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:
- Sonnet 51: Thus can my love excuse the slow offence by William Shakespeare
- English Poetry. Thomas Moore. From “Irish Melodies”. 44. She Is Far From the Land. Томас Мур.
- Roar Shack poem – Alice Fulton
- When I heard at the Close of the Day. by Walt Whitman
- Intrigued with Evening by Jelaluddin Rumi
- Venetian Glass poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- God Full Of Mercy by Yehuda Amichai
- Mowgli’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
- A Mesh by Shahida Latif
- Memorials of A Tour In Scotland, 1803 I. Departure From The Vale Of Grasmere, August 1803 by William Wordsworth
- Владимир Маяковский – Все буржуи мчат на помощь Врангелю… (РОСТА №410)
- Вера Полозкова – Для неровного счета
- Ode For Ted by Sylvia Plath
- Robert Burns: Dainty Davie:
- Николай Гумилев – Избиение женихов
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 Tree Of Knowledge
- The Thraldom
- The Thief
- The Spring
- The Request
- The Praise Of Pindar In Imitation Of Horace His Second Ode Book 4
- The Parting
- The Motto
- The Innocent Ill
- The Heart Breaking
- The Grasshopper
- The Given Love
- The Given Heart
- The Epicure
- The Despair
- The Chronicle
- The Change
- Sport
- Resolved To Be Loved
- Resolved Be Loved
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