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:
- Publishing Poetry – How To Locate The Best Markets Where You Can See Your Poems In Print
- Wind poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sea of lavender ( 4 pre-summer poems ) by Vasil Slavov
- Farewell To Italy poem – Alfred Austin
- Noe more unto my thoughts appeare by Sidney Godolphin
- Robert Burns: On Sensibility: Fragment
- Жан де Лафонтен – Городская и полевая Крысы
- A Performance At Hog Theater by Russell Edson
- The Ghost by Sara Teasdale
- On Receiving Hayley’s Picture by William Cowper
- Turns by Tony Harrison
- To The Hills
- How Sleep the Brave by Walter de la Mare
- Иннокентий Анненский – Еврипид. Орест (перевод)
- A Dogs Love Is a Never Ending Game by Stacey Chillemi
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 Высоцкий – Расскажи, дорогой
- Владимир Высоцкий – Это вовсе не френч-канкан
- Владимир Высоцкий – Величальная отцу
- Владимир Высоцкий – Студенческая песня
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня Вани перед студентами
- Владимир Высоцкий – Грустная песня о Ванечке
- Владимир Высоцкий – Свадебная
- Владимир Высоцкий – Солдат и привидение
- Владимир Высоцкий – Серенада Соловья-разбойника
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня солдата на часах
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня Марии
- Владимир Высоцкий – Куплеты нечистой силы
- Владимир Высоцкий – Иван да Марья
- Владимир Высоцкий – Заключительная песня Кэрролла
- Владимир Высоцкий – Странные скачки
- Владимир Высоцкий – Шляпник
- Владимир Высоцкий – Про королевское шествие
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня Попугая
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня о планах
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня Лягушонка
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