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:
- The Mower To The Glo-Worms poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Владимир Корнилов – Прямота
- Verses Turned… poem – John Betjeman poems
- Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg by William Wordsworth
- Into My Heart an Air that Kills poem – A. E. Housman
- Must Work by Steve Downes
- Wirers by Siegfried Sassoon
- Владимир Корнилов – Собака подлеца
- Passion For Light
- Степан Щипачев – Не громок, не бросок мой стих
- She and Drugs by Mark R Slaughter
- Федор Сологуб – В его саду растет рябина
- Robert Burns: Talk Of Him That’s Far Awa:
- Purity by Rabindranath Tagore
- Flickering Dream by Satish Verma
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
- How Do You Produce Original Articles?
- Create Wealth With Creative Thinking
- How to Earn Money Writing and Selling Books
- In the Philippines, August Is a Celebration of Buwan Ng Wika
- Christopher Okigbo – Looking Back at His Short-lived Life and Taking Stock of His Poetic Legacy
- Mary’s Son – A Tale of Christmas – An Inspiring Read
- Most Memorable Mother’s Day Gift Ideas
- Proactive Responses to Recession – 7 Creative Ways to Make Extra Money With Real Estate
- Love Expression in Marriage
- Family Caregivers Have Promises to Keep
- Follow My Directions, Please: A Fun Christian Preschool Activity
- Creative Self Sabotage – 5 Favourite Sabotage Techniques Of Creative Artists & How To Avoid Them
- Is Resume Writing Really That Important?
- Literary Cubism – A Non-Structured Structure For Twenty-first Century Storytelling
- Los Able Minded Poets Music Review
- How to Choose a Federal Resume Writing Service
- The Truth About Propolis Benefits
- Insights Into History, Culture, & Creativity of Sri Lanka – Explore the Cultural Triangle
- The Columbian Exchange Beginning With Spanish Colonization
- 3 Inspirational Quotes That Encourage You to Be Yourself
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