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:
- Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds by William Shakespeare
- The wondrous moment of our meeting… poem – Alexander Pushkin
- The Egg-Shell by Rudyard Kipling
- Robert Burns: Tam Samson’s Elegy: When this worthy old sportman went out, last muirfowl season, he supposed it was to be, in Ossian’s phrase, “the last of his fields,” and expressed an ardent wish to die and be buried in the muirs. On this hint the author composed his elegy and epitaph.-R.B., 1787.
- Appeal by Ndue Ukaj
- Prayer of St. Francis Xavier poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 01 – part 06 by Torquato Tasso
- Recipe For A Hippopotamus Sandwich by Shel Silverstein
- Анатолий Жигулин – Дальние предки
- Владимир Высоцкий – Неужто здесь сошёлся клином свет
- Ballade Of The Royal Game Of Golf poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Степан Щипачев – Застольное слово
- For My Mother
- Composed During A Storm by William Wordsworth
- Ольга Ермолаева – В кирзовых сапогах скользить по горной глине
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
- Alicante Lullaby by Sylvia Plath
- Aerialist by Sylvia Plath
- Study in Hands by Théophile Gautier
- Smoke by Théophile Gautier
- Last Wish by Théophile Gautier
- Work and Play by Ted Hughes
- Wind by Ted Hughes
- Tractor by Ted Hughes
- Thrushes by Ted Hughes
- Thistles by Ted Hughes
- The Warm and the Cold by Ted Hughes
- The Thought-Fox by Ted Hughes
- The Owl by Ted Hughes
- The Minotaur by Ted Hughes
- The Harvest Moon by Ted Hughes
- The Child Is Father To The Man by Ted Hughes
- Spring & Fall: To A Young Child by Ted Hughes
- September by Ted Hughes
- Pied Beauty by Ted Hughes
- Old Age Gets Up by Ted Hughes
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.