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:
- Lifetime Of Death by Steve Sant
- When Day Is Done by Rabindranath Tagore
- did you die, Ophelia? by Raj Arumugam
- Recipe For A Hippopotamus Sandwich by Shel Silverstein
- Arhan poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Proclamation Without Pretension by Tristan Tzara
- In the Old Age of the Soul poem – Ezra Pound poems
- On Woman by William Butler Yeats
- Unforgetting by Satish Verma
- An Eccho by William Alexander
- Velocity Of Money poem – Allen Ginsberg
- Vaishnavi Prakash by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Audley Court poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Kotri By The River
- Glory Of Women by Siegfried Sassoon
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
- Erin, Oh Erin by Thomas Moore
- Enigma by Thomas Moore
- Echo by Thomas Moore
- Drink To Her by Thomas Moore
- Drink of This Cup by Thomas Moore
- Did Not by Thomas Moore
- Dialogue Between a Sovereign and a One-Pound Note by Thomas Moore
- Desmond’s Song by Thomas Moore
- Dear Harp of my Country by Thomas Moore
- Cotton and Corn by Thomas Moore
- Come, Send Round the Wine by Thomas Moore
- Come, Rest in this Bosom by Thomas Moore
- Come O’er the Sea by Thomas Moore
- By That Lake, Whose Gloomy Shore by Thomas Moore
- Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms by Thomas Moore
- Befire the Battle by Thomas Moore
- Avenging and Bright by Thomas Moore
- At the Mid Hour of Night by Thomas Moore
- As Vanquish’d Erin by Thomas Moore
- As Slow Our Ship by Thomas Moore
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