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:
- Николай Гумилев – Неоромантическая сказка
- A Child’s Prayer by Siegfried Sassoon
- In The Chapel Of Rest by Steve Sant
- Confused and Distraught by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Юлия Друнина – А всё равно
- In Answer to a Request poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Black Cat by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Morning In The Hospital Solarium by Sylvia Plath
- In torque by Muralidharan Mudaliar
- No Chance To A New Life by Rashmi Sreekumar
- Landowners by Sylvia Plath
- Нина Воронель – Аэродром
- The Death Of Adonis by Sappho
- As Toilsome I Wander’d. by Walt Whitman
- A Hairline Fracture poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
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 Poetic Principle by Mark Olynyk
- She and Drugs by Mark R Slaughter
- The Other Side of Panic by Martina Reisz Newberry
- Sculpture of Debris on the Waterfront by Martina Reisz Newberry
- Question mark remarks by Mark Miller
- The joyful things in life by Martin Smith
- The Frantic by Mark Miller
- Postures by Martina Reisz Newberry
- The End of the Argument by Martina Reisz Newberry
- My Father’s Hats by Mark Irwin
- The Dreadful Has Already Happened by Mark Strand
- The Dragon and The Unicorn by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Please Don’t Judas Me by Mark Miller
- Never Sure Which You Are by Mary Etta Metcalf
- The Last Wolf by Mary TallMountain
- Nestling by Mark R Slaughter
- The Homeless Man by Mary TallMountain
- My Words Embrace by Mary Etta Metcalf
- Telescope by Mark R Slaughter
- My Mother On An Evening In Late Summer by Mark Strand
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.