A poem by Alexander Block – Alexandre Block – Alexandr Blok – Александр Блок
(1880-1921)
A small circus is amazing;
It’s for kids who are merry and bright;
There a girl and a boy’re gazing
At the ladies, kings, and droll sprites.
… And that terrible music cries over our lot,
Despondently howls the bow…
The scary sprite has captured a tiny tot,
With cranberry juice dripping down.
– The boy –
He’ll be rescued from a new burst of anger
With a wave of a delicate hand.
There – lights coming on,
See their growing reflection?
See the smoke? See the torch on the stand?
This must be the royal procession.
– The girl –
Come now, why all this teasing talk?
This is the devil’s escort…
In the daylight the queen goes out for a walk,
Head to toe with rosebuds decorated.
And escort of knights hold the train of her frock
And jingle their swords, all excited.
Suddenly the clown twists in the lights
Screaming, «Please help me! Please help!
I am bleeding red cranberry juice!
I have bandages made of rags!
I have a paper helmet on my head!
I’ve a wooden sword in my hand!»
Here both the girl and the boy broke into tears,
And the merry street circus shut its doors.
A few random poems:
- English Poetry. Thomas Moore. From “Irish Melodies”. 44. She Is Far From the Land. Томас Мур.
- Владимир Набоков – Большая медведица
- Ольга Берггольц – О, наверное, он не вернётся
- Владимир Маяковский – Помни о дне красной казармы! (РОСТА № 732)
- Sonnet I: Loving In Truth by Sir Philip Sidney
- Two Views Of A Cadaver Room by Sylvia Plath
- Sealed Appropriate
- Motel Seedy by Thomas Lux
- Владислав Ходасевич – Окна во двор
- Meant To Be by Russ Pergram
- Chronicles by Mark Olynyk
- Keeping Things Whole by Mark Strand
- Modest Sounds by Michael Brandon Odom
- AN HYMN TO THE MUSES by Robert Herrick
- A Child’s Evening Prayer by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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
- Even if I don’t hear your voice, I know by Vinko Kalinic
- Don’t know the answer by Vinko Kalinic
- Dog’s love by Vinko Kalinić
- Dear Traffic Signal by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Confessions of a Software Engineer by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Black song about a black woman and red wine by Vinko Kalinić
- Birthday party blunder by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Beautiful Stranger by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Ballad about a stinking flower by Vinko Kalinic
- Altar amid the sea by Vinko Kalinic
- Aeneid by Virgil
- Eclogue VIII by Virgil
- Eclogue VI by Virgil
- Eclogue IV by Virgil
- Eclogue III by Virgil
- Eclogue V by Virgil
- Ecologue IX by Virgil
- Ecologue I by Virgil
- Eclogue X by Virgil
- You by Vladimir Mayakovsky
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
Alexander Blok (1880-1921), also Block, was a Russian poet, writer, publicist, playwright, translator and literary critic. A classic of Russian literature.