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:
- Sonnet 34: Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day by William Shakespeare
- A soul’s DESIRE by Neelam Sinha
- Water-Fowl Observed Frequently Over The Lakes Of Rydal And Grasmere by William Wordsworth
- Иван Барков – Выбор
- Mark Twain and Joan of Arc by Vachel Lindsay
- Robert Burns: A Health To Ane I Loe Dear:
- Passion makes the old medicine new: by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня о двух красивых автомобилях
- Юрий Котов – Ты что-же боль, меня не отпускаешь
- Sonnet 111: O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide by William Shakespeare
- A Dedication. To Charlotte Cushman. by Sidney Lanier
- All Saints Day 1867
- Tim Turpin by Thomas Hood
- Appease by Muralidharan Mudaliar
- Lorelei by Sylvia Plath
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
- This Moment, Yearning and Thoughtful. by Walt Whitman
- This Dust was Once the Man. by Walt Whitman
- This Day, O Soul. by Walt Whitman
- This Compost. by Walt Whitman
- Think of the Soul. by Walt Whitman
- Thick-Sprinkled Bunting. by Walt Whitman
- These, I, Singing in Spring. by Walt Whitman
- There was a Child went Forth. by Walt Whitman
- The Wound-Dresser by Walt Whitman
- That Shadow, my Likeness. by Walt Whitman
- That Music Always Round Me. by Walt Whitman
- Tests. by Walt Whitman
- Tears. by Walt Whitman
- Still, though the One I Sing. by Walt Whitman
- States! by Walt Whitman
- Starting from Paumanok. by Walt Whitman
- Spontaneous Me. by Walt Whitman
- Spirit whose Work is Done. by Walt Whitman
- Spirit That Form’d This Scene. by Walt Whitman
- Sparkles from The Wheel. by Walt Whitman
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