A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
The world’s
not wanton
only wild and wavering
I wanted to choose words that even you
would have to be changed by
Take the word
of my pulse, loving and ordinary
Send out your signals, hoist
your dark scribbled flags
but take
my hand
All wars are useless to the dead
My hands are knotted in the rope
and I cannot sound the bell
My hands are frozen to the switch
and I cannot throw it
The foot is in the wheel
When it’s finished and we’re lying
in a stubble of blistered flowers
eyes gaping, mouths staring
dusted with crushed arterial blues
I’ll have done nothing
even for you?
A few random poems:
- Alone
- Fragment
- A Photograph on the Desk by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Михаил Кузмин – Утешение
- Apple-Blossoms by Will McKendree Carleton
- Limitations by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Virgin Maid of Orleans, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet: La Pucelle by T. Wignesan.
- Олег Бундур – Кто идет?
- Зинаида Александрова – У моря
- The Laws of God, The Laws of Man by A. E. Housman
- Владимир Степанов – Потемнели ветви
- Little Clock by T. Wignesan
- Шекспир – Мне показалось, что была зима – Сонет 97
- Владимир Маяковский – Ты обут? Тебя обувает фабрика… (РОСТА №601)
- Le Verbe Etre poem – Andre Breton 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
- A Sigh In The Night
- A Sermon
- A Prayer
- A Dream Of Venice
- A Supplication
- Written Juice Lemon
- Written In Juice Of Lemon
- Wit
- Welcome
- Vote Excerpt
- Usurpation
- Tree Knowledge
- To The Royal Society
- To The Lord Falkland
- To Sir William Davenant
- Thisbes Song
- The Wish
- The Welcome
- The Vote Excerpt
- The Usurpation
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.