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:
- Николай Гумилев – Живала Ниагара
- Алексей Ржевский – Сонет, три разные системы заключающий
- For Sale by Shel Silverstein
- Freemen by John Oxenham
- “Call Not The Royal Swede Unfortunate” by William Wordsworth
- The Oak and the Rose by Shel Silverstein
- Matthew by William Wordsworth
- Bathed in War’s Perfume. by Walt Whitman
- Михаил Кузмин – Уж не слышен конский топот
- Meadowsweet by William Allingham
- To His Love When He Had Obtained Her by Sir Walter Raleigh
- Robert Burns: Fragment Of Song:
- The Ballad of the King’s Mercy by Rudyard Kipling
- Владимир Костров – Поплачь, любимая, поплачь
- Зинаида Александрова – В гости к бабушке
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 Маяковский – Гимназист или строитель
- Владимир Маяковский – Гимн взятке
- Владимир Маяковский – Гимн судье
- Владимир Маяковский – Гимн обеду
- Владимир Маяковский – Гевлок Вильсон
- Владимир Маяковский – Если белогвардейщину не добьем совсем… (РОСТА №148)
- Владимир Маяковский – Еще Петербург
- Владимир Маяковский – Электричество – вид энергии
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, уралец! Без помощи твоего рудника не победить разруху никак (Агитплакаты)
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, товарищи, за труд!.. (Главполитпросвет №146)
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, товарищи! От сбора продналога… (Главполитпросвет №284)
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, товарищ! Поищи дома (Главполитпросвет №95)
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, товарищ! Если ты пришел на Сухаревку… (РОСТА №262)
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, шахтер! В опасности трудовая республика твоя! (Агитплакаты)
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, онанисты, кричите «Ура!»
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй! крестьянин, помни ты… (Главполитпросвет №43)
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, граждане, берегите воду!.. (Главполитпросвет №249)
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй
- Владимир Маяковский – Дядя ЭМЭСПЭО
- Владимир Маяковский – Две культуры
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
