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:
- Sonnet 01
- Lovers in Cafe by Aiyah De Torres
- Вера Павлова – О чем
- Morale by Sunil Sharma
- English Poetry. George Eliot. How Lisa Loved the King. Джордж Элиот.
- Нина Воронель – Меня пугает власть моя над миром
- Two Songs Of Advent by Yvor Winters
- Back Home by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- My Lady in Her White Silk Shawl by Vachel Lindsay
- An Epitaph poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Федор Сваровский – Речь на юбилее
- Far Within Us #7 by Vasko Popa
- Andrew Lang – Andrew Lang Poems
- So Long! by Precious Tahula
- Илья Эренбург – Я помню, давно уже я уловил
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 Британишский – Чернышев переулок и мост Чернышев
- Владимир Британишский – Чай
- Владимир Британишский – Царство – одно, но России-то – две
- Владимир Британишский – Быт
- Владимир Британишский – Буссоль
- Владимир Британишский – Будто катаясь на коньках
- Владимир Британишский – Богаевский
- Владимир Британишский – Били в армии, в школе, в столице, в селе
- Владимир Британишский – Баня Быстрицкого
- Владимир Британишский – Багульник, ельник, изволоки, взгорья
- Владимир Британишский – Автопортрет Давида
- Владимир Британишский – Архитектор Юрий Фельтен
- Владимир Британишский – Аркадия
- Владимир Британишский – Античник Альтман
- Владимир Британишский – Аэрогеофизик
- Владимир Британишский – A за Уралом – сгустки городов
- Владимир Британишский – А весна наступает все же
- Владимир Британишский – А Новый год мы встретили в лесу
- Владимир Британишский – 1942 год
- Владимир Британишский – 1848 год в Зимнем дворце
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
