Meeting
by A. S. J. Tessimond
Dogs take new friends abruptly and by smell,
Cats’ meetings are neat, tactual, caressive.
Monkeys exchange their fleas before they speak.
Snakes, no doubt, coil by coil reach mutual knowledge.
We then, at first encounter, should be silent;
Not court the cortex but the epidermis;
Not work from inside out but outside in;
Discover each other’s flesh, its scent and texture;
Familiarize the sinews and the nerve-ends,
The hands, the hair; before the inept lips open.
Instead of which we are resonant, explicit.
Our words like windows intercept our meaning.
Our four eyes fence and flinch and awkwardly
Wince into shadow, slide oblique to ambush.
Hands stir, retract. The pulse is insulated.
Blood is turned inwards, lonely; skin unhappy …
While always under all, but interrupted,
Antennae stretch … waver … and almost … touch.

A few random poems:
- Анатолий Жигулин – Из больничной тетради
- Moonrise by Yvor Winters
- Robert Burns: Epistle To The Rev. John M’math: Inclosing A Copy Of “Holy Willie’s Prayer,” Which He Had Requested
- How to Earn Money Writing and Selling Books
- Огюст Барбье – Тициан
- Wreath For A Bridal by Sylvia Plath
- On The Bus poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- brownie.html
- Mesopotamia by Rudyard Kipling
- Владимир Маяковский – Тебе тепло?.. (РОСТА №599)
- Владимир Маяковский – Номер 17
- houses.html
- Владимир Высоцкий – Дорожная история
- Green Rock, Winthrop Bay by Sylvia Plath
- Василий Тредиаковский – Песенка любовна
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
- To Gnedich poem – Alexander Pushkin
- To The Don poem – Alexander Pushkin
- To Natasha poem – Alexander Pushkin
- To Lily poem – Alexander Pushkin
- To… (Kern) poem – Alexander Pushkin
- To Chadaev poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Thou and You poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The wondrous moment of our meeting… poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Wish poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Water-Nymph poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Upas Tree poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Talisman poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Singer poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Prophet poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Night poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Name poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Flower poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Drowned Man poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Dream poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Vision poem – Alexander Pushkin
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