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:
- Ярослав Смеляков – Русский язык
- Beyond The Veil by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- The Lion by Vachel Lindsay
- Eight O’Clock by Sara Teasdale
- How to Survive After Losing a Loved One
- Wraiths by Siegfried Sassoon
- Омар Хайям – Если бог не услышит меня в вышине
- Stacking The Straw poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sow by Sylvia Plath
- Владимир Гиляровский – Я эоловой арфы струна
- The Other Side of Panic by Martina Reisz Newberry
- Forlorn, my love, no comfort here (Song) by Robert Burns
- Валерий Брюсов – Гимн Нилу
- The Sacrifice of Er-Heb by Rudyard Kipling
- Михаил Лермонтов – Баллада (Куда так проворно, жидовка младая)
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
- Orlando Furioso Canto 12 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Orlando Furioso Canto 11 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Orlando Furioso Canto 10 by Ludovico Ariosto
- Orlando Furioso Canto 1 by Ludovico Ariosto
- On The High Pedestal by Shahida Latif
- No quise detenerte by Luz del Alba Nicola
- Memo to my Spouse by Adeola Ikuomola
- Love Poem by Aditya Kumar
- Love by Shahida Latif
- Let me draw your face by St Antoine de la Vuadi
- La Greatest by Samuel Stephen Wakdok
- Kiss Me Again by St Antoine de la Vuadi
- Is It True! by Luis Estable
- In Our Time by Michael D Wentworth
- I love you by Inganathi Ntantiso
- I did not want to stop you by Luz del Alba Nicola
- I Call Your Name In My Heart by Samuel Stephen Wakdok
- I Ask Someone To Resolve by Shahida Latif
- I Am Just Saying! by Luis Estable
- Here I would have loved you by Luz del Alba Nicola
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.