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:
- Sonnet 14 poem – John Milton poems
- My rains by Vinko Kalinic
- Idyll by Siegfried Sassoon
- He Has Lived In Many Houses by Thomas Lux
- Василий Жуковский – Адельстан
- Карина, моей души ты яркий свет
- Morning Poem #40 by Wanda Phipps
- Route Marchin’ by Rudyard Kipling
- Physically Hearted
- Anne Pennington by Vasko Popa
- Sleep
- So Far and So Far, and on Toward the End. by Walt Whitman
- How Sweet I Roam’d by William Blake
- Dark Room( qua vadis) by Muralidharan Mudaliar
- Night At The Marina by Shreekumar Varma
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
- The Mystic Isle by Rainbow Reed
- Spiritual Memories of Mother by Raj Napal
- Primrose Rose by Rainbow Reed
- Prayers by Rainbow Reed
- This by Ralph Angel
- Man in a Window by Ralph Angel
- Breaking and Entering by Ralph Angel
- Online Lover by Rainbow Reed
- One Day You Will Miss Me.. by Rahul S
- Of Love and All by Raja Mannar
- Mother Teresa by Raj Napal
- Mother by Sachin Yadav (Pen Name: Rahul Nachhiketa)
- Journey with God by Raj Napal
- It Takes a While to Disappear by Ralph Angel
- In Every Direction by Ralph Angel
- I Thank You, Mum by Raj Napal
- Hope for a New World by Raj Napal
- God Cut the Cord by Raj Napal
- Even Because by Ralph Angel
- Dinner Date by Rainbow Reed
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.