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:
- Our Army Of The Dead by Will McKendree Carleton
- Old Deuteronomy by T. S. Eliot
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 82. I wage not any feud with death poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Sonnet Vi
- Winter Promises by Marge Piercy
- Storm
- Владимир Высоцкий – В этом доме большом раньше пьянка была
- Life by Walter William Safar
- Prophets at Home by Rudyard Kipling
- Новелла Матвеева – Я, говорит, не воин
- Sonnet I: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Две прелестницы
- Омар Хайям – Безгрешными приходим и грешим
- Владимир Маяковский – Шестой
- Владимир Высоцкий – Сорняков, когда созреют
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