The relatives are leaning over, staring expectantly.
They moisten their lips with their tongues. I can feel
them urging me on. I hold the baby in the air.
Heaps of broken bottles glitter in the sun.
A small band is playing old fashioned marches.
My mother is keeping time by stamping her foot.
My father is kissing a woman who keeps waving
to somebody else. There are palm trees.
The hills are spotted with orange flamboyants and tall
billowy clouds move beyond them. “Go on, Boy,”
I hear somebody say, “Go on.”
I keep wondering if it will rain.
The sky darkens. There is thunder.
“Break his legs,” says one of my aunts,
“Now give him a kiss.” I do what I’m told.
The trees bend in the bleak tropical wind.
The baby did not scream, but I remember that sigh
when I reached inside for his tiny lungs and shook them
out in the air for the flies. The relatives cheered.
It was about that time I gave up.
Now, when I answer the phone, his lips
are in the receiver; when I sleep, his hair is gathered
around a familiar face on the pillow; wherever I search
I find his feet. He is what is left of my life.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 15. To-night the winds begin to rise poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- My Miracle Valentine by Tirtha Raj Baral (Sanu Punatare)
- Владимир Маяковский – Рассказ одного об одной мечте
- Phantasm
- Old Ladies’ Home by Sylvia Plath
- Scotland by MB Moshe
- Владимир Степанов – Утёнок (Буква У)
- Robert Burns: Elegy On “Stella”: The following poem is the work of some hapless son of the Muses who deserved a better fate. There is a great deal of “The voice of Cona” in his solitary, mournful notes; and had the sentiments been clothed in Shenstone’s language, they would have been no discredit even to that elegant poet.-R.B.
- Robert Burns: I Love My Love In Secret:
- Николай Гумилев – Молитва мастеров
- Василий Жуковский – Тоска по милом
- Further Instructions poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Robert Burns: Epitaph For William Nicol, Of The High School, Edinburgh:
- Reveille by Primo Levi
- Crowding by Satish Verma
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
