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:
- The Minotaur by Ted Hughes
- Head of a Smiling Young Woman in Three-Quarter View by Raj Arumugam
- The Epicure
- Василий Курочкин – Мы всё смешное косим, косим
- All Kinds by William Wright Harris
- Across Kansas by William Stafford
- A Woman’s Fancy by Thomas Hardy
- Boa Constrictor by Shel Silverstein
- Indian Dancer by Sarojini Naidu
- October by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Man Who Dreamed Of Faeryland by William Butler Yeats
- Song Unsung by Rabindranath Tagore
- On Chloris being ill (Song) by Robert Burns
- Robert Burns: Verses Intended To Be Written Below A Noble Earl’s Picture:
- Orlando Furioso Canto 4 by Ludovico Ariosto
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
- Apollo And The Graces poem – John Keats poems
- Answer To A Sonnet By J.H.Reynolds poem – John Keats poems
- An Extempore poem – John Keats poems
- Acrostic : Georgiana Augusta Keats poem – John Keats poems
- A Song About Myself poem – John Keats poems
- A Prophecy: To George Keats In America poem – John Keats poems
- A Party Of Lovers poem – John Keats poems
- A Galloway Song poem – John Keats poems
- A Dream, After Reading Dante’s Episode Of Paolo And Francesca poem – John Keats poems
- A Draught Of Sunshine poem – John Keats poems
- Written On The Day That Mr Leigh Hunt Left Prison poem – John Keats poems
- Written On A Summer Evening poem – John Keats poems
- Written On A Blank Space At The End Of Chaucer’s Tale Of The Flowre And The Lefe poem – John Keats poems
- Written Before Re-Reading King Lear poem – John Keats poems
- Why Did I Laugh Tonight? No Voice Will Tell poem – John Keats poems
- Where’s the Poet? poem – John Keats poems
- Where Be Ye Going, You Devon Maid? poem – John Keats poems
- When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be poem – John Keats poems
- To The Nile poem – John Keats poems
- To Solitude poem – John Keats poems
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.