Nothing will hurt you that much despite how you feel
the stress on your back shapes your insight
this splendid November rain Toussaint. I find
you by your marks, he says
an imprint
But when I summon you, I talk to—I say—
my memory of your face. It’s kind of crazy
to others. They’re not very interesting he says.
When I first came to this country, and now
I know the language I say, but I had in a dream
spoken it many years previously. That is,
not the language of the dead the language
of France. I took one year of French in 1964
and then nothing but once, in 1977 I spoke French
in a dream all night: I was in the future I
moved here in 1992. Country of the more
logical than I? though the people of my quartier
know and like me, even as I a foreigner remain strange
You do everything alone a woman said to me.
There are ways to care without interfering
but the French speak of anguish frequently
they are conscious of emotional extremity
a terrible gift. It’s all a gift, he says . . .
some haven’t been opened. I’m not sure
he said that it’s nearly my sixty-seventh birthday
today though it’s the day of the dead hello
we love you they say.
Copyright ©:
Alice Notley
A few random poems:
- Olney Hymn 9: The Contrite Heart by William Cowper
- Robert Burns: My Native Land Sae Far Awa:
- Валерий Брюсов – Эту ночь я дышал тишиной
- To Aphrodite by Sappho
- Владимир Маяковский – Не предаваясь “большевистским бредням” (Красный перец)
- So You Say by Mark Strand
- Crossroads by Suchi Gaur
- 25 Minutes To Go by Shel Silverstein
- Tumi Sandhyar Meghamala – You Are A Cluster Of Clouds – Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
- Федор Сваровский – Погребение мехоса
- Юрий Левитанский – Грач над березовой чащей
- Rile Me Up! by Michael D Wentworth
- The Silver Moon by Sappho
- The Lover’s Song by William Butler Yeats
- Listening To Rwanda Genocide by Satish Verma
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
- Sonnet I
- Sonnet 12
- Sonnet 11
- Sonnet 10
- Sonnet 08
- Sonnet 07
- Sonnet 06
- Sonnet 05
- Sonnet 04
- Sonnet 03
- Sonnet 02
- Sonnet 01
- Resurgam
- Rendezvous
- On The Cliffs Newport
- On A Theme In The Greek Anthology
- Ode In Memory Of The American Volunteers Fallen For France
- Maktoob
- Lyonesse
- Liebestod
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