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:
- Boris Godunov poem – Alexander Pushkin
- On Catullus by Walter Savage Landor
- A Clear Midnight. by Walt Whitman
- On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Epigram on the same Laird’s Country Seat by Robert Burns
- Proud Music of The Storm by Walt Whitman
- Вера Павлова – Вергилий в предсмертном бреду
- Philosophy poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Наум Коржавин – Гамлет
- His Mistress to Him at his Farewell by Robert Herrick
- Lotus by Rabindranath Tagore
- Passing Breeze by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Beäten Path by William Barnes
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Светлые ночи
- Lines of John M’Murdo by Robert Burns
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
- Василий Жуковский – Библия
- Василий Жуковский – Бедный певец
- Василий Жуковский – Ахилл
- Василий Жуковский – Адельстан
- Василий Жуковский – 19 марта 1823
- Василий Жуковский – К Перовскому (Счастливец, ею ты любим)
- Василий Жуковский – К Нине (О Нина, о Нина)
- Василий Жуковский – К ней
- Василий Жуковский – К мимо пролетавшему гению
- Василий Жуковский – К князю Вяземскому
- Василий Жуковский – К кн. Вяземскому и В.Л.Пушкину
- Василий Жуковский – К Филону
- Василий Жуковский – К Дмитриеву (Нет, не прошла)
- Василий Жуковский – Из альбома, подаренного Ростопчиной (Пушкин)
- Василий Жуковский – Гомер
- Василий Жуковский – Государыне великой княгине на рождение
- Василий Жуковский – Голос с того света
- Василий Жуковский – Герой
- Василий Жуковский – Гаральд
- Василий Жуковский – Эолова арфа
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.