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:
- five moons for earth by Raj Arumugam
- Her Eyes Are Wild by William Wordsworth
- Юрий Левитанский – Иронический человек
- He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace by William Butler Yeats
- For the Lute by William Somervile
- My life – “An ambiguous journey” by Vasishta Sharma Gudi
- I Will by Vishü Rita Krocha
- Михаил Лермонтов – Благодарность
- Олег Бундур – Когда я вернусь
- Владимир Солоухин – Все смотрю
- Reply to an Announcement by J. Rankine by Robert Burns
- Robert Burns: Stanzas On The Same Occasion [Prospect of Death]:
- At Ease by Walter de la Mare
- Владимир Степанов – Кто хозяин
- Юрий Коринец – Царь-баба
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
- Out Of The Window
- On The Bus
- Minoan Porcelain
- Love Song
- Lapr S Midi Dun Faune
- Italy
- Inspiration
- In Uncertainty To A Lady
- Doors Of The Temple
- Darkness
- Crapulous Impression
- Complaint Of A Poet Manqu
- By The Fire
- Books And Thoughts
- Anniversaries
- A Melody By Scarlatti
- A Little Memory
- The Storm
- The State
- The Poor Fisherman
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
