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:
- Extract From The Conclusion Of A Poem Composed In Anticipation Of Leaving School by William Wordsworth
- Tori Soorat Kay Balihaari poem – Amir Khusro poems | Poems and Poetry
- Олег Бундур – Запахи дня
- The Explorer by Rudyard Kipling
- Ольга Берггольц – Кирову
- Илона Грошева – Каждый год в себе несет воскресение
- Strumpet Song by Sylvia Plath
- Sonnet XII. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour poem – John Keats poems
- To the Right Hon. The Earl of Halifax , with the Fable of the Two Springs by William Somervile
- Николай Заболоцкий – Я не ищу гармонии в природе
- first_light.html
- The Song of the Shirt by Thomas Hood
- A Cooking Egg by T. S. Eliot
- The Given Love
- Владимир Маяковский – Успокоилась Франция, злобой не пышет… (РОСТА №625)
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
- Muhammad by Mahmoud Darwish
- Lulu by Manolo Arriola
- Khanaa’s Song by Mallika Sengupta
- In Jerusalem by Mahmoud Darwish
- If Old Men Fought by Mac McGovern
- Identity Card by Mahmoud Darwish
- I Didn’t Apologize to the Well by Mahmoud Darwish
- I Come From There by Mahmoud Darwish
- I Belong There by Mahmoud Darwish
- I Am There by Mahmoud Darwish
- I Want To Write by Margaret Walker
- Hora Cero by Manolo Arriola
- Heaven, an envious home by Mahak Raithatha S
- He Is Calm, and I Am Too by Mahmoud Darwish
- Hate Survives by Mac McGovern
- Halloween by Mac Hammond
- Frijolita by Manolo Arriola
- FREEDOM by Mac McGovern
- For Life and Death of a Poet by Marcin Malek
- FLORECER by Manolo Arriola
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.