A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
A life hauls itself uphill
through hoar-mist steaming
the sun’s tongue licking
leaf upon leaf into stricken liquid
When? When? cry the soothseekers
but time is a bloodshot eye
seeing its last of beauty its own
foreclosure
a bloodshot mind
finding itself unspeakable
What is the last thought?
Now I will let you know?
or, Now I know?
(porridge of skull-splinters, brain tissue
mouth and throat membrane, cranial fluid)
Shattered head on the breast
of a wooded hill
Laid down there endlessly so
tendrils soaked into matted compose
became a root
torqued over the faint springhead
groin whence illegible
matter leaches: worm-borings, spurts of silt
volumes of sporic changes
hair long blown into far follicles
blasted into a chosen place
Revenge on the head (genitals, breast, untouched)
revenge on the mouth
packed with its inarticulate confessions
revenge on the eyes
green-gray and restless
revenge on the big and searching lips
the tender tongue
revenge on the sensual, on the nose the
carrier of history
revenge on the life devoured
in another incineration
You can walk by such a place, the earth is
made of them
where the stretched tissue of a field or woods
is humid
with beloved matter
the soothseekers have withdrawn
you feel no ghost, only a sporic chorus
when that place utters its worn sigh
let us have peace
And the shattered head answers back
And I believed I was loved, I believed I loved
Who did this to us?
A few random poems:
- A Lovers’ Quarrel by Robert Browning
- Poema II, “Pañuelos de La Alhambra” by Mara Romero Torres
- Where Is David, the Next King of Israel? by Vachel Lindsay
- A Nativity by William Butler Yeats
- Aquatic Nocturne by Sylvia Plath
- Epistle To John Hamilton Reynolds poem – John Keats poems
- Song—A Rose-bud by my Early Walk by Robert Burns
- Run to Death poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Love Sonnet X poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Такахама Кёси – Мацумуси пищит
- The Tenants Of The Little Box by Vasko Popa
- When to the sessions of sweet silent thought (Sonnet 30) by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня Билла Сиггера
- Владимир Британишский – Тропа виляла
- “Advance – Come Forth From Thy Tyrolean Ground” by William Wordsworth
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
- Youth and Love poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Twilight poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Translated from Geibel poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- To Vernon Lee poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- To E. poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- To Death poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- To Clementina Black poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Village Garden poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Two Terrors poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Sick Man and the Nightingale poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Sequel to a Reminiscence poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Promise of Sleep poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Piano-Organ poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Old Poet poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Old House poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Lost Friend poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Last Judgment poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The First Extra poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The End of the Day poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Dream poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
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.