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:
- Supernatural Songs by William Butler Yeats
- Barmaid by William Ernest Henley
- The Child an’ the Mowers by William Barnes
- To Sir George Howland Beaumont, Bart From the South-West Coast Or Cumberland 1811 by William Wordsworth
- Some Singers And Their Traits poem – Ygor Noblott poems | Poetry Monster
- The Uses of the Eye by Paul Blackburn
- Looking Across The Fields And Watching The Birds Fly by Wallace Stevens
- Николай Рубцов – Ветер всхлипывал, словно дитя
- On the Danger of Procrastination by Abraham Cowley
- Violet Beauregarde… by Roald Dahl
- Николай Карамзин – Господину Дмитриеву на болезнь его (Болезнь есть часть живущих в мире)
- Ольга Берггольц – Воспоминание (И вот в лицо пахнуло земляникой)
- Владимир Британишский – Смерть Крылова
- The Owners Of The Little Box by Vasko Popa
- I Stood Tip-Toe Upon A Little Hill poem – John Keats poems
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
- I Awake and Choose To Live by P.J.Reed
- I Am Me by Patrick Neo Mabiletsa
- I am Ireland by Patrick Pearse
- I Am In Pain For You by Patrick Neo Mabiletsa
- HEAL ME by WALID SABA
- Ghost Girl by P.J.Reed
- Full Moon by Walid Saba
- Expressive Moments by Pamela Griffiths
- Expectations by Pamela Griffiths
- Epic by Patrick Kavanagh
- Drowning. Not Waving by P.J.Reed
- Don’t Need Anything by Pat Mullan
- Dinner Date by P.J.Reed
- Detached Living by P.J.Reed
- Desire # 4 by Patricia Fargnoli
- Décembre austral by Patryck Froissart
- Death Fugue by Paul Celan
- Deaf Mute in the Pear Tree by P. K. Page
- Crystal by Paul Celan
- Corona by Paul Celan
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.