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

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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 Birch-Tree at Loschwitz poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• Straw in the Street poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• Sonnet poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• Sinfonia Eroica poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• Run to Death poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• Ralph to Mary poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• Philosophy poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• Out of Town poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• On the Wye in May poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• On the Threshold poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• Oh, Is It Love? poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• New Love, New Life poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• Magdalen poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• London Poets poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• London in July poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• Lohengrin poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• Last Words poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• June poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• In the Nower poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy
• In the Night poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry by Amy Levy

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.

 

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