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:
- The Light o’ the Moon by Vachel Lindsay
- To Independence by Tobias Smollett
- The Essay on Agriculture by Abraham Cowley
- phantasm.html
- Dedication poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Иван Бунин – Ночлег
- Юлия Друнина – Два вечера
- Tinker Jack And The Tidy Wives by Sylvia Plath
- Sonnet: To Time by Sylvia Plath
- The Pleasure of Princes
- A Song at Cock-Crow by Rudyard Kipling
- Thomas Gray – Thomas Gray
- Валерий Брюсов – Грядущие гунны
- Олег Григорьев – Двустишия
- Oh, when I was in love with you poem – A. E. Housman
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
- Владимир Высоцкий – О знаках Зодиака
- Владимир Высоцкий – О нашей встрече
- Владимир Высоцкий – О конце войны
- Владимир Высоцкий – Нынче он закончил вехи
- Владимир Высоцкий – Нынче мне не до улыбок
- Владимир Высоцкий – Ну почему
- Владимир Высоцкий – Ну что, Кузьма
- Владимир Высоцкий – Новые левые, мальчики бравые
- Владимир Высоцкий – Невидимка
- Владимир Высоцкий – Неужто здесь сошёлся клином свет
- Владимир Высоцкий – Нет рядом никого, как ни дыши
- Владимир Высоцкий – Нет меня, я покинул Расею
- Владимир Высоцкий – Не заманишь меня на эстрадный концерт
- Владимир Высоцкий – Не возьмут и невзгоды в крутой оборот…
- Владимир Высоцкий – Не писать стихов мне и романов
- Владимир Высоцкий – Не отдавайте в физики детей
- Владимир Высоцкий – Не могу ни выпить, ни забыться
- Владимир Высоцкий – Не дыми, голова трещит
- Владимир Высоцкий – Не бывает кораблей без названия
- Владимир Высоцкий – Наводчица
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.