by Agha Shahid Ali
First, grant me my sense of history:
I did it for posterity,
for kindergarten teachers
and a clear moral:
Little girls shouldn’t wander off
in search of strange flowers,
and they mustn’t speak to strangers.
And then grant me my generous sense of plot:
Couldn’t I have gobbled her up
right there in the jungle?
Why did I ask her where her grandma lived?
As if I, a forest-dweller,
didn’t know of the cottage
under the three oak trees
and the old woman lived there
all alone?
As if I couldn’t have swallowed her years before?
And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf,
now my only reputation.
But I was no child-molester
though you’ll agree she was pretty.
And the huntsman:
Was I sleeping while he snipped
my thick black fur
and filled me with garbage and stones?
I ran with that weight and fell down,
simply so children could laugh
at the noise of the stones
cutting through my belly,
at the garbage spilling out
with a perfect sense of timing,
just when the tale
should have come to an end.
A Walk Through the Yellow Pages
Copyright ©:
1987, SUN-Gemini Press
A few random poems:
- Migration of the Mind by Mike Yuan
- Plague Victims Catapulted Over Walls Into Besieged City by Thomas Lux
- Жан де Лафонтен – Война Крыс и Ласок
- Celebrate Spring Today poem with a translation – Amir Khusro poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Высоцкий – Грусть моя, тоска моя
- Ce N’est Jamais Le Même Jardin by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- Николай Глазков – Подражание
- Владимир Маяковский – Стой!.. (РОСТА №416)
- I just love you by Raj Arumugam
- The Human Tragedy ACT IV poem – Alfred Austin
- Наум Коржавин – Легкость
- Goody Blake And Harry Gill by William Wordsworth
- Алексей Жемчужников – О, жизнь
- Weary not of us, for we are very beautiful by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Валерий Брюсов – И снова дрожат они, грезы бессильные
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
- On Your Midnight Pallet Lying poem – A. E. Housman
- On Your Midnight Pallet Lying poem – A. E. Housman
- On Wenlock Edge The Wood’s In Trouble poem – A. E. Housman
- On Wenlock Edge The Wood’s In Trouble poem – A. E. Housman
- On the Idle Hill of Summer poem – A. E. Housman
- On Moonlit Heath and Lonesome Bank poem – A. E. Housman
- On Moonlit Heath and Lonesome Bank poem – A. E. Housman
- Oh Who Is That Young Sinner poem – A. E. Housman
- Oh, when I was in love with you poem – A. E. Housman
- Oh Stay At Home, My Lad poem – A. E. Housman
- Oh Stay At Home, My Lad poem – A. E. Housman
- Oh, see how thick the goldcup flowers poem – A. E. Housman
- Oh, see how thick the goldcup flowers poem – A. E. Housman
- Oh fair enough are sky and plain poem – A. E. Housman
- Oh fair enough are sky and plain poem – A. E. Housman
- O Why Do You Walk poem – A. E. Housman
- Now Hollow Fires Burn Out to Black poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- Now Hollow Fires Burn Out to Black poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- March poem – A. E. Housman
- March poem – A. E. Housman
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
