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:
- A Sure Sign by Georgi Ladonshchikov
- How To Achieve Self-Realization, The Mother of All Knowledge?
- Ode On The Pleasure Arising From Vicissitude by Thomas Gray
- Prisoner by Rabindranath Tagore
- Books And Thoughts poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- Drowned in Illusion by Rixa White
- Gray Room by Wallace Stevens
- Sonnet XII. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour poem – John Keats poems
- Two sparrows and my heart by Nizar Sartawi
- Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon
- Robert Burns: A Tippling Ballad: On the Duke of Brunswick’s Breaking up his Camp, and the defeat of the Austrians, by Dumourier, November 1792.
- Meditations In Time Of Civil War by William Butler Yeats
- Whenever I Go There by W. S. Merwin
- A Wicker Basket by Robert Creeley
- Ode To Autumn poem – John Keats poems
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
- Новелла Матвеева – Ветер
- Новелла Матвеева – Величие?
- Новелла Матвеева – Василий Андреевич
- Новелла Матвеева – Страна Дельфиния
- Новелла Матвеева – Смех Фавна
- Новелла Матвеева – Река
- Новелла Матвеева – Пушкин
- Новелла Матвеева – Подсолнух
- Новелла Матвеева – Отражённым светом
- Новелла Матвеева – О юморе
- Новелла Матвеева – Набрела на правильную строчку
- Новелла Матвеева – Мне кажется
- Новелла Матвеева – Маяк
- Новелла Матвеева – Когда Вселенная открывает нам добровольно
- Новелла Матвеева – Иней
- Новелла Матвеева – Есть вопиющий быт, есть вещие примеры
- Новелла Матвеева – Двое (Баллада)
- Новелла Матвеева – Дома без крыш
- Новелла Матвеева – Будьте, как дети
- Низами Гянджеви – Жить в заботе и невзгодах, расточая зло
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