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:
- Robert Burns: Tho’ Cruel Fate Should Bid Us Part:
- politeness.html
- Under Saturn by William Butler Yeats
- A Stepmother’s Vain Love by Vaishnavi Prakash
- A Christmas Carol by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- William Stafford – William Stafford
- The Scissors-Grinder by Vachel Lindsay
- Владимир Корнилов – Сорок лет спустя
- Николай Заболоцкий – Утренняя песня
- Moonlight On The Door by William Barnes
- Stretcher Case by Siegfried Sassoon
- Robert Burns: Ploughman’s Life, The:
- Solomon And The Witch by William Butler Yeats
- Woods by Wendell Berry
- Такахама Кёси – О, как ночь коротка
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
- Olney Hymn 50: The Christian by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 5: Jehovah-Shalom: The Lord Send Peace by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 48: Joy And Peace In Believing by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 47: The Hidden Life by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 45: The Happy Change by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 43: Prayer For Patience by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 40: Peace After A Storm by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 4: Jehovah-Nissi: The Lord My Banner by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 39: The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 38: Looking Upwards In A Storm by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 36: Afflictions Sanctified By The Word by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 34: The Waiting Soul by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 33: Seeking The Beloved by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 32: The Shining Light by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 31: On The Death Of A Minister by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 30: The Light And Glory Of The Word by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 3: Jehovah-Rophi: I Am the Lord That Healeth Thee by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 29: Exhortation To Prayer by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 28: Jesus Hasting To Suffer by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 27: Welcome To The Table by William Cowper
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