by Alan J. Blaustein
Valhalla
by Alan J. Blaustein
High on West Street walking summer day
Sunlight in my face and to my right
Seeing more the Hudson than the street ahead.
I expected factories parking lots and bars,
Nothing else than pleasant afternoon
And then the wonder stopped me seized my sight.
Valhalla? Yes, it was!
Risen in all magnificence from the street
As proudly massive blocks of—stone.
It instantly awed me reduced me to a speck—
For what great purpose could this be?
Home for a breed of freshly risen gods?
I walked beside amazed and looking up
Until I came upon a massive porch
That stretched before great doors of glass and bronze,
Flanked by pillars, granite guards.
A plaque above the doors, all shining bronze,
Proclaimed the name.
Look what the age of heroes has become,
Look how Odin’s dream has re-emerged,
See how the ordinary conquers all,
How wonder can vanish like a wisp of smoke…
I saw for what my hall of gods was built—
Manhattan Community College!
A few random poems:
- Омар Хайям – Лучше впасть в нищету, голодать или красть
- The Hearth Eternal by Vachel Lindsay
- The Child Is Father To The Man poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Purgatory by Maxine Kumin
- Epitaph on James Grieve by Robert Burns
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песенка про прыгуна в длину
- The Redeemer by Siegfried Sassoon
- Perseus by Robert Hayden
- The Moon’s Truth (before the war) by Reena Ribalow
- And their feet move by Sappho
- Cradle Song poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Before, Behind, And Beyond poem – Alfred Austin
- Robert Burns: To Alex. Cunningham, ESQ., Writer: Ellisland, Nithsdale, July 27th, 1788.
- Homing by Satish Verma
- 1991-II by Wendell Berry
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
- love.html
- lord_god_have_mercy_on_me.html
- libation.html
- least_in_a_list.html
- interpret_the_light.html
- innocence.html
- in_the_stone_i_rooted.html
- in_between_the_strophes.html
- human_joys.html
- human_charms.html
- he_who_creates_re_creates_himself.html
- hai_kou_unpublished.html
- hai_kou.html
- greek_light.html
- greece.html
- golden_eangle.html
- gesture_theory_a_villanelle.html
- gem_immortality.html
- fruit_leaf_roots_flowers.html
- first_verse.html
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
