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:
- The Torture Of Cuauhtemoc
- Making The Lion For All It’s Got — A Ballad poem – Allen Ginsberg
- Владимир Высоцкий – Смотрины
- Алексей Жемчужников – Всем хлеба
- София Парнок – Рондель
- Олег Григорьев – Конфеты
- Владимир Маяковский – Смотри, рабочий! Вот о чем сегодня речь (Главполитпросвет №166)
- Vertumnus and Pomona : Ovid’s Metamorphoses, book 14 [v. 623-771] poem – Alexander Pope
- Алексей Жемчужников – Верста на старой дороге
- Keepe On Your Maske (Version for his Mistress) by William Strode
- I don’t want to have you by Vinko Kalinic
- Children’s Taste by Nijole Miliauskaite
- How to Increase Your Faith
- Long Distance I by Tony Harrison
- Olney Hymn 9: The Contrite Heart by William Cowper
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
- Sonnet CXLIV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXLIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXLII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXLI by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXL by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXIX by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXIV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXI: O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXI by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CX by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LX by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LVIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LVII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LVI by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LV by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LIX by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LIII by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet LII by William Shakespeare
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.