The Children Look At The Parents
by A. S. J. Tessimond
We being so hidden from those who
Have quietly borne and fed us,
How can we answer civilly
Their innocent invitations?
How can we say “we see you
As but-for-God’s-grace-ourselves, as
Our caricatures (we yours), with
Time’s telescope between us”?
How can we say “you presumed on
The accident of kinship,
Assumed our friendship coatlike,
Not as a badge one fights for”?
How say “and you remembered
The sins of our outlived selves and
Your own forgiveness, buried
The hatchet to slow music;
Shared money but not your secrets;
Will leave as your final legacy
A box double-locked by the spider
Packed with your unsolved problems”?
How say all this without capitals,
Italics, anger or pathos,
To those who have seen from the womb come
Enemies? How not say it?

A few random poems:
- Eudaemon
- I Remembered by Sara Teasdale
- Gem Immortality
- Sonnet 57: Being your slave, what should I do but tend by William Shakespeare
- The Commitment by Rob Leatherman Sr.
- In the Time of War, XII by W H Auden
- Epitaph On Mr. Chester Of Chicheley by William Cowper
- Омар Хайям – Куда уйти от пламенных страстей
- Crazy Jane On The Day Of Judgment by William Butler Yeats
- What the Miner in the Desert Said by Vachel Lindsay
- The French Army In Russia, 1812-13 by William Wordsworth
- Аля Кудряшева – Ты рисуй, девочка, небо пошире
- Medusa by Sylvia Plath
- Walls at Drogheda by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- The Gamblers by Vachel Lindsay
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
- Two Or Three: A Recipe To Make A Cuckold poem – Alexander Pope
- The Riddle of the World poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 5 poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 4 poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 3 poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 2 poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 1 poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock poem – Alexander Pope
- The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt) poem – Alexander Pope
- The Dying Christian to His Soul poem – Alexander Pope
- Summer poem – Alexander Pope
- Sound And Sense poem – Alexander Pope
- Solitude: An Ode poem – Alexander Pope
- Solitude poem – Alexander Pope
- On a certain Lady at Court poem – Alexander Pope
- Ode on Solitude poem – Alexander Pope
- Lines on Curll poem – Alexander Pope
- Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea poem – Alexander Pope
- Imitations of Horace: The First Epistle of the Second Book poem – Alexander Pope
- From an Essay on Man poem – Alexander Pope
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