The Wolf039s Postcript To 039little Red Riding Hood039 – The Poetry Monster

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.

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A Walk Through the Yellow Pages

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Copyright ©:

1987, SUN-Gemini Press

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Poems in English

Unlyric Love Song by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
Tube Station by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
To Be Blind by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
The Man In The Bowler Hat by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
the_children_look_at_the_parents.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
The British by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
symphony_in_red.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
seaport.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
sea.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
quickstep.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
polyphony_in_a_cathedral.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
one_almost_might.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
nursery_rhyme_for_a_twenty_first_birthday.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
not_love_perhaps.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
night_piece.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
never.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
music.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
meeting.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
last_word_to_childhood.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
june_sick_room.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond

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