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:
- Николай Заболоцкий – Ходоки
- Drink of This Cup by Thomas Moore
- the branches of pine tree by Mousumi Guha Roy
- Lightning In The Dark Night Skies
- Snakecharmer by Sylvia Plath
- V by Tony Harrison
- Федор Сологуб – Ветер в трубе
- Robert Burns: Halloween: The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood; but for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the more unenlightened in our own.-R.B.
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 20. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- A Winter Eden by Robert Frost
- Corinna, from Athens, to Tanagra by Walter Savage Landor
- Владимир Набоков – Памяти друга
- Владимир Маяковский – Студенту пролетарию
- Владимир Набоков – Вдали от берега, в мерцании морском
- Владимир Маяковский – Наш паровоз, стрелой лети
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
- Аля Кудряшева – Про ангелов
- Аля Кудряшева – Поперек
- Аля Кудряшева – Помнишь, как это
- Аля Кудряшева – Пой мне еще, что я могу изменить
- Аля Кудряшева – По дому бегает Марфа
- Аля Кудряшева – Осень в городе
- Аля Кудряшева – Октябрь был дождем, непонятным месяцем
- Аля Кудряшева – Ну что я могу ответить
- Аля Кудряшева – Ночное
- Аля Кудряшева – Невозможно держать в памяти все человечество
- Аля Кудряшева – Не бойся, милый
- Аля Кудряшева – Молитва
- Аля Кудряшева – Мне снился
- Аля Кудряшева – Меня мотает тянет ведет налево
- Аля Кудряшева – М. и П.
- Аля Кудряшева – Когда наступает вечер
- Аля Кудряшева – Какое там говорить. Я дышу с трудом
- Аля Кудряшева – И кстати, еще бывает уездный гор
- Аля Кудряшева – И если Богу нужны гимнасты
- Аля Кудряшева – Это просто слишком длинная осень
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
