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:
- One Being Brought From Africa To America by Phillis Wheatley
- every_hour_henceforth.html
- His Loss by Robert Herrick
- A Lover’s Complaint by William Shakespeare
- A Tippling Ballad—When Princes and Prelates, etc. by Robert Burns
- A Serenade At The Villa by Robert Browning
- Along The Sun-Drenched Roadside by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Федор Сологуб – В его саду растет рябина
- The Deep-Sea Cables by Rudyard Kipling
- Hint From The Mountains For Certain Political Pretenders by William Wordsworth
- Faun by Sylvia Plath
- The Reformers by Rudyard Kipling
- In Due Observance Of An Ancient Rite by William Wordsworth
- How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven by Vachel Lindsay
- The Rear-Guard by Siegfried Sassoon
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
- Олег Бундур – Сложный предмет
- Олег Бундур – Сломанное дерево
- Олег Бундур – Скука
- Олег Бундур – Силачи
- Олег Бундур – Шляпа
- Олег Бундур – Школа живёт
- Олег Бундур – Семейный совет
- Олег Бундур – Счастливый
- Олег Бундур – Родня
- Олег Бундур – Разногласия
- Олег Бундур – Разговор
- Олег Бундур – Ранним утром
- Олег Бундур – Пёс
- Олег Бундур – Просьба
- Олег Бундур – Про затрещины
- Олег Бундур – Про любовь
- Олег Бундур – Про чемпионов
- Олег Бундур – Праздник встречи
- Олег Бундур – Поссорились
- Олег Бундур – После дождя
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.