A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.
Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.
If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely
but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?
The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.
A few random poems:
- Yell of Pain by Maria Ivana Trevisani Bach
- Bothwell Castle by William Wordsworth
- Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year by Raymond Carver
- Низами Гянджеви – Увы, на этой лужайке, где согнут страстью я,
- On The New Forcers Of Conscience Under The Long Parliament poem – John Milton poems
- The Master of the Dance by Vachel Lindsay
- An Hymn To The Evening by Phillis Wheatley
- By Broad Potomac’s Shore. by Walt Whitman
- The Virgin Maid of Orleans, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet: La Pucelle by T. Wignesan.
- On Moonlit Heath and Lonesome Bank poem – A. E. Housman
- Leszko The Bastard poem – Alfred Austin
- I turn my head by Vladimir Marku
- Sonnet 152: In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Маяковский – Письмо к любимой Молчанова, брошенной им
- Олег Бундур – Почему собаки дерутся
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
- Как папа женился
- К той, что названа Кариной
- Как Лера чудо искала
- Как Муромец Илья когда-то
- Как на Масляной неделе
- К 8-му марта
- К нам приходит в день февральский снежною тропой
- Из головы у меня не выходишь
- Из всех искусств кинематограф
- Иван Варавва – Жаворонок
- Иван Варавва – В закубанском лесу
- Иван Варавва – Выйду в степь, на поля плодородные
- Иван Варавва – Раскинет объятия поле
- Иван Варавва – Соловей на веточке
- Иван Варавва – Кубань
- Иван Варавва – Мать Кубань
- Иван Варавва – На окраине села
- Иван Мятлев – Соловей
- Иван Мятлев – Старушка
- Иван Мятлев – Звезда
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.