by Ajmer Rode
If you see an old man sitting alone
at the bus stop and wonder who he is
I can tell you.
He is my father.
He is not waiting for a bus or a friend
nor is he taking a brief rest before
resuming his walk.
He doesn’t intend to shop in the
nearby stores either
he is just sitting there on the bench.
Occasionally he smiles and talks.
No one listens.
No body is interested.
And he doesn’t seem to care
if someone listens or not.
A stream of cars, buses, and people
flows on the road.
A river of images, metaphors and
similes flows through his head.
When everything stops
at the traffic lights it is midnight
back in his village. Morning starts
when lights turn green.
When someone honks his neighbor’s
dog barks.
When a yellow car passes by
a thousand mustard flowers
bloom in his head.
A tall man passes with his shadow
vanishing behind him. My father
thinks of Pauli who left his village
for Malaya and
never came back. A smile appears
on his lips and disappears.
When nothing interesting seems to
happen he starts talking again:
where were you born, and where
have you come?
Shall you ever go back?
It is all destiny, yes a play of
destiny, you see.
He muses
and nods his head:
and where will you die my dear?
The thought of death is most
interesting and lingers on
He stops talking and thinks of the
Fraser Street chapel where he
has attended many funerals:
He thinks about the black
and red decorations and
imagines himself resting peacefully,
a line of people
passing by looking at him
for the last time.
His eyes are lit. Perhaps
this is the image he enjoys most
before it is demolished
with the rude arrival of a bus.
Passengers get down and
walk away briskly like ants.
The bus leaves.
He looks
at the traffic again to see
if a yellow car is passing by.
Poems At My Doorstep
Copyright ©:
Ajmer Rode
A few random poems:
- Владимир Британишский – Богаевский
- CBSE Education: Teaching Creative Learning
- Lover’s Gifts V: I Would Ask For Still More by Rabindranath Tagore
- I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark, Not Day poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Вера Павлова – Телефонные кнопки
- By Garpal Stream by Stanley Wilkin
- xai_kou_from_book_seeds_of_faith.html
- To What Serves Mortal Beauty? poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- I turn my head by Vladimir Marku
- 9 Types of Lovers – The Twisted Version
- The Devil Outwitted by William Somervile
- My first seen by Osman cisse Hanif
- My Child Wafts Peace by Yehuda Amichai
- Extempore in the Court of Session by Robert Burns
- Владимир Маяковский – В Париже совещание “живых сил” (РОСТА №851)
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
- Анатолий Жигулин – Ах, речка, речка Тебердинка
- Анатолий Жигулин – Ах, как весело листья летят
- Аля Кудряшева – Зима застыла среди теней
- Аля Кудряшева – Замылим, потом замолим
- Аля Кудряшева – Я тут недавно встретила свое прошлое
- Аля Кудряшева – Я работаю солнечной батареей
- Аля Кудряшева – Я этой ночью уйду, не спи
- Аля Кудряшева – Ходят катера по Малой Невке
- Аля Кудряшева – Все не то чтобы исчезло
- Аля Кудряшева – Вечер большого дня
- Аля Кудряшева – В этом городе птичий полет шелестит быстролистыми кленами
- Аля Кудряшева – Тяжело деревьям зимой
- Аля Кудряшева – Ты рисуй, девочка, небо пошире
- Аля Кудряшева – Трилогия перед годом (Цепочка ассоциаций)
- Аля Кудряшева – Тишина
- Аля Кудряшева – Театр-весна
- Аля Кудряшева – Такие слишком медовые эти луны
- Аля Кудряшева – Снова current
- Аля Кудряшева – Слишком уж зол ветер
- Аля Кудряшева – Рыбный вальсок
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