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:
- The Voice by Sara Teasdale
- Валерий Брюсов – Дворец любви
- WARMING UP by Satish Verma
- Robert Burns: Compliments Of John Syme Of Ryedale: Lines sent with a Present of a Dozen of Porter.
- Robert Burns: Tarbolton Lasses, The:
- Anacreontics Drinking
- Нина Воронель – Аэродром
- I just love you by Raj Arumugam
- Ольга Высотская – Обидчивая кукушка
- The Regret Of The Ranee In The Hall Of Peacocks
- Федор Сологуб – Кольцо и венок
- Fergus And The Druid by William Butler Yeats
- Mother Ocean poem – Amy E. Johnsen poems | Poems and Poetry
- Top 5 Furniture Buying Tactics For the Best Purchase
- Robert Burns: Lines Sent To Sir John Whiteford, Bart: With The Lament On The Death Of the Earl Of Glencairn
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
- Closed Path by Rabindranath Tagore
- Chain Of Pearls by Rabindranath Tagore
- Brink Of Eternity by Rabindranath Tagore
- Benediction by Rabindranath Tagore
- Beggarly Heart by Rabindranath Tagore
- Baby’s World by Rabindranath Tagore
- Baby’s Way by Rabindranath Tagore
- Authorship by Rabindranath Tagore
- A Moments Indulgence by Rabindranath Tagore
- Who Is This? by Rabindranath Tagore
- Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore
- When The Two Sisters Go To Fetch Water by Rabindranath Tagore
- When I Go Alone At Night by Rabindranath Tagore
- When I Go Alone At Night by Rabindranath Tagore
- We Are To Play The Game Of Death by Rabindranath Tagore
- We Are To Play The Game Of Death by Rabindranath Tagore
- Waiting by Rabindranath Tagore
- Waiting For The Beloved — English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
- Tumi Sandhyar Meghamala – You Are A Cluster Of Clouds – Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
- This Dog by Rabindranath Tagore
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
