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:
- Am I the Assassin or the Undertaker by T. Wignesan
- Николай Гумилев – Живала Ниагара
- Awaken by Mark Miller
- On His Deceased Wife poem – John Milton poems
- Companies See Mobile Games Development As a Profitable Business Option
- Named by Stephen Dunn
- Immigranten by Ndue Ukaj
- Sound And Sense poem – Alexander Pope
- A Prophecy: To George Keats In America poem – John Keats poems
- Robert Burns: Mr. William Smellie -A Sketch:
- Олег Бундур – Про чемпионов
- “Célibataire” by Sylvia Plath
- Владимир Высоцкий – Сколько чудес за туманами кроется
- An Interchanging Poetry Expression Of Love by Mac McGovern
- Владимир Вишневский – Вернувшись от дверей, присела
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
- Rain After a Vaudeville Show by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Portrait of a Boy by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Portrait of a Baby by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Poor Devil! by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Nos Immortales by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Music by Stephen Vincent Benet
- May Morning by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Love in Twilight by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Lonely Burial by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Going Back to School by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Elegy for an Enemy by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Dedication by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Colors by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Before an Examination by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Alexander VI Dines with the Cardinal of Capua by Stephen Vincent Benet
- A Minor Poet by Stephen Vincent Benet
- The Grammar Lesson by Steve Kowit
- The Convoy by Stephenie Tucker
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.