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:
- Lunar Eclipse by Satish Verma
- Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea poem – Alexander Pope
- Альфред де Мюссе – Печаль
- Владимир Костров – Памяти Николая Анциферова
- Sonnet CXXXVIII by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Маяковский – Глупая история
- Had I a cave by Robert Burns
- Revelation
- Валерий Брюсов – Гимн Нилу
- On Pallas Bathing, From A Hymn Of Callimachus by William Cowper
- The Naming Of Cats by T. S. Eliot
- “Mike Teavee…” by Roald Dahl
- How to Increase Your Faith
- Robert Burns: Talk Of Him That’s Far Awa:
- The Queen’s Men by Rudyard Kipling
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
- The Song of the Women by Rudyard Kipling
- The Song of the Sons by Rudyard Kipling
- The Song of the Old Guard by Rudyard Kipling
- The Song of the Little Hunter by Rudyard Kipling
- The Song of the Dead by Rudyard Kipling
- The Song of the Cities by Rudyard Kipling
- The Song of Seven Cities by Rudyard Kipling
- The Settler by Rudyard Kipling
- The Servant When He Reigneth by Rudyard Kipling
- The Sergeant’s Weddin’ by Rudyard Kipling
- The Secret of the Machines by Rudyard Kipling
- The Second Voyage by Rudyard Kipling
- The Sea-Wife by Rudyard Kipling
- The Sea And the Hills by Rudyard Kipling
- The Sacrifice of Er-Heb by Rudyard Kipling
- The Rupaiyat of Omar Kal’vin by Rudyard Kipling
- The Rowers by Rudyard Kipling
- The Rhyme of the Three Sealers by Rudyard Kipling
- The Rhyme of the Three Captains by Rudyard Kipling
- The Return by Rudyard Kipling
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