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:
- The Land Beyond the Rainbow by Walter William Safar
- Федор Сологуб – Там, внизу, костры горели
- Upon A House Shaken By The Land Agitation by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мне в душу ступит кто-то посторонний
- Robert Burns: Farewell To Eliza:
- The house where I was born (08) by Yves Bonnefoy
- The Goring by Sylvia Plath
- Song—Farewell to the Highlands by Robert Burns
- God Is Good by John Oxenham
- On A Celebrated Event In Ancient History by William Wordsworth
- Гавриил Державин – Похвала за правосудие
- Gwin King of Norway by William Blake
- Константин Батюшков – Мадригал Мелине, которая называла себя нимфою
- Иван Дмитриев – Сверчки
- Владимир Маяковский – Протекция
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
- Daybreak In A Garden by Siegfried Sassoon
- David Cleek by Siegfried Sassoon
- Counter-Attack by Siegfried Sassoon
- Conscripts by Siegfried Sassoon
- Concert Party by Siegfried Sassoon
- Companions by Siegfried Sassoon
- Butterflies by Siegfried Sassoon
- Break of Day by Siegfried Sassoon
- Bombardment by Siegfried Sassoon
- Blind by Siegfried Sassoon
- Blighters by Siegfried Sassoon
- Before the Battle by Siegfried Sassoon
- Before Day by Siegfried Sassoon
- Battalion-Relief by Siegfried Sassoon
- Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon
- Banishment by Siegfried Sassoon
- Autumn by Siegfried Sassoon
- Attack by Siegfried Sassoon
- At Daybreak by Siegfried Sassoon
- At Carnoy by Siegfried Sassoon
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.