A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
Thinking of Caroline Herschel (1750-1848),
astronomer, sister of William; and others.
A woman in the shape of a monster
a monster in the shape of a woman
the skies are full of them
a woman ‘in the snow
among the Clocks and instruments
or measuring the ground with poles’
in her 98 years to discover
8 comets
She whom the moon ruled
like us
levitating into the night sky
riding the polished lenses
Galaxies of women, there
doing penance for impetuousness
ribs chilled
in those spaces of the mind
An eye,
‘virile, precise and absolutely certain’
from the mad webs of Uranusborg
encountering the NOVA
every impulse of light exploding
from the core
as life flies out of us
Tycho whispering at last
‘Let me not seem to have lived in vain’
What we see, we see
and seeing is changing
the light that shrivels a mountain
and leaves a man alive
Heartbeat of the pulsar
heart sweating through my body
The radio impulse
pouring in from Taurus
I am bombarded yet I stand
I have been standing all my life in the
direct path of a battery of signals
the most accurately transmitted most
untranslatable language in the universe
I am a galactic cloud so deep so invo-
luted that a light wave could take 15
years to travel through me And has
taken I am an instrument in the shape
of a woman trying to translate pulsations
into images for the relief of the body
and the reconstruction of the mind.
A few random poems:
- Why
- The Dunciad: Book I. poem – Alexander Pope
- Ольга Седакова – Липа
- Василий Лебедев-Кумач – В дальний путь идут корабли
- Love and Folly by William Cullen Bryant
- I Want It Now by Roald Dahl
- A Leaf for Hand in Hand. by Walt Whitman
- Idylls of the King: The Marriage of Geraint poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Unlike, For Example, The Sound Of A Riptooth Saw by Thomas Lux
- Robert Burns: M’Pherson’s Farewell:
- Николай Заболоцкий – Старость
- Tenuous And Precarious by Stevie Smith
- The Hospital On The Shore
- The Amaranth by Vachel Lindsay
- To His Worthy Friend Doctor Witty Upon His Translation Of The Popular Errors poem – Andrew Marvell poems
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
- Robert Burns: The Winter It Is Past:
- Robert Burns: To Daunton Me:
- Robert Burns: Talk Of Him That’s Far Awa:
- Robert Burns: The Lad They Ca’Jumpin John:
- Robert Burns: Duncan Davison :
- Robert Burns: Hey, The Dusty Miller:
- Robert Burns: How Long And Dreary Is The Night :
- Robert Burns: Up In The Morning Early:
- Robert Burns: Raving Winds Around Her Blowing: I composed these verses on Miss Isabella M’Leod of Raza, alluding to her feelings on the death of her sister, and the still more melancholy death of her sister’s husband, the late Earl of Loudoun, who shot himself out of sheer heart-break at some mortifications he suffered, owing to the deranged state of his finances.-R.B., 1971.
- Robert Burns: My Hoggie:
- Robert Burns: Stay My Charmer:
- Robert Burns: M’Pherson’s Farewell:
- Robert Burns: To The Weavers Gin Ye Go:
- Robert Burns: I’m O’er Young To Marry Yet:
- Robert Burns: Clarinda, Mistress Of My Soul:
- Robert Burns: Go On, Sweet Bird, And Sooth My Care:
- Robert Burns: Love In The Guise Of Friendship:
- Robert Burns: Sylvander To Clarinda: Extempore Reply to Verses addressed to the Author by a Lady, under the signature of “Clarinda” and entitled, On Burns saying he ‘had nothing else to do.’
- Robert Burns: On The Death Of Robert Dundas, Esq., Of Arniston,: Late Lord President of the Court of Session.
- Robert Burns: Birthday Ode For 31st December, 1787:
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.