Because a razor cuts across a frame of film,
I wince, squinting my eye,
and because my day needs assembly
to make sense of the scenes anyway,
making a story from some pieces of truth, I go
outside to gather those pieces.
Thousands of moments spooling out
frames of mistakes in my day.
As if anyone’s to blame,
as if anyone could interpret the colliding
images, again and again, dragging
my imagination behind me,
I begin assembling.
I don’t know anything, so I seek
directions, following the path
of ants from your palm, out
the apartment door to
a beach. Is this where I’m
supposed to ask if my hands on you
bend some light around shade? Maybe
I’m not ready for the answer. They say
art imitates what we can sculpt or write
or just see when we turn ourselves
inside out. I can’t turn my eye away
from the sight of failure. The rain pelts rooftops.
I listen to the song, thinking
when the sun comes back,
beating down the door
in my head, I’ll salvage whatever sits
still long enough for me to render,
before anyone knows what really happened.
A few random poems:
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Лесная дева
- Владимир Маяковский – Учитесь! (РОСТА №937)
- Огюст Барбье – Ни кротостью, ни негой ясной
- Наум Коржавин – Комиссары
- Poetics poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Bury Me In My Shades by Shel Silverstein
- Pure call of the wilderness by Vinko Kalinic
- The Flower of Mending by Vachel Lindsay
- Robert Burns: Divine Service In The Kirk Of Lamington:
- Федор Тютчев – Как ни бесилося злоречье
- Before the Battle by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Bride poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- To Independence by Tobias Smollett
- Readen Ov A Head-Stwone by William Barnes
- Вера Павлова – Вопрос ребра
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
- Шекспир – Любовь к себе моим владеет взором – Сонет 62
- Шекспир – Люблю твои глаза – Сонет 132
- Шекспир – Люби другого – Сонет 139
- Шекспир – Лелеет лето лучший свой цветок – Сонет 94
- Шекспир – Как и любовь – Сонет 151
- Шекспир – Дыханье мысли и огонь желанья – Сонет 45
- Шекспир – Доверьем мнимым держится любовь – Сонет 138
- Шекспир – День без тебя казался ночью – Сонет 43
- Шекспир – Чтобы стихи, рожденные когда-то – Сонет 38
- Шекспир – Что, если бы я право заслужил – Сонет 125
- Шекспир – Бессмертную хоронят красоту – Сонет 83
- Шекспир – А это смерть – Сонет 64
- Шарль Бодлер – Жажда небытия
- Омар Хайям – О, не растите дерево печали
- Омар Хайям – О мудрец, если тот или этот дурак
- Омар Хайям о людях: Стихи, рубаи о человеке Омара Хайяма – Poetry Monster
- Омар Хайям – О, кумир, Дружбу ты почему прервала
- Омар Хайям – О горе, горе сердцу, где жгучей страсти нет
- Омар Хайям – О, если б, захватив с собой стихов диван
- Омар Хайям – О друге я мечтал, но им не стал никто
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

A. Van Jordan, born 1965 in Akron, Ohio, USA, is a contemporary American poet and the author of four important collections: Rise, which won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award (Tia Chucha Press, 2001); M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A, (2005), which was listed as one the Best Books of 2005 by the London Times; Quantum Lyrics, (W.W. Norton, 2007); and The Cineaste (W.W. Norton,, 2013). Jordan has been awarded a Whiting Writers Award, an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and a Pushcart Prize.