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:
- Владимир Степанов – Рассказ оружейника
- I. The Witch of Coös by Robert Frost
- J–K. Huysmans poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Динец – Над степью весенней
- Moonrise poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Yasin Khan
- Haiku by Robby Charters
- Otho The Great – Act II poem – John Keats poems
- Вера Павлова – Память, дырявый мешок
- London Poets poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Ashes of Soldiers. by Walt Whitman
- Who of you ever
- Advent by Patrick Kavanagh
- True Love by Robert Penn Warren
- Владимир Высоцкий – Старательская
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
- Владимир Степанов – Цыплята (Буква Ц)
- Владимир Степанов – Что мы Родиной зовём
- Владимир Степанов – Барби (Буква Б)
- Владимир Степанов – Акробат (Буква А)
- Владимир Соловьев – Знамение
- Владимир Солоухин – Яблоко
- Владимир Солоухин – Все смотрю
- Владимир Солоухин – Волки
- Владимир Солоухин – Ветер
- Владимир Солоухин – Вдоль берегов Болгарии прошли мы
- Владимир Солоухин – В лесу
- Владимир Солоухин – Утро
- Владимир Солоухин – У тихой речки детство проводя
- Владимир Солоухин – У моря
- Владимир Солоухин – Тропа нацелена в звезду
- Владимир Солоухин – Теперь-то уж плакать нечего
- Владимир Орлов – Очень хорошая девочка Яна
- Владимир Орлов – Ночной листок
- Владимир Орлов – Не боится Дима
- Владимир Орлов – Март
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