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:
- Poems On Time by Rabindranath Tagore
- Владимир Высоцкий – Переворот в мозгах из края в край
- Вергилий – Скопа
- Victims poem – Yaseen Anwer poems | Poetry Monster
- No Worst, There Is None. Pitched Past Pitch Of Grief poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Cat in the Kitchen by Robert Bly
- Jet by Tony Hoagland
- Robert Burns: Scroggam, My Dearie:
- Анатолий Жигулин – Береза
- The True Use of the Looking-Glass by William Somervile
- Иннокентий Анненский – Идеал
- I’ve Lived To See Desire Vanish poem – Alexander Pushkin
- How Does Writing Improves Your Mental Health?
- Passion makes the old medicine new: by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- English Poetry. Robert William Service. My Room. Роберт Уильям Сервис.
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
- From Afar by Rabindranath Tagore
- Dream Girl by Rabindranath Tagore
- Cruel Kindness by Rabindranath Tagore
- Compensation by Rabindranath Tagore
- Birth Story by Rabindranath Tagore
- At The Last Watch by Rabindranath Tagore
- At The End Of The Day by Rabindranath Tagore
- And In Wonder And Amazement I Sing by Rabindranath Tagore
- Along The Way by Rabindranath Tagore
- All These I Loved by Rabindranath Tagore
- A Hundred Years Hence by Rabindranath Tagore
- A Dream (English Translation) by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Essay on Liberty by Abraham Cowley
- Paul’s Wife by Robert Frost
- Pan with Us by Robert Frost
- ‘Out, Out–‘ by Robert Frost
- Our Singing Strength by Robert Frost
- One Step Backward Taken by Robert Frost
- Once By The Pacific by Robert Frost
- On Looking Up By Chance At The Constellations by Robert Frost
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.