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:
- Robert Burns: Masonic Song:
- Sacred Epiphany poem – Ammar Nadeem poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Cinnamon Peeler by Michael Ondaatje
- Travel to Infinite Places by Michael Levy
- And The Black Scythe With Its Beak of Ibis by Martine Morillon-Carreau
- Love Gregor; Or, The Lass Of Lochroyan poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Валерий Брюсов – К портрету К.Д. Бальмонта
- Academic Graffiti by W H Auden
- Dirty Ol’ Me by Shel Silverstein
- The Last of the Light Brigade by Rudyard Kipling
- The Stones by Sylvia Plath
- Beach Glass poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Far Within Us #1 by Vasko Popa
- Федор Сологуб – Словами горькими надменных отрицаний
- Владимир Маяковский – Даешь материальную базу
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
- Canadian Winter by Mike Yuan
- CAESAR’S LAST BREATH by MICHAEL SALCMAN
- Birthday Love Song by Miraj Patel
- Before it is Time by Minal Sarosh
- Bearhug by Michael Ondaatje
- Bang-Bang by Mikey D Wentworth
- Baltimore Was Always Blue by Michael Salcman
- Awakening by mike yuan
- At the Kitslano Beach by Mike Yuan
- Artery by Michelle Bonczek Evory
- Application For A Driving License by Michael Ondaatje
- Apologize by Miraj Patel
- Admiration of the Peach and the Light by Miles
- A Domestic Dialogue by Mike Yuan
- 19-19 by Michelle Bonczek Evory
- Leopard by Stanley Wilkin
- YOU by Muralidharan Mudaliar
- Woodchucks by Maxine Kumin
- Woman Work by Maya Angelou
- When You Come by Maya Angelou
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.