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:
- Specula by Thomas Edward Brown
- A Subaltern by Siegfried Sassoon
- Степан Щипачев – Свет звезды
- A Mother’s Lament for her Son’s Death by Robert Burns
- Юрий Коринец – Дедовский подарок
- A man said to the universe: by Stephen Crane
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Dahin
- Владимир Корнилов – На колоннаде
- One More Awakening by Pawan Kumar
- Sonnet 55: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments by William Shakespeare
- Song—Behold, my love, how green the groves by Robert Burns
- Abuses and Awards poem – Andrei Voznesensky poems
- Ольга Берггольц – Встреча
- Альфред Теннисон – Сёстры
- Before Sleep poem – Ezra Pound poems
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
- Альфред де Мюссе – Намуна
- Альфред де Мюссе – Майская ночь
- Альфред де Мюссе – Люси
- Альфред де Мюссе – Как лепестки весеннего цветка
- Альфред де Мюссе – Ива (Как придется мне покинуть свет)
- Альфред де Мюссе – Друзья мои! Когда умру я
- Альфред де Мюссе – Да, женщины, тут нет ошибки
- Альфред де Мюссе – Что так усиленно сердце больное
- Алексей Жемчужников – Знакомая картина
- Алексей Жемчужников – Зимнее чувство
- Алексей Жемчужников – Земля
- Алексей Жемчужников – Заметки о некоторой публицистике
- Алексей Жемчужников – Заколдованный месяц
- Алексей Жемчужников – Забудь их шумное волненье
- Алексей Жемчужников – За днями ненастными с темными тучами
- Алексей Жемчужников – Я музыкальным чувством обладаю
- Алексей Жемчужников – Всем хлеба
- Алексей Жемчужников – Возрождение
- Алексей Жемчужников – Воспоминание в деревне о Петербурге
- Алексей Жемчужников – Весна
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.