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:
- Sonnet. The Day Is Gone poem – John Keats poems
- Let Him Free by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Жан де Лафонтен – Дровосек и Меркурий
- Robert Burns: Bonie Dundee:
- Илья Эренбург – Я бы мог прожить совсем иначе
- Алексей Толстой – Рондо
- The Seeing Eye poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Scots, Wha Hae Wi’ Wallace Bled by Robert Burns
- The Journey by Yvor Winters
- On Elphinstone’s Translation of Martial’s Epigrams by Robert Burns
- Book First [Introduction-Childhood and School Time] by William Wordsworth
- The Ploughman’s Life by Robert Burns
- Владимир Маяковский – Радоваться рано
- A Fragment poem – Alfred Austin
- did you die, Ophelia? by Raj Arumugam
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
- Address To The Scholars Of The Village School Of — by William Wordsworth
- Address To Kilchurn Castle, Upon Loch Awe by William Wordsworth
- Address To A Child During A Boisterous Winter By My Sister by William Wordsworth
- A Wren’s Nest by William Wordsworth
- A Whirl-Blast From Behind The Hill by William Wordsworth
- A Prophecy. February 1807 by William Wordsworth
- A Night Thought by William Wordsworth
- A Night-Piece by William Wordsworth
- A Narrow Girdle Of Rough Stones And Crags, by William Wordsworth
- A Flower Garden At Coleorton Hall, Leicestershire. by William Wordsworth
- A Farewell by William Wordsworth
- A Character by William Wordsworth
- Upon a Lady’s Fall Over a Stile, Gotten by Running From Her Love by William Wycherley
- To his Indifferent Mistress by William Wycherley
- The Poor Lover to His Rich Mistress about to Marry His Coxcombly Rival by William Wycherley
- Sleep and Death by William Wycherley
- On a Sea Fight, Which the Author was in, Betwixt the English and Dutch by William Wycherley
- Love and Wine by William Wycherley
- In Praise of Laziness by William Wycherley
- Drinking-Song, A. To a Formal, Proud, Sober Coxcomb by William Wycherley
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.