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:
- Town Planning Agencies by Tilottama Chatterjee
- Омар Хайям – Долго ль спину придется мне гнуть или нет
- Robert Burns: Reply To An Announcement By J. Rankine: On His Writing To The Poet, That A Girl In That Part Of The Country Was With A Child To Him.
- A Ballad (Thesis for a Doctor’s Degree) poem – Andrei Voznesensky poems
- I Have A Rendezvous With Death
- Жан де Лафонтен – Городская и полевая Крысы
- Ольга Седакова – Московские картинки
- Аля Кудряшева – Трилогия перед годом (Цепочка ассоциаций)
- With Scindia to Delphi by Rudyard Kipling
- Insights Into History, Culture, & Creativity of Sri Lanka – Explore the Cultural Triangle
- Иван Барков – Выбор
- The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
- Наум Коржавин – Наверно, я не так на свете жил
- Anguish of Fate by Pierre Reverdy
- Shancoduff by Patrick Kavanagh
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
- Poem of Joys. by Walt Whitman
- Proud Music of The Storm by Walt Whitman
- Here, Sailor. by Walt Whitman
- I Dream’d in a Dream. by Walt Whitman
- Turn, O Libertad. by Walt Whitman
- A Clear Midnight. by Walt Whitman
- Are You the New person, drawn toward Me? by Walt Whitman
- Ah Poverties, Wincings and Sulky Retreats. by Walt Whitman
- Soledad by Robert Hayden
- Runagate Runagate by Robert Hayden
- Perseus by Robert Hayden
- O Daedalus, Fly Away Home by Robert Hayden
- Among the Multitude. by Walt Whitman
- American Feuillage. by Walt Whitman
- An Army Corps on the March. by Walt Whitman
- All is Truth. by Walt Whitman
- A Carol of Harvest, for 1867 by Walt Whitman
- A Promise to California. by Walt Whitman
- After the Sea-Ship. by Walt Whitman
- A Boston Ballad, 1854. by Walt Whitman
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