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 Life Story
- Sonnet 43: When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see by William Shakespeare
- Election Ballad at close of Contest for representing the Dumfries Burghs, 1790 by Robert Burns
- A Story At Dusk
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 54. Oh, yet we Trust that somehow Goo poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Dinner Date by Rainbow Reed
- The Dying Christian to His Soul poem – Alexander Pope
- In Every Language by Rifat Ilgaz
- The Rose Of Peace by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Маяковский – Номер 17
- Константин Батюшков – На смерть И.П. Пнина
- Out of Your Love by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- The World
- These, I, Singing in Spring. by Walt Whitman
- Sonnet 93: So shall I live, supposing thou art true by William Shakespeare
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
- Four Quartets 4: Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot
- Four Quartets 3: The Dry Salvages by T. S. Eliot
- Four Quartets 2: East Coker by T. S. Eliot
- Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton by T. S. Eliot
- Dans le Restaurant by T. S. Eliot
- Cousin Nancy by T. S. Eliot
- Conversation Galante by T. S. Eliot
- Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town by T. S. Eliot
- Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar by T. S. Eliot
- Aunt Helen by T. S. Eliot
- Ash Wednesday by T. S. Eliot
- A Cooking Egg by T. S. Eliot
- Woman by Tala Bar
- Walk with Me by Tammy L Ames
- Today’s News by Ted Berrigan
- The Woman Of His Dreams by Talha Jafri
- The Soundless Ocean by Tanmoy
- The Poet by Thom Douglas Carlisle
- The Narrative by Talha Jafri
- The Garden by Tammy L. Ames
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.