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:
- Robert Burns: Address Spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her Benefit Night, December 4th, 1793, at the Theatre, Dumfries.:
- The Ballad of the King’s Jest by Rudyard Kipling
- NO SE VIVIR ASI by victoria luisa mora paoli
- The face wanted by Vinko Kalinić
- The Bride-Cake by Robert Herrick
- Владимир Маяковский – Первый вывоз
- Алишер Навои – То не заросли тюльпанов
- Sonnet Xvi Who Shall Invoke Her
- Валерий Брюсов – Германия (отрывки)
- The Sequel to a Reminiscence poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- To a Lady, Who Made Me a Present of a Silver Pen by William Somervile
- The Hawthorn Tree by Siegfried Sassoon
- Life of Paradoxes by Mike Yuan
- Oh Life I Have Taken You For My Lover
- Ballade: In favour of those called Decadents and Symbolists, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s Ballade: En faveur des dénommés Déca by T Wignesan
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
- Владимир Степанов – Цыплята (Буква Ц)
- Владимир Степанов – Что мы Родиной зовём
- Владимир Степанов – Барби (Буква Б)
- Владимир Степанов – Акробат (Буква А)
- Владимир Соловьев – Знамение
- Владимир Солоухин – Яблоко
- Владимир Солоухин – Все смотрю
- Владимир Солоухин – Волки
- Владимир Солоухин – Ветер
- Владимир Солоухин – Вдоль берегов Болгарии прошли мы
- Владимир Солоухин – В лесу
- Владимир Солоухин – Утро
- Владимир Солоухин – У тихой речки детство проводя
- Владимир Солоухин – У моря
- Владимир Солоухин – Тропа нацелена в звезду
- Владимир Солоухин – Теперь-то уж плакать нечего
- Владимир Орлов – Очень хорошая девочка Яна
- Владимир Орлов – Ночной листок
- Владимир Орлов – Не боится Дима
- Владимир Орлов – Март
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