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.
You said you don’t want to know any more
than you do now, of every thing that might be
a person. It would be cheating. That is urgent.
The beach is a balance oscillating
in the sunlight, it is a see-saw
our town gleams on.
As an archaeologist unearths a mask with opercular teeth
and abalone eyes, someone throws a broken fan and extension cords
into a dumpster. A point of coincidence exists in the mind
In Regent’s Park the cleanup’s incomplete.
Though weeks have passed, it seems it’s still occurring.
You drive. We talk. Ambition is a theme.
All this happened when I was young:
I stopped knowing anybody. I waited for somebody to know me. I knew most of my strangers in depth; acquaintanceship stifled this; strangeness had to be the bond. Maybe I was too small to be seen.
Another fall dusk and I was out
with my son to pick up
the fallen walnuts, holding them to
There are many facts in the world.
Most are passengers, but some
Drive the car.
Field is frozen, it doesn’t move
even as snow starts to cover it.
Nothing grows there.
I saw my name in print the other day
with 1932 and then a blank
and knew that even now some grassy bank
That summer the sand rusted,
The twigs cracked more easily. A worker was sent for
To carry away broken pipes and in their place put