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:
- Europe, the 72d and 73d years of These States. by Walt Whitman
- The Cap And Bells by William Butler Yeats
- Вера Полозкова – Францу Кафке
- Юлия Друнина – Я горожанка
- Иван Елагин – Спрашивал ответа
- The Old Lowe House Staten Island
- The Bell From Europe by Weldon Kees
- A Big Idea? by Satish Verma
- Written In Cananore
- Николай Карамзин – Послание к Александру Алексеевичу Плещееву
- Федор Тютчев – Как птичка, раннею зарей
- On A Fowler, By Isidorus by William Cowper
- On A Mistake In His Translation Of Homer by William Cowper
- Robert Burns: Craigieburn Wood:
- Ольга Берггольц – Таков мой подарок тебе за измену
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
- Sacrifice And Love
- Rule I By Eric Mottram Stop Writing Literature You Garrulous Indian
- Poetry And Politics
- Poem Stories
- Plato
- Peace Universal Good
- Paralipomemnon
- Our Refuge
- One Sweet White Light
- New Land
- Motionless Body
- Mother
- Minimalism And The Elm Choka
- Mark
- Love Flower
- Love
- Lord God Have Mercy On Me
- Libation
- Least In A List
- Interpret The Light
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.