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:
- November by Walter de la Mare
- Lullaby of the Onion by Miguel Hernandez
- We know this much by Sappho
- House For Sale by Vinita Agrawal
- Taking Leave of a Friend poem – Ezra Pound poems
- what I want to know by Raj Arumugam
- EXISTENTIAL DILEMMMA by Satish Verma
- As the poets have mournfully sung by W H Auden
- Владимир Маяковский – Наврут полный короб… (Главполитпросвет №68)
- A Song of Travel by Rudyard Kipling
- Cloris, it is not thy disdaine by Sidney Godolphin
- Гавриил Державин – Желание в горняя
- Николай Карамзин – Делиины слова
- Scythe Song poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Cup of Life by Mike Yuan
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
- Letters to the Otherworld
- English Poetry. Katharine Tynan. A Woman Commends Her Little Son. Кэтрин Тайнен.
- English Poetry. Francis Turner Palgrave. A Churchyard in Oxfordshire. Фрэнсис Тернер Палгрев.
- English Poetry. Adam Lindsay Gordon. The Rhyme of Joyous Garde. Адам Линдсей Гордон.
- English Poetry. Mary Wortley Montagu. Epigram, 1734. Мэри Уортли Монтегю.
- English Poetry. Christina Georgina Rossetti. A Christmas Carol. Кристина Джорджина Россетти.
- English Poetry. Adam Lindsay Gordon. Bellona. Адам Линдсей Гордон.
- The Azure Sea of an alien tongue
- Happy Victory Day – May 9, 2022
- English Poetry. Rupert Chawner Brooke. The Vision of the Archangels. Руперт Брук.
- English Poetry. Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Wait. Элла Уилкокс.
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 29. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 34. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 23.1. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 26. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 21.1. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 20. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 42. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 9. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 45. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
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.