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:
- Владимир Маяковский – Плакаты, 1928
- Олег Григорьев – Увязался М. за Ж.
- Phillis Wheatley – Phillis Wheatley
- Sonnet CXI by William Shakespeare
- “Brook! Whose Society The Poet Seeks” by William Wordsworth
- Tonic For Victory
- Василий Жуковский – Бородинская годовщина
- Robert Burns: Reply To An Announcement By J. Rankine: On His Writing To The Poet, That A Girl In That Part Of The Country Was With A Child To Him.
- Николай Заболоцкий – Ночь в лесу
- The Actor by Preeth Nambiar
- An Empty Threat by Robert Frost
- A Voice From The West poem – Alfred Austin
- Together by Siegfried Sassoon
- A Rustic Seat Near The Sea by William Lisle Bowles
- Streets Of Teal by Vaishnavi Prakash
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
- Anteater by Shel Silverstein
- All The Time In The World by Shel Silverstein
- All About You by Shel Silverstein
- Alimony by Shel Silverstein
- A Light In The Attic by Shel Silverstein
- A Front Row Seat To Hear Ole Johnny Sing by Shel Silverstein
- A Couple More Years by Shel Silverstein
- 25 Minutes To Go by Shel Silverstein
- 100,000 Pennies by Shel Silverstein
- Stir in Stillness by Shruti Talnikar
- Statistic by Shivam Pandya
- Projector by Shreekumar Varma
- Stir in Stillness by Shruti Talnikar
- Noe more unto my thoughts appeare by Sidney Godolphin
- Statistic by Shivam Pandya
- Night At The Marina by Shreekumar Varma
- Projector by Shreekumar Varma
- Lord when the wise men came from farr by Sidney Godolphin
- Kumarakom (after the boat tragedy) by Shreekumar Varma
- Noe more unto my thoughts appeare by Sidney Godolphin
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.