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:
- A Shropshire Lad poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- All Saints Day 1867
- Владимир Маяковский – Профсоюзы – производства рычаг… (Главполитпросвет №10)
- David Cleek by Siegfried Sassoon
- I Travelled among Unknown Men by William Wordsworth
- Mystic by Sylvia Plath
- Picture of Daniel in the Lion’s Den at Hamilton Palace by William Wordsworth
- Sonnet 106: When in the chronicle of wasted time by William Shakespeare
- Where Lies The Land To Which Yon Ship Must Go? by William Wordsworth
- Mediocrity in Love Rejected by Thomas Carew
- in_between_the_strophes.html
- Владимир Высоцкий – Милицейский протокол
- Николай Языков – Странный случай
- Atavism
- On the Burning of Lord Mansfield’s Library by William Cowper
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
- Lover’s Gifts XLVIII: I Travelled the Old Road by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts XLVII: The Road Is by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts XLIV: Where Is Heaven by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts XLIII: Dying, You Have Left Behind by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts XLII: Are You a Mere Picture by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts XL: A Message Came by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts XIX: It Is Written in the Book by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts XIII: Last Night in the Garden by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts VIII: There Is Room for You by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts V: I Would Ask For Still More by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts LXX: Take Back Your Coins by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts LVIII: Things Throng and Laugh by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts LIV: In the Beginning of Time by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts LII: Tired of Waiting by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts IV: She Is Near to My Heart by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lover’s Gifts II: Come to My Garden Walk by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lotus by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lost Time by Rabindranath Tagore
- Lost Star by Rabindranath Tagore
- Little Of Me by Rabindranath Tagore
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.