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:
- Олег Бундур – Я вырасту, мама
- The Lamp by Sara Teasdale
- Death Divine by Nithin Purple
- Beach Glass poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Ring of Stars by Robert Desnos
- Владимир Корнилов – 26 апреля
- At The Smithville Methodist Church by Stephen Dunn
- mine danse macabre doppelganger by matthew scott harris
- On His Eightieth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor
- Oh Mother poem – Amy Haritha Suseel poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Settle An’ The Girt Wood Vire by William Barnes
- Owl by Sylvia Plath
- The Street Sounds to the Soldiers’ Tread poem – A. E. Housman
- Coole Park, 1929 by William Butler Yeats
- A Prayer poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
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
- History by Robert Lowell
- Dolphin by Robert Lowell
- Now That You’re Gone by Roberto Cocina
- My World Destroyed by Roberto Cocina
- My Heart Screams by Roberto Cocina
- My Beach by Robert Saltzman
- Mortal Words by Robert McNamara
- Memories of West Street and Lepke by Robert Lowell
- Man And Wife by Robert Lowell
- Identification In Belfast by Robert Lowell
- Homecoming by Robert Lowell
- Home After Three Months Away by Robert Lowell
- High School Crush by Roberto Cocina
- Greengrocer by Robert McNamara
- For the Union Dead by Robert Lowell
- Fake Identity by Roberto Cocina
- Epilogue by Robert Lowell
- Don’t Disappear by Roberto Cocina
- Crossroads by Roger Hayes
- Artistic Soul Retold by Roberto Cocina
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.