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:
- Иван Демьянов – Парикмахер рак-омар
- I had a little nut-tree, by Roald Dahl
- The Secret of the Machines by Rudyard Kipling
- Василий Жуковский – К Нине (О Нина, о Нина)
- Игорь Северянин – Парижские Жоржики
- Ольга Берггольц – Романс стойкого оловянного солдатика
- Parody on a Haiku by Issa by Monty Gilmer
- Say, Lad, Have You Things to Do? poem – A. E. Housman
- Владимир Британишский – Дождик
- Untitled IV by Yunus Emre
- In a Minor Key poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Harp Song of the Dane Women by Rudyard Kipling
- Sonnet Xv
- Владимир Британишский – Но особенно снился мне вздыбленный мост
- Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour. by Walt Whitman
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
- Answers by Mark Strand
- And The Black Scythe With Its Beak of Ibis by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- After Forever by Mark Miller
- A World So Different by Mary Etta Metcalf
- A Poet I knew by Martin Zakovski
- A Piece Of The Storm by Mark Strand
- A Photograph on the Desk by Mary Etta Metcalf
- A Misty Morning by Mary Etta Mietcalf
- A Cozy Little Room by Mary Etta Metcalf
- À ce point du voyage by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- A Dream of Rodney King by Mary TallMountain
- You Ask Why Sometimes I Say Stop by Marge Piercy
- Yell of Pain by Maria Ivana Trevisani Bach
- Year’s End by Marilyn Hacker
- Winter Promises by Marge Piercy
- What Are Big Girls Made Of? by Marge Piercy
- Visiting a Dead Man on a Summer Day by Marge Piercy
- Upon Julia’s Breast by Marie Starr
- Unloved, unmoved by Maria Jastine Golo
- Twas’ the Night Before Christmas and Santa got Drunk by Margaret Marie Hubbard
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
