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:
- Late Autumn by William Allingham
- Такахама Кёси – Мацумуси пищит
- A Poem For Ashleigh (July) by Stevens Cadet
- Drink To Her by Thomas Moore
- Moving In Winter
- Геннадий Айги – БЕЗ НАЗВАНИЯ
- On The Bus
- Love Sonnet LX poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- The Shadow poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Дафнис подслушивает сов
- Кондратий Рылеев – Князю Смоленскому
- To a Lady on Her Coming to North-America by Phillis Wheatley
- The Book Of The World by William Drummond
- Владимир Высоцкий – В холода, в холода
- The Bistro Styx by Rita Dove
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
- Awed by her splendor by Sappho
- To Aphrodite by Sappho
- And their feet move by Sappho
- Anactoria by Sappho
- An Epithalamium by Sappho
- Although they are by Sappho
- In Adoration by Sappho
- A Lament For Adonis by Sappho
- A Hymn To Venus by Sappho
- Youth And The Pilgrim by Sara Teasdale
- Triolets by Sara Teasdale
- To L. R. E. by Sara Teasdale
- To A Picture Of Eleanor Duse by Sara Teasdale
- To A Castillan Song by Sara Teasdale
- Since There Is No Escape by Sara Teasdale
- The Wine by Sara Teasdale
- The Wind by Sara Teasdale
- The Wind In The Hemlock by Sara Teasdale
- The Wayfarer by Sara Teasdale
- The Wanderer by Sara Teasdale
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.