A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
If I’ve reached for your lines (I have)
like letters from the dead that stir the nerves
dowsed you for a springhead
to water my thirst
dug into my compost skeletons and petals
you surely meant to catch the light:
-at work in my wormeaten wormwood-raftered
stateless underground
have I a plea?
If I’ve touched your finger
with a ravenous tongue
licked from your palm a rift of salt
if I’ve dreamt or thought you
a pack of blood fresh-drawn
hanging darkred from a hook
higher than my heart
(you who understand transfusion)
where else should I appeal?
A pilot light lies low
while the gas jets sleep
(a cat getting toed from stove
into nocturnal ice)
language uncommon and agile as truth
melts down the most intractable silence
A lighthouse keeper’s ethics:
you tend for all or none
for this you might set your furniture on fire
A this we have blundered over
as if the lamp could be shut off at will
rescue denied for some
and still a lighthouse be
A few random poems:
- The Forsaken poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- My Rival by Rudyard Kipling
- Peter by Marianne Moore
- Владимир Высоцкий – Надпись на афише Смехову к 400-му спектаклю «Антимиры»
- Jock O The Side poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Visit by Nijole Miliauskaite
- The Gardener IX: When I Go Alone at Night by Rabindranath Tagore
- Paradise Lost: Book 07 poem – John Milton poems
- Those seven days by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- In The Valley Of The Elwy poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Dust by Sara Teasdale
- May 19th – the Young Pioneers Day
- O’er The Wide Earth, On Mountain And On Plain by William Wordsworth
- The Rendezvous
- Ольга Седакова – Играющий ребенок
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
- Madonna poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Wisdom poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Unity poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Harvest poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Fitfulness poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Wisdom poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Fitfulness poem – Alfred Austin
- Love Of Life poem – Alfred Austin
- Love Of Life poem – Alfred Austin
- Lost poem – Alfred Austin
- “Look up, desponding hearts! See, Morning sallies” poem – Alfred Austin
- Lines Written On Visiting The Chateaux On The Loire poem – Alfred Austin
- Let The Weary World Go Round poem – Alfred Austin
- Leszko The Bastard poem – Alfred Austin
- “`Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law” poem – Alfred Austin
- Is Life Worth Living? poem – Alfred Austin
- Inflexible As Fate poem – Alfred Austin
- In The Month When Sings The Cuckoo poem – Alfred Austin
- In The Forum poem – Alfred Austin
- In Sutton Woods poem – Alfred Austin
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.