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:
- Becalmed and Bewildered by Thomas J Camp
- The Everlasting Monday by Sylvia Plath
- Наум Коржавин – Есть у тех, кому нету места
- Artistic Soul Retold by Roberto Cocina
- Her Anxiety by William Butler Yeats
- Вера Звягинцева – Карусель
- Олег Мехов – Ах, у нашего Антошки
- Николай Некрасов – Вор
- Lodged by Robert Frost
- Gravelly Run poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- A Silence poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Gardener LXXIX: I Often Wonder by Rabindranath Tagore
- Hope And Riders
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 21.1. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- Matter For Gratitude poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
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
- Imitated From The Japanese by William Butler Yeats
- I Am Of Ireland by William Butler Yeats
- Hound Voice by William Butler Yeats
- His Phoenix by William Butler Yeats
- His Dream by William Butler Yeats
- His Confidence by William Butler Yeats
- His Bargain by William Butler Yeats
- High Talk by William Butler Yeats
- Her Vision In The Wood by William Butler Yeats
- Her Triumph by William Butler Yeats
- Her Praise by William Butler Yeats
- Her Dream by William Butler Yeats
- Her Anxiety by William Butler Yeats
- He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead by William Butler Yeats
- He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven by William Butler Yeats
- He Thinks Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved by William Butler Yeats
- He Tells Of The Perfect Beauty by William Butler Yeats
- He Tells Of A Valley Full Of Lovers by William Butler Yeats
- The Cat And The Moon by William Butler Yeats
- The Cap And Bells by William Butler Yeats
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.