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:
- Composed While The Author Was Engaged In Writing A Tract Occasioned By The Convention Of Cintra by William Wordsworth
- Leszko The Bastard poem – Alfred Austin
- Your Poems on My Patio by Martina Reisz Newberry
- Степан Щипачев – Не громок, не бросок мой стих
- nursery_rhyme_for_a_twenty_first_birthday.html
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабкор (Лбом пробив безграмотья горы)
- Sonnet CXXXII by William Shakespeare
- Far Within Us #4 by Vasko Popa
- J–K. Huysmans poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Never Sure Which You Are by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Владимир Маяковский – Слушай, наводчик
- To The Honourable T. H. Esq; On the Death Of His Daughter by Phillis Wheatley
- Crazy Jane And Jack The Journeyman by William Butler Yeats
- Такахама Кёси – Давнишний приятель
- Владимир Маяковский – Товарищ! Фронту помог ты… (РОСТА №444)
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
- In spring and summer winds may blow by Walter Savage Landor
- Death Stands Above Me, Whispering Low by Walter Savage Landor
- Proud Word You Never Spoke by Walter Savage Landor
- God Scatters Beauty by Walter Savage Landor
- Remain! by Walter Savage Landor
- I Strove with None by Walter Savage Landor
- Absence by Walter Savage Landor
- Dirce by Walter Savage Landor
- Autumn by Walter Savage Landor
- On His Seventy-fifth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor
- On His Eightieth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor
- Lately our poets by Walter Savage Landor
- Ianthe’s Question by Walter Savage Landor
- F?sulan Idyl by Walter Savage Landor
- Finis by Walter Savage Landor
- Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher by Walter Savage Landor
- Alciphron and Leucippe by Walter Savage Landor
- Acon and Rhodope by Walter Savage Landor
- Morning Poem #59 by Wanda Phipps
- Morning Poem #43 by Wanda Phipps
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.