by Ajmer Rode
Kalli followed me eight miles
to the market where
animals were traded like slaves.
Cows goats bullocks camels
Kalli was black beautiful and six
prime age for a water buffalo.
She was dry. Repelled bulls as if she had
decided never to go green.
Hard to afford, my father decided
to sell her.
She obeyed as I led her
by the steel chain, one end in my hand
the other round her neck.
I was fifteen. Her nervousness was over
soon after we entered the market
where sellers occupied
their given spaces like matrimonials
on a large weekly page.
Kalli sat down with no emotion in her eyes
like an ascetic close to nirvana.
I sat stood walked around like a
neglected calf. Nobody bought Kalli.
She followed me 8 miles back home
I wasn’t sure if Father was sad
or glad to see her back. He just
looked at her like a family member
who had missed the train.

A few random poems:
- Олег Григорьев – На боку кобура болталась
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 55. The wish, that of the living whol poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Как заработать на сочинении собственных стихов: варианты заработка денег стихотворениями – Poetry Monster
- Remorseful Apology by Robert Burns
- Robert Burns: The Cooper O’ Cuddy:
- Epitaph on a noted coxcomb by Robert Burns
- The Messiah : A Sacred Eclogue poem – Alexander Pope
- As In Their Flight The Birds Of Song by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Love Sonnet LIV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems | Poetry Monster
- The Triangle by Subhash Misra
- Popcorn, Glass Balls, and Cranberries by Vachel Lindsay
- Verses Left by Mr. Pope poem – Alexander Pope
- In Imitation of Cowley : The Garden poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Stand-To: Good Friday Morning by Siegfried Sassoon
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Талисман
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
- tears.html
- simple_heart.html
- silence.html
- she.html
- sealed_appropriate.html
- seal.html
- sea_salt_a_villanelle.html
- salamis_quot.html
- sacrifice_and_love.html
- poetry_and_politics.html
- plato.html
- paralipomemnon.html
- our_refuge.html
- one_sweet_white_light.html
- new_land.html
- motionless_body.html
- mother.html
- minimalism_and_the_elm_choka.html
- mark.html
- love_flower.html
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