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:
- Василий Жуковский – Был у меня товарищ
- First Day at School by Roger McGough
- I Swear by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Germs. by Walt Whitman
- A Bronze Head by William Butler Yeats
- Николай Языков – Романс (Угрюм стоит дремучий лес)
- Afternoon song by Sunil Sharma
- Astigmatism poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Олег Сердобольский – Во дворе
- Echo by Thomas Moore
- Sonnet. Written On A Blank Space At The End Of Chaucer’s Tale Of ‘The Floure And The Lefe’ poem – John Keats poems
- A Little Song poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Гавриил Державин – Охотник
- The Land of Counterpane by Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Second Voyage by Rudyard Kipling
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
- Peddler Road Flyover by Vinita Agrawal
- Pay your last respects by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- My rains by Vinko Kalinic
- My mother was telling me by Vinko Kalinic
- My angel’s face by Vinko Kalinić
- Missing Person by Vinita Agrawal
- Mi ha el by Vinko Kalinić
- Manifesto for your smile and my songs by Vinko Kalinic
- Lets go by Vinko Kalinić
- Legacy by Vinko Kalinić
- Joy of giving by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Instead of farewell by Vinko Kalinić
- If you love the life by Vinko Kalinić
- I don’t want to have you by Vinko Kalinic
- I am your friend by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- I’ve dreamt of dreaming ’bout you by Vinko Kalinić
- House For Sale by Vinita Agrawal
- Hey! Mr.Pothole by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Happy Teacher’s Day by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Get together by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
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.