A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)

My swirling wants. Your frozen lips.

The grammar turned and attacked me.

Themes, written under duress.

Emptiness of the notations.

They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.

I want you to see this before I leave:

the experience of repetition as death

the failure of criticism to locate the pain

the poster in the bus that said:

my bleeding is under control

A red plant in a cemetary of plastic wreaths.

A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor.

These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight.

When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time.

When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.

I could say: those mountains have a meaning

but further than that I could not say.

To do something very common, in my own way.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random 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 

• The Song of the Women by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Song of the Sons by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Song of the Old Guard by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Song of the Little Hunter by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Song of the Dead by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Song of the Cities by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Song of Seven Cities by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Settler by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Servant When He Reigneth by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Sergeant’s Weddin’ by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Secret of the Machines by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Second Voyage by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Sea-Wife by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Sea And the Hills by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Sacrifice of Er-Heb by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Rupaiyat of Omar Kal’vin by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Rowers by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Rhyme of the Three Sealers by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Rhyme of the Three Captains by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• The Return by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works