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:
- Ojira To Her Lover
- Владимир Костров – 1380 год
- Спиридон Дрожжин – Я для песни задушевной
- To M C N
- Love’s Confession poem – Yuvraj Johri poems | Poetry Monster
- My Mother’s Body by Marge Piercy
- Владимир Корнилов – Происхождение
- The Nympholept
- Denouement Villanelle by Sylvia Plath
- Sleep and Death by William Wycherley
- Ольга Седакова – Три богини
- Михаил Кузмин – В гроте Венерином мы горим
- London in July poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Bird of Paradise by William Henry Davies
- A Song From ‘The Player Queen’ by William Butler Yeats
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
- Борис Заходер – Про пана Трулялинского
- Валерий Брюсов – Е.Т. (Кто глаза ее оправил)
- Валерий Брюсов – Дворец любви
- Валерий Брюсов – Две вазы
- Валерий Брюсов – Две испанских песенки
- Валерий Брюсов – Двадцать лет назад ты умерла
- Валерий Брюсов – Два мака
- Валерий Брюсов – Дрожащие листья на бледные щеки
- Валерий Брюсов – Дозор
- Валерий Брюсов – Дождь перед ночью
- Валерий Брюсов – Дождь
- Валерий Брюсов – Голос города (Ру-ру, ру-ру, трах, рк-ру-ру)
- Валерий Брюсов – Годы в былом
- Валерий Брюсов – Гнутся высокие лотосы
- Валерий Брюсов – Глупое сердце, о чем же печалиться
- Валерий Брюсов – Гимн Нилу
- Валерий Брюсов – Гимн Атону
- Валерий Брюсов – Гимн Афродите
- Валерий Брюсов – Гесперидовы сады
- Валерий Брюсов – Германия (отрывки)
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.