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:
- eclipse_of_love.html
- Impromptu: To Frances Garnet Wolseley poem – Alfred Austin
- Hobbinol; or The Rural Games – Canto 3 by William Somervile
- Гавриил Державин – Жуковскому и Родзянке, приславшим с большими похвалами автору перевод его оды «Бог» на французском языке
- I Have News For You by Tony Hoagland
- The Balloon Of The Mind by William Butler Yeats
- Sculptor by Sylvia Plath
- Act of Union by Seamus Heaney
- Making The Lion For All It’s Got — A Ballad poem – Allen Ginsberg
- The Bugler’s First Communion poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Orlando Furioso Canto 22 by Ludovico Ariosto
- The Poor Lover to His Rich Mistress about to Marry His Coxcombly Rival by William Wycherley
- Юнна Мориц – Попрыгать-поиграть
- Conquistador
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Мой сад
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
- Parliament Hill Fields by Sylvia Plath
- Paralytic by Sylvia Plath
- Owl by Sylvia Plath
- Ouija by Sylvia Plath
- Night Shift by Sylvia Plath
- Natural History by Sylvia Plath
- Mystic by Sylvia Plath
- Owl by Sylvia Plath
- Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
- Ouija by Sylvia Plath
- Morning Song by Sylvia Plath
- Night Shift by Sylvia Plath
- Moonrise by Sylvia Plath
- Natural History by Sylvia Plath
- Mirror by Sylvia Plath
- Mystic by Sylvia Plath
- Midsummer Mobile by Sylvia Plath
- Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
- Metaphors by Sylvia Plath
- Morning Song by Sylvia Plath
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.