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:
- Wind poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Terms In Which I Think Of Reality poem – Allen Ginsberg
- Prologue to Rodin in Rime poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Валерий Брюсов – К портрету Лермонтова
- Extempore Reply to an Invitation by Robert Burns
- Федор Сваровский – Погребение мехоса
- Prison Song
- Desert Places by Robert Frost
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 02 – part 07 by Torquato Tasso
- Who by Sylvia Plath
- Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant
- Иван Мятлев – Старушка
- A Sight in Camp. by Walt Whitman
- Al calor de una guitarra by Mara Romero Torres
- A Reminiscence poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
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
- Омар Хайям – Из допущенных в рай и повергнутых в ад
- Омар Хайям – Имей друзей поменьше, не расширяй их круг
- Омар Хайям – И теперь живу под гнетом страха
- Омар Хайям – И сиянье рая, и ада огни
- Омар Хайям – Грех Хайям совершил и совсем занемог
- Омар Хайям – Где вы, друзья! Где вольный ваш припев?
- Омар Хайям – Этот мастер всевышний
- Омар Хайям – Это время любви, словно тёплая осень
- Омар Хайям – Есть много вер, и все несхожи
- Омар Хайям – Если жизнь все равно неизбежно пройдет
- Омар Хайям – Если все государства, вблизи и вдали
- Омар Хайям – Если ты не впадаешь в молитвенный раж
- Омар Хайям – Если счастлив от счастья
- Омар Хайям – Если любишь, то стойко разлуку терпи
- Омар Хайям – Если гурия страстно целует в уста
- Омар Хайям – Если есть у тебя для жилья закуток
- Омар Хайям – Если бог не услышит меня в вышине
- Омар Хайям – Египет, Рим, Китай держи ты под пятой
- Омар Хайям – Двести лет проживешь, или тысячу лет
- Омар Хайям – Душой ты безбожник с Писаньем в руке
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
