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:
- A Tale of Starvation poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Necklace by William Strode
- As I lay with Head in your Lap, Camerado. by Walt Whitman
- Shelley’s Death poem – Alfred Austin
- Loving In Truth, And Fain In Verse My Love To Show by Sir Philip Sidney
- Омар Хайям – Если любишь, то стойко разлуку терпи
- Владимир Маяковский – Поляки-крестьяне, чтоб вольными быть…
- In Me, Past, Present, Future meet by Siegfried Sassoon
- To a Gentleman on His Voyage to Great-Britain by Phillis Wheatley
- Олег Бундур – Деревенская история
- Николай Карамзин – Стихи на слова, заданные мне Хлoeю: миг, картина и дверь
- To The Ladies Who Saw Me Crowned poem – John Keats poems
- Mark The Concentrated Hazels That Enclose by William Wordsworth
- Orlando Furioso Canto 20 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Between Games by Vasko Popa
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
- Essay on Man poem – Alexander Pope
- Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot poem – Alexander Pope
- Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle IV, To Richard Boyle, poem – Alexander Pope
- Epistle II: To A Lady (Of the Characters of Women) poem – Alexander Pope
- Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Which I Gave to His Royal Highness poem – Alexander Pope
- Eloisa to Abelard poem – Alexander Pope
- Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady poem – Alexander Pope
- Couplets on Wit poem – Alexander Pope
- Argus poem – Alexander Pope
- An Essay on Man in Four Epistles: Epistle 1 poem – Alexander Pope
- An Essay On Criticism poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 4 poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 3 poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 2 poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 1 poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Rape of the Lock poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt) poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Dying Christian to His Soul poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Three Gentle Shepherds poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Temple of Fame poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
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