Quickstep
by A. S. J. Tessimond
Acknowledge the drum’s whisper.
Yield to its velvet
Nudge. Cut a slow air-
Curve. Then dip (hip to hip):
Sway, swing, pedantically
Poise. Now recover,
Converting the coda
To prelude of sway-swing-
Recover.
Acknowledge
The drum-crack’s alacrity;
Acrid exactitude –
Catch it, then slacken,
Then catch as cat catches
Rat. Trace your graph:
Loop, ellipse. Skirt an air-wall
To bend it and break it –
Thus; so;
As the drum speaks!

A few random poems:
- Dedication To M… by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Anchor Song by Rudyard Kipling
- Омар Хайям – Бог есть, и всё есть Бог
- The Dug-Out by Siegfried Sassoon
- Владимир Маяковский – Если белогвардейщину не добьем совсем… (РОСТА №148)
- Life Brings Me to this Journey. by Stephen Sweitzer
- Olney Hymn 61: The Narrow Way by William Cowper
- The First Thrush by Mary Gilmore
- The Journey by Yvor Winters
- Ambrosia by Sonya Ki Tomlinson
- On A Miser (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- Between The Wars by Robert Hass
- Alone, Looking for Blossoms Along the River by Tu Fu
- Aplolgia Pro Vita Sua by Samuel Coleridge
- Владимир Высоцкий – Куплеты Бенгальского
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
- Warm are the Still and Lucky Miles by W H Auden
- Voltaire At Ferney by W H Auden
- Underneath an Abject Willow by W H Auden
- This Lunar Beauty by W H Auden
- They Wondered Why the Fruit had Been Forbidden by W H Auden
- The Waters by W H Auden
- The Wanderer by W H Auden
- The Two by W H Auden
- The Riddle by W H Auden
- The Quest by W H Auden
- The Quest XII (Vocation) by W H Auden
- The Novelist by W H Auden
- The Labyrinth by W H Auden
- The Hidden Law by W H Auden
- The Geography of the House by W H Auden
- The Dream by W H Auden
- The Common Life by W H Auden
- Thanksgiving for a Habitat by W H Auden
- Taller To-day by W H Auden
- Song Of The Master And Boatswain by W H Auden
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