Living In Sin

A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)

She had thought the studio would keep itself;

no dust upon the furniture of love.

Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,

the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,

a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat

stalking the picturesque amusing mouse

had risen at his urging.

Not that at five each separate stair would writhe

under the milkman’s tramp; that morning light

so coldly would delineate the scraps

of last night’s cheese and three sepulchral bottles;

that on the kitchen shelf amoong the saucers

a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own–

envoy from some village in the moldings…

Meanwhile, he, with a yawn,

sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,

declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror,

rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;

while she, jeered by the minor demons,

pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found

a towel to dust the table-top,

and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.

By evening she was back in love again,

though not so wholly but throughout the night

she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming

like a relentless milkman up the stairs.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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 

• Meg Merrilies poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Lines On The Mermaid Tavern poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Lines from Endymion poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Lines poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Last Sonnet poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• La Belle Dame Sans Merci poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Keen, Fitful Gusts are Whisp’ring Here and There poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Isabella or The Pot of Basil poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• John Keats – John Keats Poems by John Keats
• In Drear-Nighted December poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain’d poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Hyperion poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Hymn To Apollo poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• How Many Bards Gild The Lapses Of Time! poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Hither, Hither, Love poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• His Last Sonnet poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Happy Is England! I Could Be Content poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Give Me Women, Wine, and Snuff poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Fragment of an Ode to Maia poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Fill For Me A Brimming Bowl poem – John Keats poems by John Keats

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works