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:
- To Her Beauty by Nithin Purple
- Chris’mas Invitation by William Barnes
- Priorities of Life and Death
- Song Of The Devoted Slave
- Battle Salamis
- Virginibus Puerisque
- The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance poem – Ezra Pound poems
- On A Drop Of Dew poem – Andrew Marvell poems
- Love’s Harvest poem – Alfred Austin
- My Garden by Thomas Edward Brown
- Prayer For Lightning poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sonnet IX by William Shakespeare
- Man And The Echo by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Маяковский – Песня-молния
- Impromptu on Dumourier’s Desertion of the French Republican Army by Robert Burns
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 Licorice Fields at Pontefract poem – John Betjeman poems
- The Last Laugh poem – John Betjeman poems
- The Irish Unionist’s farewell to Greta Hellastrom in 1922 poem – John Betjeman poems
- The Hon. Sec. poem – John Betjeman poems
- The Cottage Hospital poem – John Betjeman poems
- Sun and Fun poem – John Betjeman poems
- South London Sketch poem – John Betjeman poems
- Slough poem – John Betjeman poems
- Senex poem – John Betjeman poems
- Seaside Golf poem – John Betjeman poems
- On a Portrait of a Deaf Man poem – John Betjeman poems
- Myfanwy poem – John Betjeman poems
- Mortality poem – John Betjeman poems
- Middlesex poem – John Betjeman poems
- Meditation on the A30 poem – John Betjeman poems
- Loneliness poem – John Betjeman poems
- Ireland With Emily poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Inexpensive Progress poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- In Westminster Abbey poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- How To Get On In Society poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
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.