A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
This was the gods’ god,
The leashed divinity,
Divine divining rod
And Me within the me.
By mindlight tower and tree
Its shadow on the ground
Throw, and in darkness she
Whose weapon is her wound
Fends off the knife, the sword,
The Tiger and the Snake;
It stalks the virgin’s bed
And bites her wide awake.
Her Bab-el-Mandeb waits
Her Red Sea gate of tears:
The blood-sponge god dilates,
His rigid pomp appears;
Sets in the toothless mouth
A tongue of prophecy.
It speaks in naked Truth
Indifference for me
Love, a romantic slime
That lubricates his way
Against the stream of Time.
And though I win the day
His garrisons deep down
Ignore my victory,
Abandon this doomed town,
Crawl through a sewer and flee.
A certain triumph, of course,
Bribes me with brief joy:
Stiffly my Wooden Horse
Receive into your Troy.

A few random poems:
- Indian Dancers by Sarojini Naidu
- Анатолий Жигулин – Калина
- Street Circus poem – Aleksandr Blok poems | Poetry Monster
- Carnal Knowledge by Rebecca Elson
- Night dyes its hair by Vladimir Marku
- Robert Burns: Lines To An Old Sweetheart:
- For A Coming Extinction by W. S. Merwin
- Dora by Thomas Edward Brown
- An American by Rudyard Kipling
- Robert Burns: O Kenmure’s On And Awa, Willie:
- Patience, Hard Thing! The Hard Thing But To Pray poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- On The Eating Of Mice by Russell Edson
- Николай Заболоцкий – Ночь в лесу
- Tithonus
- Владимир Корнилов – Халабуда
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
- Three Songs Of Zahir U Din
- Thoughts Mahomed Akram
- Though In My Firmament Thou Wilt Not Shine
- This Month The Almonds Bloom At Kandahar
- There Is No Breeze To Cool The Heat Of Love
- The Window Overlooking The Harbour
- The Tom Toms
- The Temple Dancing Girl
- The Teak Forest
- The Singer
- The River Of Pearls At Fez Translation
- The Rice Was Under Water
- The Rice Boat
- The Regret Of The Ranee In The Hall Of Peacocks
- The Rao Of Ilore
- The Plains
- The Net Of Memory
- The Masters
- The Lute Player Of Casa Blanca
- The Lament Of Yasmini The Dancing Girl
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.