Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.
Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

A few random poems:
- Cain and Abel by Rudyard Kipling
- The Ghost by Walter de la Mare
- Landscapes poem – Andree Chedid poems | Poems and Poetry
- Books And Thoughts
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мы просто куклы
- Cabbage
- Ольга Берггольц – Какая тёмная зима
- Aliter poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- VII: Some Verses: On The Death of John Murray by William Alexander
- Алишер Навои – Если б был я быстрым ветром
- The Sun Of The First Day by Rabindranath Tagore
- In An Underground Dressing Station by Siegfried Sassoon
- Who is at my door? by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Orlando Furioso Canto 3 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Константин Ваншенкин – Ехал я в штабном автомобиле
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- The Campera, the Foreigner y el Novio by Marjorie Kanter
- The Boy by Marilyn Hacker
- The Aegean by Maria Luisa Spaziani
- The Gate by Marie Howe
- The Copper Beech by Marie Howe
- Synchronicity by Marina Cecilia Kohon
- Subjective Genocide by Marie Starr
- Subject to Change by Marilyn L. Taylor
- Spenser’s Ireland by Marianne Moore
- Song by Margaret Widdemer
- Silence by Marianne Moore
- Scars on Paper by Marilyn Hacker
- Rosemary by Marianne Moore
- Release by Marie Starr
- Reading Runes by Marina Cecilia Kohon
- Portrait in Black and White by Marjorie Kanter
- Poetry by Marianne Moore
- Peter by Marianne Moore
- Passion by Sera Jacob
- Paragraphs from a Day-Book by Marilyn Hacker
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works