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.
Poetry: S-U
Adam Reads The Guide to Western Birds
By Patty Seyburn
Once again I’m caught assuming
human privilege, as if only our parts merit names.
We are mere givers of names.
California Demotic
By Patty Seyburn
The first word I loved was crepusculo.
How long it took, one u mimicking the other,
volleyed in the syllables’ canyon.
Divided
By Patty Seyburn
It is hard to explain the light here,
earnest and aerobic light,
not the complacent kind.
Sorority
By Patty Seyburn
Naomi said, Go home girls, I'm cursed,
and we clutched, cried No! No!
the proper length of time. Then
The Alphabetizer Speaks
By Patty Seyburn
have never known starvation nor plenitude
and unless the order of the world
changes, I won’t.
Where Were You, Nymphs?
By Patty Seyburn
Where were you, nymphs,
when I was learning to apply
the proper plaster of Paris and papier-mâché
“Where there is rejoicing, there should be trembling.”
By Patty Seyburn
Let the glass we smash be doubt,
the wine free will,
the bouquet, a mosaic of mercies.
“… And all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.”
By Patty Seyburn
At my wedding, my father, ten years dead,
practices what Isaac Babel called
the “genre of silence”—that is,
“… Both to men and to women, to every one a cake of bread, and a cake made in a pan, and a sweet cake.”
By Patty Seyburn
Climb down, said the angel of the Lord
in banquet-waitress raiment (black skirt, white shirt)
to the plastic pair.
Present Moment
By Charif Shanahan
All day I think about what to do with the day.
I walk down the street for a coffee and to think
About what to do after that.