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:
- The Messiah : A Sacred Eclogue poem – Alexander Pope
- Song—A Waukrife Minnie by Robert Burns
- The Lilies by Wendell Berry
- Henry Clay’s Mouth by Thomas Lux
- Heel & Toe To The End by William Carlos Williams
- A Meeting by Wendell Berry
- Orlando Furioso canto 13 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Омар Хайям – Бокала полного веселый вид мне люб
- Excelsior. by Walt Whitman
- The Veairy Veet That I Do Meet by William Barnes
- Robert Burns: Here’s His Health In Water :
- Владимир Маяковский – Слушай, наводчик
- The Weavers by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Minstrels by William Wordsworth
- After the Battle by Thomas Moore
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
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Комета
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Когда вдали от суеты всемирной
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Когда бы
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Казалось
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Калиф и раб
- Владимир Бенедиктов – К женщине
- Владимир Бенедиктов – К точкам
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Ореланна
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Она была добра
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Одно из двух
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Обвинение
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Обновление
- Владимир Бенедиктов – О, не играй веселых песен мне
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Ну вот – всё ладится, идет всё понемногу
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Ночью
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Ночь близ Якац
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Недоверчивость
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Недолго
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Не трать огня напрасных убеждений
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Не надо
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
