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 Captive Trumpeter by William Somervile
- The Flight by Rudyard Kipling
- Юлия Друнина – Здесь продают билеты на Парнас
- Алексей Жемчужников – Уже давно иду я, утомленный
- On A Political Prisoner by William Butler Yeats
- Lucky by Thomas Lux
- The Old Huntsman by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Temple poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- In Paths Untrodden. by Walt Whitman
- Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing by William Stafford
- Night by William Morris
- Владимир Высоцкий – Новые левые, мальчики бравые
- Vaishnavi Prakash by Vaishnavi Prakash
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 39. Old warder of these buried bones poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Curtis by Susan King Saunders
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
- A Prayer For Old Age by William Butler Yeats
- A Prayer For My Son by William Butler Yeats
- A Nativity by William Butler Yeats
- A Memory Of Youth by William Butler Yeats
- A Meditation In Time Of War by William Butler Yeats
- A Man Young And Old: X. His Wildness by William Butler Yeats
- A Man Young And Old: VIII. Summer And Spring by William Butler Yeats
- A Man Young And Old: VII. The Friends Of His Youth by William Butler Yeats
- A Man Young And Old: VI. His Memories by William Butler Yeats
- A Man Young And Old: V. The Empty Cup by William Butler Yeats
- A Man Young And Old: IX. The Secrets Of The Old by William Butler Yeats
- A Man Young And Old: IV. The Death Of The Hare by William Butler Yeats
- A Man Young And Old: III. The Mermaid by William Butler Yeats
- A Man Young And Old: II. Human Dignity by William Butler Yeats
- A Man Young And Old: I. First Love by William Butler Yeats
- A Last Confession by William Butler Yeats
- A Friend’s Illness by William Butler Yeats
- A First Confession by William Butler Yeats
- A Faery Song by William Butler Yeats
- A Drunken Man’s Praise Of Sobriety by William Butler Yeats
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.