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:
- Жан де Лафонтен – Две Козы
- When I peruse the Conquer’d Fame. by Walt Whitman
- On A Plant Of Virgin’s-Bower, Designed To Cover A Garden-seat by William Cowper
- Владимир Маяковский – Живой труп (РОСТА №182)
- Sonnet To Byron poem – John Keats poems
- Lines On The Mermaid Tavern poem – John Keats poems
- Limbo Under the Westway poem – André Rostant poems
- Since We Must Die poem – Alfred Austin
- Conqueror by Russell Hughes Ragsdale
- Reason The Use Of It In Divine Matters
- Wind poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Маяковский – Привет, КИМ
- Василий Жуковский – Торжество победителей
- Upon A Dying Lady by William Butler Yeats
- Here War Is Simple by W H Auden
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
- Ок Мельникова – All I want, all I need
- Ок Мельникова – 3. 45 a. m
- Огюст Барбье – Жертвы
- Огюст Барбье – Зеленая Дева
- Огюст Барбье – Хвала Хафизу
- Огюст Барбье – Видимость
- Огюст Барбье – Васильки
- Огюст Барбье – Тициан
- Огюст Барбье – Собачий пир
- Огюст Барбье – Шекспир
- Огюст Барбье – Сегодня я в пути
- Огюст Барбье – Роберт Эммет
- Огюст Барбье – Рафаэль
- Огюст Барбье – Прогресс
- Огюст Барбье – Покинутый
- Огюст Барбье – Отъезд
- Огюст Барбье – Ни кротостью, ни негой ясной
- Огюст Барбье – Мельпомена
- Огюст Барбье – Мазаччио
- Огюст Барбье – Любовь к песням
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.