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:
- The Ghost by Sara Teasdale
- Михаил Кузмин – Утешение
- Алишер Навои – Цветком, что счастье нам несет
- Summer We Called Home by Vinita Agrawal
- Владимир Высоцкий – День рождения лейтенанта милиции в ресторане “Берлин”
- American Feuillage. by Walt Whitman
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Звездочет
- Giving Myself Up by Mark Strand
- Sonnet Xii
- Music by Stephen Vincent Benet
- “The lark confinèd in his cage” poem – Alfred Austin
- The Cremona Violin poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- An Old French Poet by Siegfried Sassoon
- Владимир Корнилов – Спортлото
- To Mr. Thomas Southern, on his Birth-Day poem – Alexander Pope
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
- Fear by Vinko Kalinić
- Even if I don’t hear your voice, I know by Vinko Kalinic
- 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
- Peddler Road Flyover by Vinita Agrawal
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.