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:
- Beautiful Moroccan by Stanley Wilkin
- Олег Чупров – Он впадает в смятенье
- William Gilmore Simms – William Gilmore Simms
- “‘Tis because, though in dusky bower” poem – Alfred Austin
- Омар Хайям – Этот мастер всевышний
- Long Distance I by Tony Harrison
- the_kings_breakfast.html
- Sonnet CXXXIV by William Shakespeare
- Spring poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Sonnet 61: Is it thy will thy image should keep open by William Shakespeare
- Agatha
- Жан де Лафонтен – Волк, Мать и Ребенок
- Robert Burns: A Red, Red Rose: [Hear Red, Red Rose]
- Sir Philip Sidney; Astrophel and Stella: XXIII by Sir Philip Sidney
- a deceving reflection by vanessa anderson
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 LI by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet L by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet IX by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet IV: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet IV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet III: Look In Thy Glass, and Tell the Face Thou Viewest by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet III by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet II: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet II by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet I: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet I by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXVIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXVII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXVI by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXIX by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXIV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXXI 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
