A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
Far back when I went zig-zagging
through tamarack pastures
you were my genius, you
my cast-iron Viking, my helmed
lion-heart king in prison.
Years later now you’re young
my fierce half-brother, staring
down from that simplified west
your breast open, your belt dragged down
by an oldfashioned thing, a sword
the last bravado you won’t give over
though it weighs you down as you stride
and the stars in it are dim
and maybe have stopped burning.
But you burn, and I know it;
as I throw back my head to take you in
and old transfusion happens again:
divine astronomy is nothing to it.
Indoors I bruise and blunder
break faith, leave ill enough
alone, a dead child born in the dark.
Night cracks up over the chimney,
pieces of time, frozen geodes
come showering down in the grate.
A man reaches behind my eyes
and finds them empty
a woman’s head turns away
from my head in the mirror
children are dying my death
and eating crumbs of my life.
Pity is not your forte.
Calmly you ache up there
pinned aloft in your crow’s nest,
my speechless pirate!
You take it all for granted
and when I look you back
it’s with a starlike eye
shooting its cold and egotistical spear
where it can do least damage.
Breath deep! No hurt, no pardon
out here in the cold with you
you with your back to the wall.
A few random poems:
- Как заработать на сочинении собственных стихов: варианты заработка денег стихотворениями – Poetry Monster
- Serendipity by Seema Gupta
- Владимир Маяковский – Октябрьский марш
- Юнна Мориц – Не вспоминай меня
- What the Coal-Heaver Said by Vachel Lindsay
- Robert Burns: Election Ballad For Westerha’:
- I, or Someone Like Me by Marvin Bell
- Old People’s Home by W H Auden
- The Old Lowe House Staten Island
- Colophon poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Robert Burns: O Wert Thou In The Cauld Blast:
- The Song Of The Kasak poem – Alexander Pushkin
- My Soviet Passport by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Ольга Седакова – Маленькое посвящение Владимиру Ивановичу Хвостину
- Irony poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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
- The Messiah : A Sacred Eclogue poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Looking-Glass. : on Mrs. Pulteney poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt) poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Fable of Dryope – Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 9, [v. 324-393] poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Dying Christian to His Soul poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Dunciad: Book IV poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Dunciad: Book III. poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Dunciad: Book II. poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Dunciad: Book I. poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Challenge: A Court Ballad poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Basset-Table : An Eclogue poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Summer poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Summer – The Second Pastoral; or Alexis poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Summer – The Second Pastoral; or Alexis poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Spring – The First Pastoral ; or Damon poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Sound And Sense poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Song, by a Person of Quality poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Solitude: An Ode poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Solitude poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Sappho to Phaon (Ovid Heroid XV) poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
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.