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:
- Duino Elegies: The Fourth Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Николай Карамзин – Тацит
- Quiet by Tony Hoagland
- Владимир Маяковский – Увеличивается ли питание Москвы… (Главполитпросвет №234)
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня микрофона
- Юрий Энтин – Слово про слово
- On the Building of Springfield by Vachel Lindsay
- Василий Лебедев-Кумач – Стихи не на тему
- Summer – The Second Pastoral; or Alexis poem – Alexander Pope
- From The Long Sad Party by Mark Strand
- Isabella; Or, The Pot Of Basil: A Story From Boccaccio poem – John Keats poems
- The Fable of Dryope – Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 9, [v. 324-393] poem – Alexander Pope
- UNREADABLE by Satish Verma
- The Nearness That Is All by Samuel Hazo
- Robert Burns: Forlorn, My Love, No Comfort Near:
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
- Golden Eyes
- From Behind The Lattice
- Feroza
- Feroke
- Fate Knows No Tears
- Farewell
- Fancy
- Famine Song
- Early Love
- Disappointment
- Deserted Gipsys Song Hillside Camp
- Dedication
- Dedication To Malcolm Nicolson
- Camp Followers Song Gomal River
- Back To The Border
- Au Salon
- Atavism
- Ashore
- Among The Sandhills
- Among The Rice Fields
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