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—Farewell to the Banks of Ayr by Robert Burns
- Robert Burns: Inscription To Miss Graham Of Fintry:
- From the Mountain by Wang Wei
- A Farmhouse Dirge poem – Alfred Austin
- Sonnet 106: When in the chronicle of wasted time by William Shakespeare
- About Face poem – Alice Fulton poems | Poetry Monster
- Eternity by Samuel Stephen Wakdok
- The Blue Scarf poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- At the Zoo poem – A. A. Milne poem
- Sonnet CXXIX by William Shakespeare
- Юнна Мориц – Смелый гусь
- A Prayer in the Prospect of Death by Robert Burns
- I’m So Good That I Don’t Have To Brag by Shel Silverstein
- Ольга Высотская стихи: лучшие стихотворения для детей Высотской – Poetry Monster
- Forex Trading Strategies – Divining the Mysteries of Candlestick Charts and Patterns
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 Confederate Flags poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- At The Close Of The Canvass poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Christian poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Bride poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- At The Close Of The Canvass poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Wreath Of Immortelles poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- With a Book poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Weather poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- To the Bartholdi Statue poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Statesmen poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Safety-Clutch poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Rimer poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Piety poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Ambrose Bierce – Ambrose Bierce Poems | Poems and Poetry
- Freedom poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Elegy poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Decalogue poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- An Inion poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Alone poem – by Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- On Beer
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.