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:
- Олег Григорьев – Драка
- Джон Китс – Четыре разных времени в году
- Untitled #10 by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Sonnet 11
- Lines On The Mermaid Tavern poem – John Keats poems
- Омар Хайям – Мы больше в этот мир вовек не попадем
- I hear it was Charged against Me. by Walt Whitman
- Ольга Берггольц – Старая гвардия
- Death In Exile by Satish Verma
- Epitaph on James Grieve by Robert Burns
- Fairy Land v by William Shakespeare
- Scots, Wha Hae Wi’ Wallace Bled by Robert Burns
- Epitaph for James Smith by Robert Burns
- The Gardener XXIX: Speak To Me My Love by Rabindranath Tagore
- Power of Peace by Rixa White
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
- The War Films by Sir Henry Newbolt
- The Black Hawk War of the Artists by Vachel Lindsay
- Repression of War Experience by Siegfried Sassoon
- Epitaph On An Army of Mercenaries by A. E. Housman
- CIA Dope Calypso by Allen Ginsberg
- A Day on the Beach of War by Tony Stringfellow
- The Paint-Kings by Washington Allston
- Rosalie by Washington Allston
- On The Luxembourg Gallery by Washington Allston
- Eccentricity by Washington Allston
- Art by Washington Allston
- America To Great Britain by Washington Allston
- Year’s End by Weldon Kees
- The Upstairs Room by Weldon Kees
- The Smiles Of The Bathers by Weldon Kees
- The Furies by Weldon Kees
- The Doctor Will Return by Weldon Kees
- The Bell From Europe by Weldon Kees
- The Beach by Weldon Kees
- Round by Weldon Kees
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.