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:
- Shot? So Quick, So Clean an Ending? poem – A. E. Housman
- Владимир Высоцкий – Свет потушите, вырубите звук
- Song. Murdering Beauty by Thomas Carew
- To A Little Girl That Has Told A Lie
- Borrowed Verses by Subhash Misra
- Teddy Bear
- Как не бывает утро без рассвета
- Spring Day poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Dark Wood, Dark Water by Sylvia Plath
- Epigram on Francis Grose the Antiquary by Robert Burns
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Мысль
- Helen Of Troy by Sara Teasdale
- Федор Сологуб – Лесная тропа
- Show It At The Beach by Shel Silverstein
- Multi-Miners & Co. Present Ned Kelly by Graham Rowlands
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
- Василий Жуковский – Элизиум
- Василий Жуковский – Дружба
- Василий Жуковский – На смерть Андрея Тургенева
- Василий Жуковский – На первое отречение от престола Бонапарте
- Василий Жуковский – Мщение
- Василий Жуковский – Моя богиня
- Василий Жуковский – Море
- Василий Жуковский – Могущество, слава и благоденствие России
- Василий Жуковский – Младенец: Стих, который легко учится, 28 строк – Стихотворения Жуковского на Poetry Monster
- Василий Жуковский – Мина
- Василий Жуковский – Тоска по милом
- Василий Жуковский – Торжество победителей
- Василий Жуковский – Теснятся все к тебе во храм
- Василий Жуковский – Там небеса и воды ясны
- Василий Жуковский – Светлане
- Василий Жуковский – Суд Божий над епископом
- Вера Павлова – Праздник после праздника
- Вера Павлова – Попытка не пытка
- Вера Павлова – Поколенье, лишённое почерка и походки
- Вера Павлова – Покамест я всем детям тётя
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.