Standardization

When, darkly brooding on this Modern Age,

The journalist with his marketable woes

Fills up once more the inevitable page

Of fatuous, flatulent, Sunday-paper prose;

Whenever the green aesthete starts to whoop

With horror at the house not made with hands

And when from vacuum cleaners and tinned soup

Another pure theosophist demands

Rebirth in other, less industrial stars

Where huge towns thrust up in synthetic stone

And films and sleek miraculous motor cars

And celluloid and rubber are unknown;

When from his vegetable Sunday School

Emerges with the neatly maudlin phrase

Still one more Nature poet, to rant or drool

About the “Standardization of the Race”;

I see, stooping among her orchard trees,

The old, sound Earth, gathering her windfalls in,

Broad in the hams and stiffening at the knees,

Pause and I see her grave malicious grin.

For there is no manufacturer competes

With her in the mass production of shapes and things.

Over and over she gathers and repeats

The cast of a face, a million butterfly wings.

She does not tire of the pattern of a rose.

Her oldest tricks still catch us with surprise.

She cannot recall how long ago she chose

The streamlined hulls of fish, the snail’s long eyes,

Love, which still pours into its ancient mould

The lashing seed that grows to a man again,

From whom by the same processes unfold

Unending generations of living men.

She has standardized his ultimate needs and pains.

Lost tribes in a lost language mutter in

His dreams: his science is tethered to their brains,

His guilt merely repeats Original Sin.

And beauty standing motionless before

Her mirror sees behind her, mile on mile,

A long queue in an unknown corridor,

Anonymous faces plastered with her smile.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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 

• Иннокентий Анненский – Еврипид. Ифигения в Авлиде («Ифигения-жертва») (перевод) by Иннокентий Анненский
• Иннокентий Анненский – Еврипид. Геракл (перевод) by Иннокентий Анненский
• Илья Зданевич – Пабло Пикассо by Поэзия На Русском
• Илья Зданевич – Ослиный Бох by Поэзия На Русском
• Илья Зданевич – Опять на жизненную скуку by Поэзия На Русском
• Илья Зданевич – Галоша by Поэзия На Русском
• Илья Зданевич – Экспромт by Поэзия На Русском
• Илья Эренбург – Жилье в горах, как всякое жилье by Илья Эренбург
• Илья Эренбург – Я знаю, будет золотой и долгий by Илья Эренбург
• Илья Эренбург – Я так любил тебя, до грубых шуток by Илья Эренбург
• Илья Эренбург – Я слышу всё, и горестные шепоты by Илья Эренбург
• Илья Эренбург – Я помню, давно уже я уловил by Илья Эренбург
• Илья Эренбург – Я не трубач, труба by Илья Эренбург
• Илья Эренбург – Я бы мог прожить совсем иначе by Илья Эренбург
• Илья Эренбург – Взвился рыжий, ближе by Илья Эренбург
• Илья Эренбург – Вы приняли меня в изысканной гостиной by Илья Эренбург
• Илья Эренбург – Ода by Илья Эренбург
• Илья Эренбург – О Москве by Илья Эренбург
• Илья Эренбург – Легкий сон by Илья Эренбург
• Илья Эренбург – Круг by Илья Эренбург

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works