A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
When the ice starts to shiver
all across the reflecting basin
or water-lily leaves
dissect a simple surface
the word ‘drowning’ flows through me.
You built a glassy floor
that held me
as I leaned to fish for old
hooks and toothed tin cans,
stems lashing out like ties of
silk dressing-gowns
archangels of lake-light
gripped in mud.
Now you hand me a torn letter.
On my knees, in the ashes, I could never
fit these ripped-up flakes together.
In the taxi I am still piecing
what syllables I can
translating at top speed like a thinking machine
that types out ‘useless’ as ‘monster’
and ‘history’ as ‘lampshade’.
Crossing the bridge I need all my nerve
to trust to the man-made cables.
The blades on that machine
could cut you to ribbons
but its function is humane.
Is this all I can say of these
delicate books, scythe-curved intentions
you and I handle? I’d rather
taste blood, yours or mine, flowing
from a sudden slash, than cut all day
with blunt scissors on dotted lines
like the teacher told.
A few random poems:
- Владимир Маяковский – Чтоб из недели “Заботы о достоянии” толку выйти, вот так, товарищи, агитацию ведите (Главполитпросвет №374)
- The Fire by Nin Andrews
- Resolve by Sylvia Plath
- Владимир Корнилов – Чистый лист
- Федор Сологуб – Когда я в бурном море плавал
- East Idioms (1): A Fable by Mike Yuan
- The Brook That Ran By Gramfer’s by William Barnes
- How Many Bards Gild The Lapses Of Time! poem – John Keats poems
- Polly’s Tree by Sylvia Plath
- Let me draw your face by St Antoine de la Vuadi
- In A Letter To C. P. Esq. Ill With The Rheumatism by William Cowper
- Here I would have loved you by Luz del Alba Nicola
- Love by Robert Creeley
- The Gate by Marie Howe
- “I Know The Stars” by Sara Teasdale
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
- Far In a Western Brookland poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- Far In a Western Brookland poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- Epitaph On An Army of Mercenaries poem – A. E. Housman
- Could Man Be Drunk Forever poem – A. E. Housman
- Bring, In This Timeless Grave To Throw poem – A. E. Housman
- Bredon Hill poem – A. E. Housman
- As Through the Wild Green Hills of Wyre poem – A. E. Housman
- Along the field as we came poem – A. E. Housman
- The Haymakers’ Song poem – Alfred Austin
- Love’s Blindness poem – Alfred Austin
- At His Grave poem – Alfred Austin
- Agatha poem – Alfred Austin
- Loves Blindness
- The Haymakers Song
- Loves Blindness
- At His Grave
- Agatha
- Why
- Where Are You
- Tell Me
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.