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:
- Song—Willie brew’d a Peck o’ Maut by Robert Burns
- Houses Of Dreams by Sara Teasdale
- The Gardener LV: It Was Mid-Day by Rabindranath Tagore
- Grammer’s Shoes by William Barnes
- March Evening poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Paradise Lost: Book 01 poem – John Milton poems
- Федор Сологуб – Астероид
- Winter Promises by Marge Piercy
- Frozen Heart 2
- Fairyland by Rabindranath Tagore
- A MEAN IN OUR MEANS by Robert Herrick
- The Drunken Fisherman by Robert Lowell
- Sonnet Of Motherhood XXIV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- The Reverie of Poor Susan by William Wordsworth
- The Winds Out of the West Land Blow poem – A. E. Housman
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
- The Blessed by William Butler Yeats
- The Black Tower by William Butler Yeats
- The Balloon Of The Mind by William Butler Yeats
- The Ballad Of The Foxhunter by William Butler Yeats
- The Ballad Of Moll Magee by William Butler Yeats
- The Ballad Of Father O’Hart by William Butler Yeats
- The Ballad Of Father Gilligan by William Butler Yeats
- The Arrow by William Butler Yeats
- The Apparitions by William Butler Yeats
- That The Night Come by William Butler Yeats
- Symbols by William Butler Yeats
- Swift’s Epitaph by William Butler Yeats
- Sweet Dancer by William Butler Yeats
- Supernatural Songs by William Butler Yeats
- Stream And Sun At Glendalough by William Butler Yeats
- Statistics by William Butler Yeats
- Spilt Milk by William Butler Yeats
- Song For The Severed Head In `The King Of The Great Clock Tower’ by William Butler Yeats
- Solomon To Sheba by William Butler Yeats
- Solomon And The Witch 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.