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:
- I have been tricked by flying too close by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- As I Walked Out One Evening by W. H. Auden
- Владимир Высоцкий – Я всё чаще думаю о судьях
- Approach Of Summer by William Lisle Bowles
- Аля Кудряшева – Такие слишком медовые эти луны
- At the Kitslano Beach by Mike Yuan
- Bring Wine by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Яков Полонский – Поцелуй
- Changes by William Barnes
- Владимир Вишневский – Как некстати или срыв спецоперации
- Between The Wars by Robert Hass
- five moons for earth by Raj Arumugam
- The Labour by Mousumi Guha Roy
- Николай Гумилев – Зачарованный викинг, я шел по земле
- From Paumanok Starting. by Walt Whitman
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
- Any Soul That Drank the Nectar by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Any Lifetime by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- All through eternity by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- A Moment Of Happiness by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- The Storm by Rainbow Reed
- The Mystic Isle by Rainbow Reed
- The Chipmunk by R. L. Karlowsky
- The Sandbox by Rachel McKibbens
- Since you asked by Radames Antonio Cruz
- Primrose Rose by Rainbow Reed
- Prayers by Rainbow Reed
- Snow & Ice by Quincy Troupe
- Untitled by Quincy Troupe
- Poem Reaching For Something by Quincy Troupe
- I Hardly Remember by Rafael Guillen
- Not Fear by Rafael Guillen
- Online Lover by Rainbow Reed
- One Day You Will Miss Me.. by Rahul S
- O my Lord by Rabi’a
- Not Fear by Rafael Guillen
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
