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:
- The Old Lowe House Staten Island
- Meeting and Passing by Robert Frost
- Зинаида Александрова – Подснежник
- Wayside Flowers by William Allingham
- Robert Burns: Down The Burn, Davie:
- So tired by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck (Sonnet 14) by William Shakespeare
- Robert Burns: The Belles Of Mauchline:
- The Symptoms of Love by William Cowper
- The Lie by Sir Walter Raleigh
- Extract From The Conclusion Of A Poem Composed In Anticipation Of Leaving School by William Wordsworth
- Never Bite A Married Woman On The Thigh by Shel Silverstein
- Epitaph on Wm. Graham, Esq., of Mossknowe by Robert Burns
- Reverie Ofmahomed Akram At The Tamarind Tank
- The Aisne
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
- Николай Гумилев – Звездный ужас
- Николай Гумилев – Злобный гений, царь сомнений
- Николай Гумилев – Живала Ниагара
- Николай Гумилев – Жестокой
- Николай Гумилев – Заводи
- Николай Гумилев – Зараза
- Николай Гумилев – Заклинание
- Николай Гумилев – Зачарованный викинг, я шел по земле
- Николай Гумилев – За стенами старого аббатства
- Николай Гумилев – За гробом
- Николай Гумилев – За часом час бежит и падает во тьму
- Николай Гумилев – Юдифь
- Николай Гумилев – Орел Синдбада
- Николай Гумилев – Они спустились до реки
- Николай Гумилев – Она говорила
- Николай Гумилев – Он воздвигнул свой храм на горе
- Николай Гумилев – Ольге Людвиговне Кардовской
- Николай Гумилев – О, если я весь мир постиг
- Николай Гумилев – Новорожденному
- Николай Гумилев – Норвежские горы
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