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:
- any_man_speaks.html
- On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet 120: That you were once unkind befriends me now by William Shakespeare
- A Poem about Lemonade
- Creativity Tool – The Five Senses
- Robert Burns: The Charming Month Of May:
- Николай Заболоцкий – Старая актриса
- Анатолий Жигулин – Кукует поздняя кукушка
- the_world.html
- Владимир Высоцкий – Марине
- Владимир Маяковский – Типографы книги делают… (РОСТА №241)
- The Song of the Garden-Toad by Vachel Lindsay
- Faith and Faiths by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Николай Заболоцкий – Генеральская дача
- Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
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
- Look not in my eyes, for fear poem – A. E. Housman
- Loitering with a Vacant Eye poem – A. E. Housman
- Loitering with a Vacant Eye poem – A. E. Housman
- It Nods and Curtseys and Recovers poem – A. E. Housman
- Into My Heart an Air that Kills poem – A. E. Housman
- In My Own Shire, If I Was Sad poem – A. E. Housman
- In My Own Shire, If I Was Sad poem – A. E. Housman
- If Truth in Hearts That Perish poem – A. E. Housman
- If By Chance Your Eye Offend You poem – A. E. Housman
- If By Chance Your Eye Offend You poem – A. E. Housman
- I Hoed and Trenched and Weeded poem – A. E. Housman
- I Hoed and Trenched and Weeded poem – A. E. Housman
- Hughley Steeple poem – A. E. Housman
- Hughley Steeple poem – A. E. Housman
- Ho, everyone that thirsteth poem – A. E. Housman
- Ho, everyone that thirsteth poem – A. E. Housman
- Here Dead We Lie poem – A. E. Housman
- From Far, From Eve and Morning poem – A. E. Housman
- From Far, From Eve and Morning poem – A. E. Housman
- Fragment of a Greek Tragedy poem – A. E. Housman
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.