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:
- Владимир Маяковский – Голодные! Пан Украину грабит… (РОСТА №106)
- Songs From “Prince Lucifer” II – Mother-Song poem – Alfred Austin
- Алексей Хомяков – Просьба
- Once I Pass’d Through a Populous City. by Walt Whitman
- Broken Love by Talha Jafri
- O Nightingale! Thou Surely Art by William Wordsworth
- Lyonesse
- Fears Get Away
- The Example by William Henry Davies
- Bring Us The Light by John Oxenham
- Василий Жуковский – К кн. Вяземскому и В.Л.Пушкину
- Love In Autumn by Sara Teasdale
- Омар Хайям – До того, как мы чашу судьбы изопьем
- The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Daybreak In A Garden by Siegfried Sassoon
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
- You are coming! by Preeth Nambiar
- Wish If You…! by Praveen Parasar
- When the universe speaks by Preeth Nambiar
- WATER LILLIES AND ADVICE by PEGGY AYLSWORTH
- Waking up on a rainy morning by Preeth Nambiar
- Wake Oslo up again by Philo Ikonya
- Towards The sky by Pushpendra Singh Baghel
- To Double Lock by Pierre Reverdy
- The way aboard by Preeth Nambiar
- The Theatre of Illusion by Pierre Corneille
- The Survivor by Primo Levi
- The Search by Pornika Ganguly
- The Magic by Preeth Nambiar
- The Love! by Praveen Parasar
- The Last Letter by Priyanka Tungana
- The Fragrance of life by Preeth Nambiar
- The Deeper Shadow by Pierre Reverdy
- The Actor by Preeth Nambiar
- That Light by Paul Hostovsky
- Termites by Piera Chen
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.