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:
- A PANEGYRIC TO SIR LEWIS PEMBERTON by Robert Herrick
- The Mocking Fairy by Walter de la Mare
- Алексей Николаевич Толстой – Егорий, волчий пастырь
- Night by William Morris
- Furious Wounds by Satish Verma
- An Old Doll
- Николай Заболоцкий – Битва с предками
- We Two—How Long We were Fool’d. by Walt Whitman
- My prayers must meet a brazen heaven poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Bill ‘Awkins by Rudyard Kipling
- Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring by William Shakespeare
- To The Ladies Who Saw Me Crowned poem – John Keats poems
- Scythe Song poem – Andrew Lang poems
- A Woman Waits for Me. by Walt Whitman
- Gift poem – Alice Notley
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
- Юнна Мориц – Балтийское лето
- Юнна Мориц – Астры
- Юнна Мориц – Античная картина
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Утренние песни
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Твой знак пред жизнью
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Тополь
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Ткач
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Светлая заутреня
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Стучись, упорствуя, Кирка
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Средь бега дней моих порой
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Соме le onde
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Перевал
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Памяти Скрябина
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Памяти Александра Цатуриана
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Отторженность
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Отчаяние
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Осенняя песня
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Одиночество
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Новогоднее видение
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Ночью
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.