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 Gardener LXIV: I Spent My Day by Rabindranath Tagore
- A Dream Of Death by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Высоцкий – Дорожный дневник: Часть II
- haiku
- Омар Хайям – Не у тех, кто во прах государства поверг
- In A Cuban Garden by Sara Teasdale
- ambiguities of absence by Steve Troyanovich
- To a Steam Roller by Marianne Moore
- Олег Григорьев – Пьет оса кисель из чашки
- On Visiting The Tomb Of Burns poem – John Keats poems
- Rendezvous
- Harry Ploughman poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Зинаида Александрова – У моря
- To a Young Lady, with the Illiad of Homer Translated by William Somervile
- In Imitation of Spenser : The Alley poem – Alexander Pope
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
- Вера Полозкова – И тут он приваливается к оградке
- Вера Полозкова – И пока он вскакивает с кровати
- Вера Полозкова – И катись бутылкой по автостраде
- Вера Полозкова – Губы плавя в такой ухмылке
- Вера Полозкова – Горький запах полыни
- Вера Полозкова – Гонево
- Вера Полозкова – Францу Кафке
- Вера Полозкова – Это не прихоть, это не блажь
- Вера Полозкова – Есть дерево, в лесу всего древней
- Вера Полозкова – Для неровного счета
- Вера Полозкова – Детство
- Вера Полозкова – Декабрь
- Вера Полозкова – Да что у меня, нормально всё, так, условно
- Вера Полозкова – Мой великий кардиотерапевт
- Вера Полозкова – Мне бы только хотелось
- Вера Полозкова – Манипенни, твой мальчик, видно, неотвратим
- Вера Полозкова – Мало ли кто
- Вера Звягинцева – Всхожу на мост
- Вера Звягинцева – Ты не снись мне
- Вера Звягинцева – Стоишь, не поднимая глаз
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.