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:
- Salve! by Thomas Edward Brown
- On Returning To England poem – Alfred Austin
- Notice by Steve Kowit
- Владимир Костров – У них в делах анархия и жуть
- You Smile Upon Your Friend To-Day poem – A. E. Housman
- Words Unspoken by Mark Olynyk
- Lament for the Makers by William Dunbar
- Dream With Clam-Diggers by Sylvia Plath
- Owl by Sylvia Plath
- Ambulances by Philip Larkin
- Владимир Британишский – Философы! Не верьте островам
- Ольга Седакова – Первая тетрадь
- Вера Полозкова – Да что у меня, нормально всё, так, условно
- Владимир Маяковский – Раньше иностранцы шли в Россию как разбойники и воры… (Роста №105)
- Юнна Мориц – Котик
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
- Little Flute by Rabindranath Tagore
- Light by Rabindranath Tagore
- Let Me Not Forget by Rabindranath Tagore
- Leave This by Rabindranath Tagore
- Last Curtain by Rabindranath Tagore
- Journey Home by Rabindranath Tagore
- Innermost One by Rabindranath Tagore
- Give Me Strength by Rabindranath Tagore
- Friend by Rabindranath Tagore
- Free Love by Rabindranath Tagore
- Fool by Rabindranath Tagore
- Flower by Rabindranath Tagore
- Farewell by Rabindranath Tagore
- Fairyland by Rabindranath Tagore
- Face To Face by Rabindranath Tagore
- Endless Time by Rabindranath Tagore
- Dungeon by Rabindranath Tagore
- Distant Time by Rabindranath Tagore
- Defamation by Rabindranath Tagore
- Colored Toys by Rabindranath Tagore
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
