Gift poem – Alice Notley

Nothing will hurt you that much despite how you feel

the stress on your back shapes your insight

this splendid November rain Toussaint. I find

you by your marks, he says

an imprint

But when I summon you, I talk to—I say—

my memory of your face. It’s kind of crazy

to others. They’re not very interesting he says.

When I first came to this country, and now

I know the language I say, but I had in a dream

spoken it many years previously. That is,

not the language of the dead the language

of France. I took one year of French in 1964

and then nothing but once, in 1977 I spoke French

in a dream all night: I was in the future I

moved here in 1992. Country of the more

logical than I? though the people of my quartier

know and like me, even as I a foreigner remain strange

You do everything alone a woman said to me.

There are ways to care without interfering

but the French speak of anguish frequently

they are conscious of emotional extremity

a terrible gift. It’s all a gift, he says . . .

some haven’t been opened. I’m not sure

he said that it’s nearly my sixty-seventh birthday

today though it’s the day of the dead hello

we love you they say.

Copyright ©: 
Alice Notley

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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-infernal-regions.html by Aaron Baker
• honeycomb.html by Aaron Baker
• Dark Matter by Aaron Baker by Aaron Baker
• polyphony_in_a_cathedral.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• one_almost_might.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• nursery_rhyme_for_a_twenty_first_birthday.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• Not Love Perhaps by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• night_piece.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• never.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• music.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• meeting.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• last_word_to_childhood.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• june_sick_room.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• houses.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• flight_of_stairs.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• epitaph_on_a_disturber_of_his_times.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• Epitaph for Our Children by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• empty_room.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• earthfast.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• don_juan.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works