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:
- A Dedication
- Lines on Fergusson, the Poet by Robert Burns
- Олег Григорьев – Разбил в туалете сосуд
- At Queensferry by William Ernest Henley
- Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold by William Shakespeare
- Is There A Power That Can Sustain And Cheer by William Wordsworth
- Moon poems by Raj Arumugam
- The Plunge poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Олег Бундур – Гроза
- Sancta Maria, Succurre Miseris poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Doubts by Rupert Brooke
- A Song: When June is Past, the Fading Rose by Thomas Carew
- Nell Barnes by William Henry Davies
- The Mortal One by Sharon Olds
- Shrodon Feäir by William Barnes
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
- Sonnet 115: Those lines that I before have writ do lie by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 114: Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 113: Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 112: Your love and pity doth th’ impression fill by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 111: O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 110: Alas, ’tis true, I have gone here and there by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 10: For shame, deny that thou bear’st love to any by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 109: O, never say that I was false of heart by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 108: What’s in the brain that ink may character by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 107: Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 106: When in the chronicle of wasted time by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 105: Let not my love be called idolatry by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 103: Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 102: My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 101: O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 100: Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LIV by William Shakespeare
- Silvia by William Shakespeare
- Sigh No More by William Shakespeare
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
