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 Love Song from the North by Sarojini Naidu
- Yasin Khan
- Николай Гумилев – Какою музыкой мой слух взволнован
- The Chant of the Indignant of the World by Sunil Sharma
- On Receiving Hayley’s Picture by William Cowper
- The Lament Of Yasmini The Dancing Girl
- Владимир Высоцкий – Грустная песня о Ванечке
- Doomes-Day: The Twelfth Houre by William Alexander
- Waking in the Blue by Robert Lowell
- To the Victor by William Ellery Leonard
- Canto XIII poem – Ezra Pound poems
- A Requisition to the Queen by William Topaz McGonagall
- Sonnet. The Day Is Gone poem – John Keats poems
- If you love the life by Vinko Kalinić
- Father Of A Boy Named Sue by Shel Silverstein
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
- Валерий Брюсов – Из лесной жути
- Валерий Брюсов – Из латинской антологии (Нежный стихов аромат услаждает безделие девы)
- Валерий Брюсов – Из детской книжки
- Валерий Брюсов – Из арабской лирики отрывок
- Валерий Брюсов – Из Александрийской антологии. К Сапфо
- Валерий Брюсов – Из ада изведенные (Астарта! Астарта! И ты посмеялась)
- Валерий Брюсов – Июль 1908
- Валерий Брюсов – Ленин
- Валерий Брюсов – Лед и уголь
- Валерий Брюсов – Пленный лев
- Валерий Брюсов – Пиршество войны
- Валерий Брюсов – Пифия
- Валерий Брюсов – Петербург (Здесь снов не ваял Сансовино)
- Валерий Брюсов – Песня североамериканских индейцев
- Валерий Брюсов – Песня гренландцев
- Валерий Брюсов – Песня девушки в тайге
- Валерий Брюсов – Последнее желанье
- Валерий Брюсов – После смерти Ленина
- Валерий Брюсов – После сенокоса
- Валерий Брюсов – После ночи бессонной
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