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:
- Robert Burns: O Leave Novels:
- Катя Пиксаева – Давай поговорим о доброте
- Race of Veterans. by Walt Whitman
- Grass by Russell Edson
- Lunar Eclipse by Satish Verma
- Robert Burns: The Bonie Lass Of Albany:
- Pentridge By The River by William Barnes
- My Boy Jack by Rudyard Kipling
- Новелла Матвеева – Мне кажется
- Torn Shades by Thomas Lux
- Ярослав Смеляков – Три витязя
- Haiku by Robby Charters
- By The Side Of The Grave Some Years After by William Wordsworth
- TRANSPARENCY by Satish Verma
- After An Epigram Of Clement Marot
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
- Ольга Седакова – Луг, юго-западный ветер
- Ольга Седакова – Липа
- Ольга Седакова – Легенда шестая
- Ольга Седакова – Кот, бабочка, свеча
- Ольга Седакова – Когда говорю я: помилуй
- Ольга Седакова – Как упавшую руку
- Ольга Седакова – Из песни Данте
- Ольга Седакова – Играющий ребенок
- Ольга Седакова – И меня удивило
- Ольга Седакова – Госпожа и служанка
- Ольга Седакова – Где-нибудь в углу запущенной болезни
- Ольга Седакова – Филемон и Бавкида
- Ольга Седакова – Элегия смоковницы
- Ольга Седакова – Элегия осенней воды
- Ольга Седакова – Две книги я несу
- Ольга Седакова – Дикий шиповник
- Ольга Седакова – Деревья, сильный ветер
- Ольга Седакова – Давид поет Саулу
- Ольга Седакова – Цивилизация
- Ольга Седакова – Болезнь
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.