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:
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 22. The path by which we twain did go poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Николай Языков – Песня (Пусть свободны и легки)
- Lines Written On Visiting The Chateaux On The Loire poem – Alfred Austin
- Lorelei by Sylvia Plath
- Владимир Луговской – Почтовый переулок
- Sakal Bun poem – Amir Khusro poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sonnet 23 poem – John Milton poems
- ON THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE AND UNCERTAINTY OF RICHES by Abraham Cowley
- A Kiss by Thomas Lux
- Sonet 34 by William Alexander
- One Step Backward Taken by Robert Frost
- A Hermit Thrush poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Sonnet Xvi Who Shall Invoke Her
- Suppressed Stanzas of “The Vision” by Robert Burns
- Вера Павлова – Я дождевой червь
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 Орлов – Летит корабль
- Владимир Орлов – Ковровые дорожки
- Владимир Орлов – Кому что снится?
- Владимир Орлов – Как Таппи научился лаять
- Владимир Орлов – Как появились ромашки
- Владимир Орлов – Где петушок носит гребешок
- Владимир Орлов – Дядя Миша на печи
- Владимир Орлов – Добрый день
- Владимир Орлов – Цветное молоко
- Владимир Орлов – Что нельзя купить
- Владимир Орлов – Белые стихи о черном пуделе
- Владимир Набоков – Забудешь ты меня, как эту ночь забудешь
- Владимир Набоков – Я на море гляжу из мраморного храма
- Владимир Набоков – Встреча
- Владимир Набоков – Воскресение мёртвых
- Владимир Набоков – Верба
- Владимир Набоков – Вдали от берега, в мерцании морском
- Владимир Набоков – В полнолунье, в гостиной пыльной и пышной
- Владимир Набоков – Ut pictura poesis
- Владимир Набоков – Ты многого, слишком ты многого хочешь
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.