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 Triumph by Siegfried Sassoon
- Blustering God by Stephen Crane
- Happiness by Wilfred Owen
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Чудом тени
- The Chestnut Casts His Flambeaux poem – A. E. Housman
- Николай Тихонов – Как след от весла
- Water by Robert Lowell
- Damned by Tanisha Avarsekar
- Владимир Корнилов – Происхождение
- Ок Мельникова – All I want, all I need
- To S.M., A Young African Painter, On Seeing His Works by Phillis Wheatley
- Taking Off by Satish Verma
- When the Lad for Longing Sigh poem – A. E. Housman
- Fancy
- Elegy III. Anno Aet. 17. On The Death Of The Bishop Of Winchester (Translated From Milton) by William Cowper
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
- To All and Everything by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Conversation with Comrade Lenin by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Back Home by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Past One O’Clock … by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Our March by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- My Soviet Passport by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Call To Account! by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- Attitude To A Miss by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- At the Top of My voice by Vladimir Mayakovsky
- What a beautiful world by Vladimir Marku
- Time by Vladimir Marku
- The Room The Light and Golden Dust by Vishnu J Mohan
- The Ghosts of past, the Angels of future by Vyshnav Shabu Nair
- Signals by Walid Saba
- September Rain by Vishü Rita Krocha
- Rain falling by Vladimir Marku
- Moonlight by Vita Sackville-West
- Night dyes its hair by Vladimir Marku
- Monday by Vishü Rita Krocha
- Love’s Paradox by Vishü Rita Krocha
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.