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:
- CIA Dope Calypso by Allen Ginsberg
- Олег Бундур – Тополёк
- Between the Showers poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- On His Grotto at Twickenham poem – Alexander Pope
- A Mother’s Lament for her Son’s Death by Robert Burns
- Another Weeping Woman by Wallace Stevens
- Владимир Корнилов – Анафемский сон
- The Story of Uriah by Rudyard Kipling
- The Dunciad: Book I. poem – Alexander Pope
- The End by Sharon Olds
- On The Final Submission Of The Tyrolese by William Wordsworth
- May Magnificat poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- I looked here by Stephen Crane
- Николай Некрасов – Внимая ужасам войны
- Николай Карамзин – Эпитафия (Он жил в сем мире для того)
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 Campera, the Foreigner y el Novio by Marjorie Kanter
- The Boy by Marilyn Hacker
- The Aegean by Maria Luisa Spaziani
- The Gate by Marie Howe
- The Copper Beech by Marie Howe
- Synchronicity by Marina Cecilia Kohon
- Subjective Genocide by Marie Starr
- Subject to Change by Marilyn L. Taylor
- Spenser’s Ireland by Marianne Moore
- Song by Margaret Widdemer
- Silence by Marianne Moore
- Scars on Paper by Marilyn Hacker
- Rosemary by Marianne Moore
- Release by Marie Starr
- Reading Runes by Marina Cecilia Kohon
- Portrait in Black and White by Marjorie Kanter
- Poetry by Marianne Moore
- Peter by Marianne Moore
- Passion by Sera Jacob
- Paragraphs from a Day-Book by Marilyn Hacker
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.