.
Somebody is pointing something out