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:
- Poetic Justice by Robby Charters
- Morning Midday And Evening Sacrifice poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Николай Гумилев – Никогда не сделаю я так
- Николай Карамзин – Эпитафия (Он жил в сем мире для того)
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мы вращаем Землю
- Как Муромец Илья когда-то
- Love’s Wisdom poem – Alfred Austin
- The River Has Its Memories by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Sonnet LXIX by William Shakespeare
- Robert Burns: To Miss Ferrier: Enclosing the Elegy on Sir J. H. Blair.
- The Judges Of The Little Box by Vasko Popa
- Владимир Высоцкий – В тюрьме Таганской нас стало мало
- Crocodile’s Toothache by Shel Silverstein
- Юрий Галансков стихи: читать все стихотворения, поэмы поэта Юрий Галансков – Поэзия на Poetry Monster
- I Am Of Ireland by William Butler Yeats
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 First Part: Sonnet 10 – Fair Moon, who with thy cold and silver shine by William Drummond
- The First Part: Sonnet 1 – In my first years, and prime yet not at height by William Drummond
- The Editor by William Ellery Leonard
- The Book Of The World by William Drummond
- The Beggar by William Ellery Leonard
- Reading by William Marr
- Premature Blindness by Winston Riley
- May-Night by William Ellery Leonard
- Man’s Knowledge – Ingorance in the Mysteries of God by William Drummond
- Indian Summer by William Ellery Leonard
- In the Small Hours by Wole Soyinka
- In Christ there is No East Or West by John Oxenham
- His Mercy Endureth For Ever by John Oxenham
- Harp Song of the Dane Women by Rudyard Kipling
- God Is Good by John Oxenham
- Gadara, A.D. 31 by John Oxenham
- Freemen by John Oxenham
- Free Men Of God by John Oxenham
- For the Men at the Front by John Oxenham
- Flowers Of The Dust by John Oxenham
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.