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:
- Наум Коржавин – Люди пашут каждый раз опять
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Две прелестницы
- Dear Traffic Signal by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Monologue Of A Commercial Fisherman
- My Paramour Was Loneliness
- The Poisoned Present
- The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends by William Butler Yeats
- The Fable of Dryope – Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 9, [v. 324-393] poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Seaside Golf poem – John Betjeman poems
- Владимир Орлов – Летит корабль
- Bicycle Ride by Pat Mullan
- A Tale, Founded On A Fact, Which Happened In January, 1779 by William Cowper
- On Looking For Models
- He Hears That His Beloved Has Become Engaged by Philip Larkin
- Sir Gawaine And The Green Knight by Yvor Winters
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
- first_light.html
- excerpt_from_the_quotgertrude_steinquot_collaborative_series.html
- eudaemonism_in_a_senryu_novel.html
- drunkenness.html
- do_not_get_angry.html
- dickinson_and_the_alabaster_gogyohka.html
- dawned_again.html
- create.html
- conference_swan_beauty.html
- colors_and_sounds.html
- children039s_eyes.html
- athens_stone_of_sapphire_of_ground_the_ring.html
- as_with_recitation_and_the_loss_of_a_kuhi.html
- antediluvian_kural_on_twitter.html
- alexander.html
- acts_of_love.html
- a_single_man.html
- a_poem.html
- a_dialogue.html
- a_city_one_wish.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