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:
- A Wicker Basket by Robert Creeley
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мог бы быть я при тёще, при тесте
- Before You Returned by Shahida Latif
- Dance To It by Shel Silverstein
- The Dying Christian to His Soul poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- houses.html
- To the Muse poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- Artistic Soul Retold by Roberto Cocina
- Олег Бундур – Учительница открыла журнал
- Вера Полозкова – Мало ли кто
- Гавриил Державин – К Анжелике Кауфман
- Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
- The Children’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
- Владимир Высоцкий – Нынче мне не до улыбок
- София Парнок – Тихо плачу и пою
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
- Kodja Mustafa Pasha poem – Yahya Kemal Beyatli poems | Poetry Monster
- Itri poem – Yahya Kemal Beyatli poems | Poetry Monster
- He comes poem – Yehudah ha-Levi poems | Poetry Monster
- From the morrow poem – Yamabe no Akahito poems | Poetry Monster
- From the bay at Tago poem – Yamabe no Akahito poems | Poetry Monster
- Feeling Lazy poem – Yang Wan-Li poems | Poetry Monster
- A love song poem – Yehudah ha-Levi poems | Poetry Monster
- Don’t Light The Candles by Yahia Al-Samawy
- The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
- Émigrés by Anna Barkova
- A Sure Sign by Georgi Ladonshchikov
- Civil War Songs
- I have outlived my own desires by Alexander Pushkin (Pouchkine)
- In Defense of Santa Claus
- Winter Apples by Tatiana Gusarova, translated by Fledermaus
- Такахама Кёси – О, как ночь коротка
- Такахама Кёси – Неспешно ступает
- Такахама Кёси – Мох зеленый примят
- Такахама Кёси – Мимо порта родного
- Такахама Кёси – Мацумуси пищит
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