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:
- Михаил Лермонтов – Чума в Саратове
- Verse By Taj Mahomed
- Владимир Маяковский – Для Донбасса формируется поезд с подарками (РОСТА №938)
- The Family Monkey by Russell Edson
- Before by Yehuda Amichai
- A Late Lark Twitters From The Quiet Skies by William Ernest Henley
- The Child and the Mariner by William Henry Davies
- Poetry And Politics
- Cheery Beggar poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- On; On; Poet poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Gwaïn Down The Steps Vor Water by William Barnes
- Lover’s Gifts XVI: She Dwelt Here by the Pool by Rabindranath Tagore
- Docker by Seamus Heaney
- Botanically by Satish Verma
- Blackberrying by Sylvia Plath
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
- Вера Полозкова – И тут он приваливается к оградке
- Вера Полозкова – И пока он вскакивает с кровати
- Вера Полозкова – И катись бутылкой по автостраде
- Вера Полозкова – Губы плавя в такой ухмылке
- Вера Полозкова – Горький запах полыни
- Вера Полозкова – Гонево
- Вера Полозкова – Францу Кафке
- Вера Полозкова – Это не прихоть, это не блажь
- Вера Полозкова – Есть дерево, в лесу всего древней
- Вера Полозкова – Для неровного счета
- Вера Полозкова – Детство
- Вера Полозкова – Декабрь
- Вера Полозкова – Да что у меня, нормально всё, так, условно
- Вера Полозкова – Мой великий кардиотерапевт
- Вера Полозкова – Мне бы только хотелось
- Вера Полозкова – Манипенни, твой мальчик, видно, неотвратим
- Вера Полозкова – Мало ли кто
- Вера Звягинцева – Всхожу на мост
- Вера Звягинцева – Ты не снись мне
- Вера Звягинцева – Стоишь, не поднимая глаз
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.