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:
- Fragment – Wee Willie Gray (Song) by Robert Burns
- Leave This by Rabindranath Tagore
- Poems On Love by Rabindranath Tagore
- Алексей Жемчужников – Пауза
- Robert Burns: Epitaph For Mr. W. Cruikshank:
- The Turnstile by William Barnes
- To A Sad Daughter by Michael Ondaatje
- The Chambermaid’s Second Song by William Butler Yeats
- Death by Thomas Hood
- In January by Ted Kooser
- In the End by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Владимир Маяковский – Вон самогон
- “Wonkavite…” by Roald Dahl
- The Magician by Syed Kawsar Jamal
- Something by Robert Creeley
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 Little Boy And The Old Man by Shel Silverstein
- The Land Of Happy by Shel Silverstein
- The Hunter by Shel Silverstein
- The Great Conch Train Robbery by Shel Silverstein
- The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
- The Generals by Shel Silverstein
- The Bridge by Shel Silverstein
- The Boa Constrictor Song by Shel Silverstein
- The Bear, The Fire, And The Snow by Shel Silverstein
- The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan by Shel Silverstein
- The Bagpipe Who Didn’t Say No by Shel Silverstein
- Testing The Bomb by Shel Silverstein
- Sylvia’s Mother by Shel Silverstein
- Sure Hit Songwriter’s Pen by Shel Silverstein
- Son Of A Scoundrel by Shel Silverstein
- Someone Ate The Baby by Shel Silverstein
- Someday’s Here by Shel Silverstein
- Somebody Has To by Shel Silverstein
- Smoke Off by Shel Silverstein
- Sing Me A Rainbow by Shel Silverstein
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.