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:
- Two Songs
- The Caged Skylark poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Lodged by Robert Frost
- A Cliff Dwelling by Robert Frost
- Bantams In Pine-Woods by Wallace Stevens
- Robert Burns: The Deil’s Awa Wi’ The Exciseman:
- Владимир Британишский – Письмо
- Tim, An Irish Terrier by Winifred Mary Letts
- The Morning Half-Life Blues by Marge Piercy
- Нинель Эпатова – Настя с мамою в лесочке
- The Teak Forest
- Friend by Rabindranath Tagore
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Лесная дева
- One Ran Before by Yvor Winters
- Academic Graffiti by W H Auden
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 – Чистый дух, заключенный в нечистый сосуд
- Омар Хайям – Чем пустыми мечтами себя донимать
- Омар Хайям – Чем ниже человек душой, тем выше задирает нос
- Омар Хайям – Чье сердце не горит любовью страстной к милой
- Омар Хайям – Часть людей обольщается жизнью земной
- Омар Хайям – Бытует мнение, что счастье это дар
- Омар Хайям – Был бы я благочестьем прославиться рад
- Омар Хайям – Будут гурии, мед и вино
- Омар Хайям – Будь хмельным и влюбленным всегда
- Омар Хайям – Будь все добро мое кирпич один, в кружало
- Омар Хайям – Будь мягче к людям
- Омар Хайям – Будь камнем твердым я
- Омар Хайям – Бросать не стоит в будущее взгляд
- Омар Хайям – Бокала полного веселый вид мне люб
- Омар Хайям – Бог есть, и всё есть Бог
- Омар Хайям – Благородство страданием, друг, рождено
- Омар Хайям – Благородные люди, друг друга любя
- Омар Хайям – Безгрешными приходим и грешим
- Омар Хайям – Без меня собираясь в застолье хмельном
- Омар Хайям – Ад и рай
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
