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:
- Medical Ethics
- A King’s Soliloquy [On the Night of His Funeral] by Thomas Hardy
- Poem Reaching For Something by Quincy Troupe
- A Message To America
- The Fall by William Barnes
- Dust by Sara Teasdale
- Владимир Британишский – Никитенко
- Sonnet LXIII by William Shakespeare
- At the Zoo poem – A. A. Milne poem
- Шекспир – Неужто я, приняв любви венец – Сонет 114
- Frog Autumn by Sylvia Plath
- Meditation on the A30 poem – John Betjeman poems
- Whose beer is that? A Poem about Beer.
- To One Shortly to Die. by Walt Whitman
- The Meaning of Music by Mercedes Madrigal
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
- Crowdie ever mair (Song) by Robert Burns
- Inscription to Chloris by Robert Burns
- Yonder pomp of costly fashion (Song) by Robert Burns
- Robert Bruce’s March to Bannockburn (Song) by Robert Burns
- My Spouse Nancy by Robert Burns
- Forlorn, my love, no comfort here (Song) by Robert Burns
- Behold the hour by Robert Burns
- Impromptu on Mrs. Riddell’s Birthday by Robert Burns
- On Chloris being ill (Song) by Robert Burns
- How cruel are the parents by Robert Burns
- Had I a cave by Robert Burns
- Craigieburn Wood by Robert Burns
- Poem on Pastoral Poetry by Robert Burns
- Lines of John M’Murdo by Robert Burns
- Inscription for an Alter of Independence by Robert Burns
- Epitaph on a Lap-dog by Robert Burns
- Epigram on Miss Davies by Robert Burns
- Out over the Forth (Song) by Robert Burns
- O aye my wife she dang me (Song) by Robert Burns
- Hey, the Dusty Miller (Song) by Robert Burns
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