A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
When the ice starts to shiver
all across the reflecting basin
or water-lily leaves
dissect a simple surface
the word ‘drowning’ flows through me.
You built a glassy floor
that held me
as I leaned to fish for old
hooks and toothed tin cans,
stems lashing out like ties of
silk dressing-gowns
archangels of lake-light
gripped in mud.
Now you hand me a torn letter.
On my knees, in the ashes, I could never
fit these ripped-up flakes together.
In the taxi I am still piecing
what syllables I can
translating at top speed like a thinking machine
that types out ‘useless’ as ‘monster’
and ‘history’ as ‘lampshade’.
Crossing the bridge I need all my nerve
to trust to the man-made cables.
The blades on that machine
could cut you to ribbons
but its function is humane.
Is this all I can say of these
delicate books, scythe-curved intentions
you and I handle? I’d rather
taste blood, yours or mine, flowing
from a sudden slash, than cut all day
with blunt scissors on dotted lines
like the teacher told.
A few random poems:
- Николай Языков – А. А. Елагину (Была прекрасна, весела…)
- He Said To by Marvin Bell
- Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots by Robert Burns
- A Plain Life by William Henry Davies
- Lover’s Gifts IV: She Is Near to My Heart by Rabindranath Tagore
- Becalmed and Bewildered by Thomas J Camp
- He Tells Of A Valley Full Of Lovers by William Butler Yeats
- Buddha’s Laugh by Sonya Ki Tomlinson
- Sex – Hinduism Shows the Scientific Way!
- Жан де Лафонтен – Волк, Мать и Ребенок
- Racial Memories of a Chickadee by Todd H. C. Fischer
- Senec. Traged. Ex Thyeste Chor.2 poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Аля Кудряшева – По дому бегает Марфа
- Hate Survives by Mac McGovern
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 126. Love is and was my Lord and King poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson 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
- Sacrifice And Love
- Rule I By Eric Mottram Stop Writing Literature You Garrulous Indian
- Poetry And Politics
- Poem Stories
- Plato
- Peace Universal Good
- Paralipomemnon
- Our Refuge
- One Sweet White Light
- New Land
- Motionless Body
- Mother
- Minimalism And The Elm Choka
- Mark
- Love Flower
- Love
- Lord God Have Mercy On Me
- Libation
- Least In A List
- Interpret The Light
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
Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012) was an American poet, essayist, and feminist.