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:
- Николай Языков – Е. Н. Мандрыкиной (В младой груди моей о вас воспоминанья)
- To an Intra-mural Rat by Marianne Moore
- Николай Языков – Послание к Ф. И. Иноземцеву (Да сохранит тебя великий русский бог)
- The Invisible by Rixa White
- Cauls of Haw by Roland Bastien
- When I Go Alone At Night by Rabindranath Tagore
- On A Goldfinch, Starved To Death In His Cage by William Cowper
- Exeat by Stevie Smith
- The Change by Tony Hoagland
- Thanksgiving Day by Will McKendree Carleton
- Everlasting Wander by Rixa White
- Юрий Коринец – О стиральной машине
- Peddler Road Flyover by Vinita Agrawal
- Ольга Берггольц – На Ивана-пьющего
- A Dainty Thing’s The Villanelle by William Ernest Henley
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
- Any Soul That Drank the Nectar by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Any Lifetime by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- All through eternity by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- A Moment Of Happiness by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- The Storm by Rainbow Reed
- The Mystic Isle by Rainbow Reed
- The Chipmunk by R. L. Karlowsky
- The Sandbox by Rachel McKibbens
- Since you asked by Radames Antonio Cruz
- Primrose Rose by Rainbow Reed
- Prayers by Rainbow Reed
- Snow & Ice by Quincy Troupe
- Untitled by Quincy Troupe
- Poem Reaching For Something by Quincy Troupe
- I Hardly Remember by Rafael Guillen
- Not Fear by Rafael Guillen
- Online Lover by Rainbow Reed
- One Day You Will Miss Me.. by Rahul S
- O my Lord by Rabi’a
- Not Fear by Rafael Guillen
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