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:
- Ashes of Soldiers. by Walt Whitman
- Владимир Костров – Новогодняя ночь
- The Ivy by William Barnes
- Sonnet 133: Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Британишский – Унифицированный современный поэт
- The Dawn
- The Princess And The Goblins by Sylvia Plath
- Birthday Ode for 31st December, 1787 by Robert Burns
- Николай Языков – Е. А. Свербеевой (Мысль неразгульного поэта)
- When I read the Book. by Walt Whitman
- Владимир Бенедиктов – С могучей страстию в мучительной борьбе
- Inscription For A Hermitage In The Author’s Garden by William Cowper
- Astrophel and Stella: I by Sir Philip Sidney
- Repose In God by William Cowper
- Who Would Of Knew…..About Your Concept!!! (July 10th) by Stevens Cadet
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
- Further Instructions poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Epilogue poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Ezra on the Strike poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Francesca poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Grace Before Song poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Part I) poem – Ezra Pound poems
- In the Old Age of the Soul poem – Ezra Pound poems
- And the days are not full enough poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Canto XIII poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Canto XLIX poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Alba poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Ballad of the Goodly Fere poem – Ezra Pound poems
- E.P. Ode Pour L’election De Son Sepulchre poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Ancient Music poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Cino poem – Ezra Pound poems
- A Pact poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Before Sleep poem – Ezra Pound poems
- An Immorality poem – Ezra Pound poems
- In A Station Of The Metro poem – Ezra Pound poems
- poem6474.html
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.