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:
- Олег Чупров – Путь к Благодати не напрасен
- A Grace after Meat by Robert Burns
- I Just Wanna Make You Mine Girl by Miraj Patel
- Power Of Love by Valentine Mbagu
- The Scarecrow by Ross D Tyler
- America, America by Saadi Youssef
- Robert Burns: No Churchman Am I:
- Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost
- Apologetic Postscript Of A Year Later by Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 4 poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Николай Языков – А. С. Дириной
- Sonnet CXXIX by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Недоверчивость
- Николай Заболоцкий – Прощание
- hoppity.html
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
- Гавриил Державин – Философы, пьяный и трезвый
- Гавриил Державин – Амур и Психея
- Гавриил Державин – Жуковскому и Родзянке, приславшим с большими похвалами автору перевод его оды «Бог» на французском языке
- Гавриил Державин – Желание в горняя
- Гавриил Державин – Жан Расин. Рассказ Терамена
- Гавриил Державин – Задумчивость
- Гавриил Державин – Храповицкому (Храповицкий! дружбы знаки)
- Гавриил Державин – Похвала за правосудие
- Гавриил Державин – Похвала комару
- Гавриил Державин – Послание Мурзы Багрима к царевне Доброславе
- Гавриил Державин – Поминки
- Гавриил Державин – Покаяние
- Гавриил Державин – Подражание псалму (Терпел я, уповал на Бога)
- Гавриил Державин – Песенка
- Гавриил Державин – Пчелка
- Гавриил Державин – Охотник
- Гавриил Державин – Осень
- Гавриил Державин – Оковы
- Гавриил Державин – О удовольствии
- Гавриил Державин – Надежда на бога
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.