by Agha Shahid Ali
First, grant me my sense of history:
I did it for posterity,
for kindergarten teachers
and a clear moral:
Little girls shouldn’t wander off
in search of strange flowers,
and they mustn’t speak to strangers.
And then grant me my generous sense of plot:
Couldn’t I have gobbled her up
right there in the jungle?
Why did I ask her where her grandma lived?
As if I, a forest-dweller,
didn’t know of the cottage
under the three oak trees
and the old woman lived there
all alone?
As if I couldn’t have swallowed her years before?
And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf,
now my only reputation.
But I was no child-molester
though you’ll agree she was pretty.
And the huntsman:
Was I sleeping while he snipped
my thick black fur
and filled me with garbage and stones?
I ran with that weight and fell down,
simply so children could laugh
at the noise of the stones
cutting through my belly,
at the garbage spilling out
with a perfect sense of timing,
just when the tale
should have come to an end.
A Walk Through the Yellow Pages
Copyright ©:
1987, SUN-Gemini Press
A few random poems:
- Василий Тредиаковский – Невозможно быть довольным
- Holy Thursday (Experience) by William Blake
- To His Noble Friend, Mr. Richard Lovelace, Upon His Poems poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Innocent Steps by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Artilleryman’s Vision, The. by Walt Whitman
- Nestling by Mark R Slaughter
- Владимир Набоков – Стансы (Ничем не смоешь подписи косой)
- Astrophel and Stella: XXXIX by Sir Philip Sidney
- Владимир Корнилов – Старость
- Prayers by Rainbow Reed
- On Messrs Hussey and Coffin by Phillis Wheatley
- Николай Заболоцкий – Утренняя песня
- Василий Каменский – Из Симеиза в Алупку
- The Folly Of Being Comforted by William Butler Yeats
- A Week by Thomas Hardy
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 Костров – В керосиновой лампе
- Владимир Костров – Утро в Заборье
- Владимир Костров – У них в делах анархия и жуть
- Владимир Костров – То в ночи она вспыхнет, как спичка
- Владимир Костров – Сверстницам
- Владимир Костров – Старый сюжет
- Владимир Костров – Срок настал, московская богема
- Владимир Костров – Смуту и безверье не приемль
- Владимир Костров – Романс
- Владимир Костров – Просыпаюсь от сердечной боли
- Владимир Костров – Поток ушедших лет
- Владимир Костров – Поплачь, любимая, поплачь
- Владимир Костров – Полон взгляд тихой боли и страха
- Владимир Костров – Поэтессе
- Владимир Костров – Письмо в никуда
- Владимир Костров – Памяти Николая Анциферова
- Владимир Костров – Отшумели сады, отзвенела вода
- Владимир Костров – Новогодняя ночь
- Владимир Костров – Не трогайте жанр
- Владимир Костров – Не банкира, не детей Арбата
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