A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
Reading the menu at the morning service:
– Iced Venusberg perhaps, or buttered bum;
Orders the usual sex-ersatz, and, nervous,
Glances around; Will she or won’t she come?
The congregation dissected into pews
Gulping their strip teas in the luminous cavern
Agape’s sacamental berry stews;
The nickel-plated light and clatter of heaven
Receive him, temporary Tantalus
Into the Lookingglassland’s firescape.
Suckled on Jungfraumilch his eyes discuss,
The werwolf twins, their mock Sabellian rape.
This is their time to reap the standing scorn,
Blonde Rumina’s crop. Beneath her leafless tree
Ripe-rumped she lolls and clasps the plenteous horn.
Cool customers who defy his Trinity
Feel none the less, and thrill, ur-vater Fear
Caged in the son. For, though this ghost behave
Experienced daughters recognize King Leer:
Lot also had his daughters in a cave.
Full sail the proud three-decker sandwiches
With the eye-fumbled priestesses repass;
On their swan lake the enchanted icecreams freeze,
The amorous fountain prickles in the glass
And at the introit of this mass emotion
She comes, she comes, a balanced pillar of blood,
Guides through the desert, divides the sterile ocean,
Brings sceptic Didymus his berserk food,
Sits deftly, folding elegant thighs, and takes
Her time. She skins her little leather hands,
Conscious that wavering towards her like tame snakes
The polyp eyes converge…. The prophet stands
Dreading the answer from her burning bush:
This unconsuming flame, the outlaw’s blow,
Plague, exodus, Sinai, ruptured stones that gush,
God’s telegram: Dare Now! Let this people go!

A few random poems:
- Sonnet 150: O from what power hast thou this powerful might by William Shakespeare
- Олег Бундур – Вид с задней парты
- Poema II, “Pañuelos de La Alhambra” by Mara Romero Torres
- A Wren’s Nest by William Wordsworth
- Extempore on some commemorations of Thomson by Robert Burns
- The Sleepers by Walt Whitman
- What I Love by Pamela L. Laskin
- The Land of Counterpane by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Poem of Joys. by Walt Whitman
- Lines Written In Dejection by William Butler Yeats
- Address To The Scholars Of The Village School Of — by William Wordsworth
- A Strange Gentlewoman Passing By His Window by William Strode
- An Inion poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Death-Bed by Siegfried Sassoon
- Николай Заболоцкий – Летний вечер
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
- Warm are the Still and Lucky Miles by W H Auden
- Voltaire At Ferney by W H Auden
- Underneath an Abject Willow by W H Auden
- This Lunar Beauty by W H Auden
- They Wondered Why the Fruit had Been Forbidden by W H Auden
- The Waters by W H Auden
- The Wanderer by W H Auden
- The Two by W H Auden
- The Riddle by W H Auden
- The Quest by W H Auden
- The Quest XII (Vocation) by W H Auden
- The Novelist by W H Auden
- The Labyrinth by W H Auden
- The Hidden Law by W H Auden
- The Geography of the House by W H Auden
- The Dream by W H Auden
- The Common Life by W H Auden
- Thanksgiving for a Habitat by W H Auden
- Taller To-day by W H Auden
- Song Of The Master And Boatswain by W H Auden
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
Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000) was an Australian poet and essayist known for his satirical slant. He was also a critic, teacher and academic.