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:
- Владимир Высоцкий – Звезды
- Inscription For A Stone Erected At The Sowing Of A Grove Of Oaks At Chillington, Anno 1790 by William Cowper
- The Woman Of His Dreams by Talha Jafri
- Field Sports by William Somervile
- Solitude poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- She and Drugs by Mark R Slaughter
- Till I Wake
- Robert Burns: Wha Is That At My Bower-Door:
- Robert Burns: On A Swearing Coxcomb:
- To A Young Lady Who Sent Me A Laurel Crown poem – John Keats poems
- Robert Burns: Verses To Clarinda: Sent with a Pair of Wine-Glasses.
- Morning Song in the Jungle by Rudyard Kipling
- Sonnet 64: When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced by William Shakespeare
- Peaceful Battles by Shekhar Srinivasan
- To a Lady on Her Coming to North-America by Phillis Wheatley
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
- Atalanta’s Race by William Morris
- A Good Knight In Prison by William Morris
- A Death Song by William Morris
- We embraced and talked about rains by Vinko Kalinic
- Twins by Vinko Kalinić
- To a friend by Vinko Kalinić
- Those seven days by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- The face wanted by Vinko Kalinić
- The Boy by Vinko Kalinić
- Summer We Called Home by Vinita Agrawal
- Story of a Drunk by Violet Uram
- Sometimes by Vinko Kalinić
- See, how I love you by Vinko Kalinić
- Sea God and the wind rose by Vinko Kalinić
- Respect her by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Requiem for Two by Vinko Kalinić
- Raw Silk by Vinita Agrawal
- Raise the head, child by Vinko Kalinić
- Pure call of the wilderness by Vinko Kalinic
- Pigeon Haiku by Violet Uram
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.