by Ai
We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don’t tell me, I say. I don’t want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that’s where I’m floating,
and that’s what it’s like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?
A few random poems:
- Introduction to the Songs of Innocence by William Blake
- Twins by Vinko Kalinić
- Dolphin by Robert Lowell
- The End Of The Library by Weldon Kees
- Владимир Луговской – Радость
- Станислав Востоков – Стой, кто идёт
- A Song of the White Men by Rudyard Kipling
- Jewels by Sara Teasdale
- The Tree and the Marble by Mike Yuan
- Константин Батюшков – Мадригал Мелине, которая называла себя нимфою
- Hot and Cold by Roald Dahl
- Sailing To Byzantium by William Butler Yeats
- Cain and Abel by Rudyard Kipling
- Владимир Маяковский – Россия – страна земледельческая… (РОСТА №874)
- Are You There? by W H Auden
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
- Николай Языков – Романс (Что делал с Евою Адам)
- Николай Языков – Родина
- Николай Языков – Разбойники
- Николай Языков – Пушкину (О ты, чья дружба мне дороже)
- Николай Языков – Прошли младые наши годы
- Николай Языков – Прощальная песня (В последний раз приволье жизни братской)
- Николай Языков – Прими ты мой поклон заздравный
- Николай Языков – Поздравление М. Н. Дириной
- Николай Языков – Посвящение А. А. Воейковой «Песни короля Регнера»
- Николай Языков – Послание к Кулибину (Какой огонь тогда блистал)
- Николай Языков – Послание к Ф. И. Иноземцеву (Да сохранит тебя великий русский бог)
- Николай Языков – Послание к А. Н. Очкину (О, ты, с которым я, от юношеских лет)
- Николай Языков – Поэт (Радушно рабствует поэту)
- Николай Языков – Подражание псалму XIV
- Николай Языков – Подражание псалму
- Николай Языков – Пловец (Воют волны, скачут волны)
- Николай Языков – Песня (Я жду тебя, когда вечерней мглою)
- Николай Языков – Песня (Пусть свободны и легки)
- Николай Языков – Песня (От сердца дружные с вином)
- Николай Языков – Песня (Налей и мне, товарищ мой)
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
