Said I shouldn’t.
Fingering me.
Everything I did.
A litter of chewed knucklebones
I’ve spread them out over the
rectangular floor as regularly as
I can; so I can account for them.
Her hands are crossed over
her breasts and each holds
a feather; her face has no features
Have I come to beg
What do I wish — to be
judged?
Is it an accumulation
of what I’ve said, that
counts, that I’m counting
is it all alphabet and abacus
everything rhymed?
You still don’t have a face.
Suddenly she has the face of a
cat.
No that’s a different
goddess.
I tell you this
bloodthirsty
jaguar…
I don’t have any idea what my word is, I
mean fault. Is it a word or an act. The
whole thrill is ripping me apart
Inside these
words there’s nothing but a pumping
bloodsoaked…
but clearly, everything I said, did,
was a long shot
We didn’t hear a word
What have you ever heard?
Now I’m here — black-caped in a
chair. Animal staring at me
I sink into your disaffected
ambiance to name.
What emotional
charges
have been laid on me from
earliest times
and my own
earliest
resulting in the bone strewn carpet
I had to grow the dice
of accounting to your love; for
you made me speak to you
lovingly; or did I do that naturally
oh just, bloodthirsty face
who doesn’t have to understand.
I don’t know who I’m speaking to
is pushing me
Judgment maybe it’s when being
fragile I
hallucinate you best
I don’t want to use my name!
‘Where I was born we girls ran
free. and named ourselves,’
Justice says.
She may kill me,
it depends on whether she’s hungry
Copyright ©:
Alice Notley

A few random poems:
- Second Epistle to J. Lapraik by Robert Burns
- Indian Wedding Customs – Eastern and Western Indian Wedding Traditions
- The Decay Of A People by William Gilmore Simms
- Spring poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Hedger by William Barnes
- Sonnet XI. On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet II: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Маяковский – Да здравствует III интернационал! (РОСТА № 140)
- A Meeting poem – Alfred Austin
- Drying Clothes poem – Yang Wan-Li poems | Poetry Monster
- Maternal Grief by William Wordsworth
- The Gardener IX: When I Go Alone at Night by Rabindranath Tagore
- Толстой Алексей Николаевич стихи: Читать стихотворения Алексея Толстого – Список произведений, стихов поэта на Poetry Monster
- Robert Burns: Phillis The Queen O’ The Fair:
- Владимир Луговской – Ночной патруль
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
- Nominalism Is A Liquid Kuhi
- My Mother’s Grief
- If Truth In Hearts That Perish
- I Havent Betrayed You My Hometown
- Eclipse Of Love
- Divided Passion
- Death039s Claim
- Dear Bhikkhu A Eulogy
- As With A Senryu S Hardening Ridge
- A Gogyohka And The Forgotten Panopticon
- A Faded Postcard Is A Tanka Daydream
- The Dead Woman poem – Pablo Neruda
- If Truth in Hearts That Perish poem – A. E. Housman
- Fragment of a Greek Tragedy poem – A. E. Housman
- Diffugere Nives poem – A. E. Housman
- Water Strider
- The Infernal Regions
- Honeycomb
- Dark Matter
- Wet City Night
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