by Agha Shahid Ali
What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain?
But he has bought grief’s lottery, bought even the rain.
“our glosses / wanting in this world” “Can you remember?”
Anyone! “when we thought / the poets taught” even the rain?
After we died–That was it!–God left us in the dark.
And as we forgot the dark, we forgot even the rain.
Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.
For mixers, my love, you’d poured–what?–even the rain.
Of this pear-shaped orange’s perfumed twist, I will say:
Extract Vermouth from the bergamot, even the rain.
How did the Enemy love you–with earth? air? and fire?
He held just one thing back till he got even: the rain.
This is God’s site for a new house of executions?
You swear by the Bible, Despot, even the rain?
After the bones–those flowers–this was found in the urn:
The lost river, ashes from the ghat, even the rain.
What was I to prophesy if not the end of the world?
A salt pillar for the lonely lot, even the rain.
How the air raged, desperate, streaming the earth with flames–
to help burn down my house, Fire sought even the rain.
He would raze the mountains, he would level the waves,
he would, to smooth his epic plot, even the rain.
New York belongs at daybreak to only me, just me–
to make this claim Memory’s brought even the rain.
They’ve found the knife that killed you, but whose prints are these?
No one has such small hands, Shahid, not even the rain.
Call Me Ishmael Tonight
Copyright ©:
Agha Shahid Ali Literary Trust
A few random poems:
- The Passing Of Arthur poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Adam’s Curse by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Британишский – Философы! Не верьте островам
- Владимир Костров – Ботанический сад МГУ
- Михаил Кузмин – Зачем копье Архистратига
- Омар Хайям – До того, как мы чашу судьбы изопьем
- Before Summer Rain by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Ольга Седакова – Когда говорю я: помилуй
- I’m So Good That I Don’t Have To Brag by Shel Silverstein
- Couplet 6 poem – Amir Khusro poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Gardener XXIX: Speak To Me My Love by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Fairies Break Their Dances poem – A. E. Housman
- Казалось, осталось недолго
- Paradise On Earth! by V. Muthu Manickam
- Olney Hymn 43: Prayer For Patience by William Cowper
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
- Remembering An Account Executive
- Prison Song
- Portrait From The Infantry
- Plague Of Dead Sharks
- On Looking For Models
- On The Civil War On The East Coast Of The United States Of North America 1860 64
- On Hurricane Jackson
- On Being A Householder
- On A Seven Day Diary
- Nomenclature
- Monologue Of A Commercial Fisherman
- Internal Migration On Being On Tour
- Internal Migration Being Tour
- How We Heard The Name
- Fabrication Of Ancestors
- Elegy
- Drunken Memories Of Anne Sexton
- Civil War East Coast United States North America 1860 64
- Against A Sickness To The Female Double Principle God
- A Young Soul
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