Prison Song

A poem by Alan Dugan

The skin ripples over my body like moon-wooed water,

rearing to escape me. Where could it find another

animal as naked as the one it hates to cover?

Once it told me what was happening outside,

who was attacking, who caressing, and what the air

was doing to feed or freeze me. Now I wake up

dark at night, in a textureless ocean of ignorance,

or fruit bites back and water bruises like a stone.

It’s jealousy, because I look for other tools to know

with, and other armor, better girded to my wish.

So let it lie, turn off the clues or try to leave:

sewn on me seamless like those painful shirts

the body-hating saints wore, the sheath of hell

is pierced to my darkness nonetheless: what traitors

labor in my face, what hints they smuggle through

its arching guard! But even in the night it jails,

with nothing but its lies and silences to feed upon,

the jail itself can make a scenery, sing prison songs,

and set off fireworks to praise a homemade day.

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Poems in English 

• Starlight by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of The Peri by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of The Parao Camping Ground by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of The Enfifa River by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of The Devoted Slave by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of The Colours By Taj Mahomed by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of Taj Mahomed by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of Ramesram Temple Girl by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of Khan Zada by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of Jasoda by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of Faiz Ulla by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song By Gulbaz by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Sleep by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Shivratri The Night Of Shiva While The Procession Passed At Ramesram by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Sher Afzul by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Sea Song by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Sampan Song by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Rutland Gate by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Reverie Zahir U Din by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Reverie Ofmahomed Akram At The Tamarind Tank by Adela Florence Nicolson

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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.

 

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