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:
- Casualty by Winifred Mary Letts
- Владимир Британишский – О, растенья-пустынники дюнных песков
- Dust of Snow by Robert Frost
- English Poetry. Madison Julius Cawein. Finale. Мэдисон Джулиус Кавейн.
- I Had To Leave by Subhash Misra
- Le monstre by Patryck Froissart
- Crowride poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster
- Владимир Высоцкий – Маски
- On The Grasshopper And Cricket poem – John Keats poems
- Selfish World, Selfish People by Shahbaz Khan
- Postip by Manolo Arriola
- Олег Бундур – Письмо от бабушки
- The ravings which my enemy uttered I heard within my heart by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Borrowed Verses by Subhash Misra
- Destiny Far Away
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
- Never Sure Which You Are by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Important thing’s in life by Martin Smith
- Nestling by Mark R Slaughter
- Images by Mary Etta Metcalf
- My Words Embrace by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Illusions by Mark R Slaughter
- My Mother On An Evening In Late Summer by Mark Strand
- If Only by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Morning by Mark R Slaughter
- I, or Someone Like Me by Marvin Bell
- Mending Socks by Martin Willitts Jr.
- He Said To by Marvin Bell
- Grumpy Old Man by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Manure by Mark R Slaughter
- Giving Myself Up by Mark Strand
- Mammary Tunes by Mark R Slaughter
- Ghosts by Martina Reisz Newberry
- Lines For Winter by Mark Strand
- From The Long Sad Party by Mark Strand
- Life, wait for me by Martin Zakovski
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.