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:
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- Love’s Confession poem – Yuvraj Johri poems | Poetry Monster
- Absolution by Siegfried Sassoon
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- Владимир Маяковский – Да здравствует 5-й год советской власти, утвердившейся в октябре! (Главполитпросвет №397)
- Borow
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
- first_light.html
- excerpt_from_the_quotgertrude_steinquot_collaborative_series.html
- eudaemonism_in_a_senryu_novel.html
- drunkenness.html
- do_not_get_angry.html
- dickinson_and_the_alabaster_gogyohka.html
- dawned_again.html
- create.html
- conference_swan_beauty.html
- colors_and_sounds.html
- children039s_eyes.html
- athens_stone_of_sapphire_of_ground_the_ring.html
- as_with_recitation_and_the_loss_of_a_kuhi.html
- antediluvian_kural_on_twitter.html
- alexander.html
- acts_of_love.html
- a_single_man.html
- a_poem.html
- a_dialogue.html
- a_city_one_wish.html
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
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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.