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:
- Михаил Кузмин – Вы белое бургундское вино
- A Terre by Wilfred Owen
- What the Coal-Heaver Said by Vachel Lindsay
- love_flower.html
- I’ve dreamt of dreaming ’bout you by Vinko Kalinić
- Нина Воронель – Не слишком ли ты многого
- Epitaph in a Church-Yard in Charleston, South Carolina poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- ‘In the Pink’ by Siegfried Sassoon
- Владимир Маяковский – Плакат о жилищно-строительном займе
- Валерий Брюсов – Газели
- Black magic by Mrunmayi Mandan
- Immaculacy by Satish Verma
- Владимир Британишский – Не избранностью, не особенностью
- The Three Beggars by William Butler Yeats
- The Law of the Jungle by Rudyard Kipling
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
- Waking In March by Philip Levine
- Told by Philip Levine
- They Feed They Lion by Philip Levine
- Then by Philip Levine
- The New World by Philip Levine
- The Helmet by Philip Levine
- The Distant Winter by Philip Levine
- Gangrene by Philip Levine
- Noon by Philip Levine
- Making Light Of It by Philip Levine
- Making It Work by Philip Levine
- Magpiety by Philip Levine
- Mad Day In March by Philip Levine
- M. Degas Teaches Art & Science At Durfee Intermediate School–Detroit, 1942 by Philip Levine
- Late Moon by Philip Levine
- Late Light by Philip Levine
- Last Words by Philip Levine
- Philip Levine – Philip Levine
- Philip Levine – Philip Levine
- Philip Levine – Philip Levine
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