A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman’s tramp; that morning light
so coldly would delineate the scraps
of last night’s cheese and three sepulchral bottles;
that on the kitchen shelf amoong the saucers
a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own–
envoy from some village in the moldings…
Meanwhile, he, with a yawn,
sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,
declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror,
rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;
while she, jeered by the minor demons,
pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found
a towel to dust the table-top,
and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.
By evening she was back in love again,
though not so wholly but throughout the night
she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
like a relentless milkman up the stairs.
A few random poems:
- To Prince Charles by William Alexander
- Алексей Жемчужников – Себе
- Picture-Show by Siegfried Sassoon
- Olney Hymn 4: Jehovah-Nissi: The Lord My Banner by William Cowper
- Messalina poem – Alfred Austin
- An Epitaph by William Cowper
- Mother Earth; Her Beauty And Her Destruction by TMBedell
- Ярослав Смеляков – Вот опять ты мне вспомнилась, мама
- A Three-Part Song by Rudyard Kipling
- Sonnet 15 poem – John Milton poems
- A Dedication
- A Greeting by William Henry Davies
- Whoever You are, Holding Me now in Hand. by Walt Whitman
- Robert Burns: The Calf: To the Rev. James Steven, on his text, Malachi, ch. iv. vers. 2. “And ye shall go forth, and grow up, as Calves of the stall.”
- Владимир Британишский – Перед дверью
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
- Pheasant by Sylvia Plath
- Perseus by Sylvia Plath
- Parliament Hill Fields by Sylvia Plath
- Paralytic by Sylvia Plath
- Spinster by Sylvia Plath
- Spider by Sylvia Plath
- Sow by Sylvia Plath
- Southern Sunrise by Sylvia Plath
- Snakecharmer by Sylvia Plath
- Sculptor by Sylvia Plath
- Rhyme by Sylvia Plath
- Resolve by Sylvia Plath
- Recantation by Sylvia Plath
- Purdah by Sylvia Plath
- Prospect by Sylvia Plath
- Private Ground by Sylvia Plath
- Point Shirley by Sylvia Plath
- Poems, Potatoes by Sylvia Plath
- Pheasant by Sylvia Plath
- Perseus by Sylvia Plath
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.