A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
What did I study in your School of Night?
When your mouth’s first unfathomable yes
Opened your body to be my book, I read
My answers there and learned the spell aright,
Yet, though I searched and searched, could never guess
What spirits it raised nor where their questions led.
Those others, familiar tenants of your sleep,
The whisperers, the grave somnambulists
Whose eyes turn in to scrutinize their woe,
The giant who broods above the nightmare steep,
That sleeping girl, shuddering, with clenched fists,
A vampire baby suckling at her toe,
They taught me most. The scholar held his pen
And watched his blood drip thickly on the page
To form a text in unknown characters
Which, as I scanned them, changed and changed again:
The lines grew bars, the bars a Delphic cage
And I the captive of his magic verse.

A few random poems:
- Water Music by Robert Creeley
- Юлия Друнина – Другу
- Юнна Мориц – Вместо сноски
- Making Light Of It by Philip Levine
- The Wicked Postman by Rabindranath Tagore
- Владимир Высоцкий – Наши добрые зрители
- Gratitude To The Unknown Instructors by William Butler Yeats
- Валерий Брюсов – Гнутся высокие лотосы
- Аля Кудряшева – Ночное
- Man in a Window by Ralph Angel
- The Illusion of Love by Sarojini Naidu
- Эмиль Верхарн – Вперед
- Ольга Седакова – Сказочка
- Олег Бундур – В огороде
- Snow & Ice by Quincy Troupe
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
- Atalanta’s Race by William Morris
- A Good Knight In Prison by William Morris
- A Death Song by William Morris
- We embraced and talked about rains by Vinko Kalinic
- Twins by Vinko Kalinić
- To a friend by Vinko Kalinić
- Those seven days by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- The face wanted by Vinko Kalinić
- The Boy by Vinko Kalinić
- Summer We Called Home by Vinita Agrawal
- Story of a Drunk by Violet Uram
- Sometimes by Vinko Kalinić
- See, how I love you by Vinko Kalinić
- Sea God and the wind rose by Vinko Kalinić
- Respect her by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Requiem for Two by Vinko Kalinić
- Raw Silk by Vinita Agrawal
- Raise the head, child by Vinko Kalinić
- Pure call of the wilderness by Vinko Kalinic
- Pigeon Haiku by Violet Uram
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
Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000) was an Australian poet and essayist known for his satirical slant. He was also a critic, teacher and academic.