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:
- Love Song poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- Love is the Water of Life by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Sonnet CX by William Shakespeare
- The Rowers by Rudyard Kipling
- Leady-Day, An’ Ridden House by William Barnes
- Николай Карамзин – Меланхолия
- Владимир Высоцкий – Вы были у Беллы
- Юрий Левитанский – Что я знаю про стороны света
- The Dead Woman
- Blame Aphrodite by Sappho
- To Him that was Crucified. by Walt Whitman
- Hippo’s Hope by Shel Silverstein
- Robert Burns: On The Seas And Far Away:
- Old Deuteronomy by T. S. Eliot
- In Token Of The Love You Gave by Timothy Thomas Fortune
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
- From Afar by Rabindranath Tagore
- Dream Girl by Rabindranath Tagore
- Cruel Kindness by Rabindranath Tagore
- Compensation by Rabindranath Tagore
- Birth Story by Rabindranath Tagore
- At The Last Watch by Rabindranath Tagore
- At The End Of The Day by Rabindranath Tagore
- And In Wonder And Amazement I Sing by Rabindranath Tagore
- Along The Way by Rabindranath Tagore
- All These I Loved by Rabindranath Tagore
- A Hundred Years Hence by Rabindranath Tagore
- A Dream (English Translation) by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Essay on Liberty by Abraham Cowley
- Paul’s Wife by Robert Frost
- Pan with Us by Robert Frost
- ‘Out, Out–‘ by Robert Frost
- Our Singing Strength by Robert Frost
- One Step Backward Taken by Robert Frost
- Once By The Pacific by Robert Frost
- On Looking Up By Chance At The Constellations by Robert Frost
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.