A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
Far back when I went zig-zagging
through tamarack pastures
you were my genius, you
my cast-iron Viking, my helmed
lion-heart king in prison.
Years later now you’re young
my fierce half-brother, staring
down from that simplified west
your breast open, your belt dragged down
by an oldfashioned thing, a sword
the last bravado you won’t give over
though it weighs you down as you stride
and the stars in it are dim
and maybe have stopped burning.
But you burn, and I know it;
as I throw back my head to take you in
and old transfusion happens again:
divine astronomy is nothing to it.
Indoors I bruise and blunder
break faith, leave ill enough
alone, a dead child born in the dark.
Night cracks up over the chimney,
pieces of time, frozen geodes
come showering down in the grate.
A man reaches behind my eyes
and finds them empty
a woman’s head turns away
from my head in the mirror
children are dying my death
and eating crumbs of my life.
Pity is not your forte.
Calmly you ache up there
pinned aloft in your crow’s nest,
my speechless pirate!
You take it all for granted
and when I look you back
it’s with a starlike eye
shooting its cold and egotistical spear
where it can do least damage.
Breath deep! No hurt, no pardon
out here in the cold with you
you with your back to the wall.
A few random poems:
- Turns by Tony Harrison
- Аля Кудряшева – Я этой ночью уйду, не спи
- Robert Burns: The Soldier’s Return:
- Translations Dante Inferno Canto Xxvi
- “When the reaper lays the sickle by ” poem – Alfred Austin
- Myfanwy poem – John Betjeman poems
- The Story of Uriah by Rudyard Kipling
- Gipsies by William Wordsworth
- Off Mesolongi poem – Alfred Austin
- Hunting-Song of the Seeonee Pack by Rudyard Kipling
- One Day In Spring…. by Rabindranath Tagore
- Mingus At The Showplace by William Matthews
- Yesterday by W. S. Merwin
- World, Take Good Notice. by Walt Whitman
- Юнна Мориц – Веселый завтрак
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
- Coal-Truck by T. Wignesan
- Cinderella by Roald Dahl
- blessing for sound health by matthew scott harris
- Black Lake by Memphis Knight
- Before The Law by Michael Major
- A Conceit by Maya Angelou
- A Rythm Upon Our Trusts by Michael McGovern
- Your Poems on My Patio by Martina Reisz Newberry
- Yesterday’s Mishaps by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Yes Dear by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Words Unspoken by Mark Olynyk
- Woman With Parasol by Martin Willitts Jr.
- Why Write? by Mark Olynyk
- Where Have We All Gone by Mary Etta Metcalf
- What is Poetry? by Mark Olynyk
- Wednesday by Marvin Bell
- To Sea by Martin Zakovski
- To Dorothy by Marvin Bell
- They Thought Her Crazy by Mary Etta Metcalf
- These Green-Going-to-Yellow by Marvin Bell
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.