I am sick today,
sick in my body,
eyes wide open, silent,
I lie on the bed of childbirth.
Why do I, so used to the nearness of death,
to pain and blood and screaming,
now uncontrollably tremble with dread?
A nice young doctor tried to comfort me,
and talked about the joy of giving birth.
Since I know better than he about this matter,
what good purpose can his prattle serve?
Knowledge is not reality.
Experience belongs to the past.
Let those who lack immediacy be silent.
Let observers be content to observe.
I am all alone,
totally, utterly, entirely on my own,
gnawing my lips, holding my body rigid,
waiting on inexorable fate.
There is only one truth.
I shall give birth to a child,
truth driving outward from my inwardness.
Neither good nor bad; real, no sham about it.
With the first labor pains,
suddenly the sun goes pale.
The indifferent world goes strangely calm.
I am alone.
It is alone I am.

A few random poems:
- Pharaohs, Protests and Public by Sunil Sharma
- Heroic Simile by Robert Hass
- Two Songs Of Advent by Yvor Winters
- Evening by Sappho
- On Imagination by Phillis Wheatley
- France by Siegfried Sassoon
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня о сумасшедшем доме
- Always Unsuitable by Marge Piercy
- In My Own Shire, If I Was Sad poem – A. E. Housman
- With Ships the Sea was Sprinkled Far and Nigh by William Wordsworth
- gesture_theory_a_villanelle.html
- Владимир Высоцкий – И душа, и голова, кажись, болит
- Владимир Британишский – Континенты
- Владимир Набоков – К Родине
- On The Loss Of The “Royal George” by William Cowper
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
- Teacher
- Sleep
- Ode To A Harmonica
- Intruder
- Do You Know What Its Like
- Hellcat
- Yours & Mine poem – Alice Fulton
- Woman In Front Of Poster Of Herself poem – Alice Notley
- Velocity Of Money poem – Allen Ginsberg
- The White Cliffs
- The Next Chance
- The Melancholy of Birth
- The islands of happiness
- The Internet Romance
- The End of the World
- The Terms In Which I Think Of Reality poem – Allen Ginsberg
- Tears
- Teachers Day special
- Succeeding Sentiments.
- Stalker poem – Alice Notley
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