I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I’ll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:
but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything is
magnificent with existence, is in
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:
I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond the intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up
and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:
I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:
at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!
A few random poems:
- Perseus by Sylvia Plath
- The Lark by William Barnes
- Ольга Седакова – Памяти одной старухи
- Watching the Bird Watcher by Richard Schiffman
- Ольга Берггольц – Не может быть, чтоб жили мы напрасно
- The Mysterious Cat by Vachel Lindsay
- Олег Григорьев – Жена торговала колбасой
- Written In A Fit Of Illness. R. S. S. by William Cowper
- The Invisible by Rixa White
- Владимир Вишневский – Нервическая песнь
- Николай Языков – Елагиной
- The Last Breath of a Ship by Tri Tran
- Mammary Tunes by Mark R Slaughter
- Solid, Ironical, Rolling Orb. by Walt Whitman
- Although they are by Sappho
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
- The Epic Menageries by MB Moshe
- The Cup of Life by Mike Yuan
- The Colored Balloon by Mike Yuan
- The Cinnamon Peeler by Michael Ondaatje
- State Fair Time by Michael S Wilson
- Speaking To You (From Rock Bottom) by Michael Ondaatje
- Soulmating by Mike Yuan
- Since That Summer by Mike Yuan
- Searching by Mike Yuan
- Scotland by MB Moshe
- Ruined World by Michael Yuan
- Ready for Retirement by Mike Yuan
- Promise Ya by Miraj Patel
- Picking Cherries by Mike Yuan
- Outset by Mike Yuan
- Obdurant men, the worst of the abstinant by Miles
- Notes For The Legend Of Salad Woman by Michael Ondaatje
- Not even a child by Miles
- Nailing by Mike Yuan
- My Ink by Mike Yuan
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
Archie Randolph Ammons (1926-2001) was an important American poet, a modern classic, Ammons wrote about our relationship to nature in a way that is both comic and solemn. His poems often address religious and philosophical matters and scenes involving nature in a manner that is almost transcendental.