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:
- Ольга Берггольц – Я иду по местам боев
- If Only by Mary Etta Metcalf
- My Words Embrace by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Book Review: A Dictionary Of Indian English Litterateurs: 1794-2010
- To One who Loved not Poetry by Sappho
- Эмиль Верхарн – Я покидаю сна густую сень
- The Snake Charmer by Sarojini Naidu
- Lady Clare poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Adieu poem – Yuvraj Johri poems | Poetry Monster
- Lunar Eclipse by Satish Verma
- Abt Vogler by Robert Browning
- Владимир Британишский – У этой матери кормящей
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Хлоя
- On An Eclipse Of The Moon by Walter Savage Landor
- Robert Burns: Pretty Peg:
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
- What the Sexton Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Rattlesnake Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Moon Saw by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Miner in the Desert Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Gray-Winged Fairy Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Ghost of the Gambler Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What the Coal-Heaver Said by Vachel Lindsay
- What Semiramis Said by Vachel Lindsay
- The Trap by Vachel Lindsay
- The Tale of the Tiger-Tree by Vachel Lindsay
- The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly by Vachel Lindsay
- The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit by Vachel Lindsay
- The Song of the Garden-Toad by Vachel Lindsay
- The Scissors-Grinder by Vachel Lindsay
- The Rose of Midnight by Vachel Lindsay
- The Raft by Vachel Lindsay
- The Proud Farmer by Vachel Lindsay
- The Prarie Battlements by Vachel Lindsay
- The Perfect Marriage by Vachel Lindsay
- The Mysterious Cat by Vachel Lindsay
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.