by Ai
We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don’t tell me, I say. I don’t want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that’s where I’m floating,
and that’s what it’s like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?

A few random poems:
- Whispers of Heavenly Death. by Walt Whitman
- “Hedge, that divides the lovely” by Torquato Tasso
- Portrait in Black and White by Marjorie Kanter
- Алишер Навои – Нет, не от слез кровавых одежда моя красней
- Олег Бундур – Окошки
- Sappho to Phaon (Ovid Heroid XV) poem – Alexander Pope
- Владимир Костров – Вот женщина с седыми волосами
- Astrophel and Stella LXXXIV: HIGHWAY by Sir Philip Sidney
- Mahomet Ali Beg; Or, the Faithful Minister of State by William Somervile
- A Song of Peach-Blossom River by Wang Wei
- To The Honble Commodore Hood on His Pardoning a Deserter by Phillis Wheatley
- Virginibus Puerisque
- Аля Кудряшева – И кстати, еще бывает уездный гор
- A Fixed Idea poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Низами Гянджеви – Хмельное счастье мое очнется
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
- Recollection
- Practising The Anthem
- Practising Anthem
- Peace
- On Australian Hills
- Mirage
- Memoriam
- Mates
- Lord Nevils Advice
- Lord Nevil039s Advice
- Looking In The Fire
- Looking Fire
- Learn
- Last Battle Cid
- Influence
- Individuality
- In Memoriam
- Honour
- Home Sick
- Holy Communion
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