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:
- Вероника Тушнова – Тропа, петляя и пыля
- In Memory of a Child by Vachel Lindsay
- Николай Языков – Дом сумасшедших в Дерпте
- Николай Языков – П. Н. Шепелеву (Ты мой приятель задушевной)
- Нина Веселова – Жена
- The River by Mark Olynyk
- The Dream by Siegfried Sassoon
- Наум Коржавин – Люди пашут каждый раз опять
- Валерий Брюсов – Я жизнью пьян. Напиток жгучий
- The Challenge Answered poem – Alfred Austin
- The Chronicle
- A Good Father by William Barnes
- To Sr Henry Vane The Younger poem – John Milton poems
- It Is Not A Word by Sara Teasdale
- Владимир Костров – Смуту и безверье не приемль
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
- Answers by Mark Strand
- And The Black Scythe With Its Beak of Ibis by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- After Forever by Mark Miller
- A World So Different by Mary Etta Metcalf
- A Poet I knew by Martin Zakovski
- A Piece Of The Storm by Mark Strand
- A Photograph on the Desk by Mary Etta Metcalf
- A Misty Morning by Mary Etta Mietcalf
- A Cozy Little Room by Mary Etta Metcalf
- À ce point du voyage by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- A Dream of Rodney King by Mary TallMountain
- You Ask Why Sometimes I Say Stop by Marge Piercy
- Yell of Pain by Maria Ivana Trevisani Bach
- Year’s End by Marilyn Hacker
- Winter Promises by Marge Piercy
- What Are Big Girls Made Of? by Marge Piercy
- Visiting a Dead Man on a Summer Day by Marge Piercy
- Upon Julia’s Breast by Marie Starr
- Unloved, unmoved by Maria Jastine Golo
- Twas’ the Night Before Christmas and Santa got Drunk by Margaret Marie Hubbard
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.