by Ai
We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don’t tell me, I say. I don’t want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that’s where I’m floating,
and that’s what it’s like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?
A few random poems:
- The Old House poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Tony Harrison – Tony Harrison
- Robert Burns: What Can A Young Lassie Do Wi’ An Auld Man:
- A Song at Cock-Crow by Rudyard Kipling
- Николай Огарев – Выпьем, что ли, Ваня
- Robert Burns: Behold The Hour, The Boat Arrive:
- A Man Young And Old: IX. The Secrets Of The Old by William Butler Yeats
- Malmaison poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- States! by Walt Whitman
- Mozart’s Grave poem – Alfred Austin
- Not Goo Hwome To-Night by William Barnes
- My Song by Rabindranath Tagore
- Иван Варавва – Мать Кубань
- Irish Love Song by Margaret Widdemer
- Вероника Тушнова – Знаешь ли ты, что такое горе
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
- In spring and summer winds may blow by Walter Savage Landor
- Death Stands Above Me, Whispering Low by Walter Savage Landor
- Proud Word You Never Spoke by Walter Savage Landor
- God Scatters Beauty by Walter Savage Landor
- Remain! by Walter Savage Landor
- I Strove with None by Walter Savage Landor
- Absence by Walter Savage Landor
- Dirce by Walter Savage Landor
- Autumn by Walter Savage Landor
- On His Seventy-fifth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor
- On His Eightieth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor
- Lately our poets by Walter Savage Landor
- Ianthe’s Question by Walter Savage Landor
- F?sulan Idyl by Walter Savage Landor
- Finis by Walter Savage Landor
- Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher by Walter Savage Landor
- Alciphron and Leucippe by Walter Savage Landor
- Acon and Rhodope by Walter Savage Landor
- Morning Poem #59 by Wanda Phipps
- Morning Poem #43 by Wanda Phipps
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
