I would like to swim in the Atlantic,
to swim with someone who understood
why my fear of drowning plays less dire
than my fear of bones, walking the ocean floor.
I would like to sync my stroke with a beloved.
I’d like to stand on deck on a boat
and jump in the sea and say, follow me,
and know you would. The sea is cold
and it’s deep, too, I’d joke,
standing at the edge of the boat’s bow.
A wind breathes across the sea,
joining gently the edges of time.
With a dog paddling behind me,
I want to crawl across the water
without thinking about a future.
I have set my eyes upon the shore
and I hold you there—steady, in focus—
but let you go when, from below,
a voice breaks to the surface.
A few random poems:
- The AntiWorlds poem – Andrei Voznesensky poems
- Robert Burns: The Rigs O’ Barley:
- Виктор Шамонин-Версенев – Заяц-врун
- Владимир Костров – До чего нестерпимо и жёстко подуло
- On An Old Woman (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- Sonnet # 8 by Luis A. Estable
- Gorgeous Surfaces by Thomas Lux
- A Song In Storm by Rudyard Kipling
- I Stood With the Dead by Siegfried Sassoon
- Robert Burns: Their Groves O’Sweet Myrtle :
- On The Death Of Sir Henry Wootton
- Magnolia Shoals by Sylvia Plath
- Владимир Корнилов – Отходная
- Ольга Берггольц – Марш оловянных солдатиков
- Олег Сердобольский – Зимний кот
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
- Welcome A.O.H. Men by Michael McGovern
- Weekend Glory by Maya Angelou
- Twilight Acts of Decadence. by Michael Levy
- Travel to Infinite Places by Michael Levy
- To A Cricket by Michael McGovern
- The Woods At Night by May Swenson
- The Waradgery Tribe by Mary Gilmore
- The Rock Cries Out to Us Today by Maya Angelou
- The Passing of Stumpy Shore by Mervyn John Webster
- The Mothering Blackness by Maya Angelou
- The Meaning of Music by Mercedes Madrigal
- The Lesson by Maya Angelou
- The January Birds by Maurice Riordan
- The Hermit Goes Up Attic by Maxine Kumin
- The Gravy Train by Michael Levy
- The Fishermen, The Gulls & The Bible People by Michael Estabrook
- The First Thrush by Mary Gilmore
- The Fairies Break Their Dances by A. E. Housman
- The Burning Crusade by Memphis Knight
- The Rolling Mills by Michael McGovern
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.