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 Британишский – Океан с континентом воюют
- Idyll by Siegfried Sassoon
- Carrion Comfort poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- THE WARS by Satish Verma
- Delicate Cluster. by Walt Whitman
- The Destroyers by Rudyard Kipling
- In Memory Of Alfred Pollexfen by William Butler Yeats
- The Wreck Of The Deutschland poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Николай Тихонов – Берлин 9 мая
- An Imperial Rescript by Rudyard Kipling
- Furious Wounds by Satish Verma
- Федор Сологуб – Словами горькими надменных отрицаний
- To the Author of the The Essay on Man by William Somervile
- Владимир Маяковский – Эй, уралец! Без помощи твоего рудника не победить разруху никак (Агитплакаты)
- Lallji My Desire
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
- Closed Path by Rabindranath Tagore
- Chain Of Pearls by Rabindranath Tagore
- Brink Of Eternity by Rabindranath Tagore
- Benediction by Rabindranath Tagore
- Beggarly Heart by Rabindranath Tagore
- Baby’s World by Rabindranath Tagore
- Baby’s Way by Rabindranath Tagore
- Authorship by Rabindranath Tagore
- A Moments Indulgence by Rabindranath Tagore
- Who Is This? by Rabindranath Tagore
- Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore
- When The Two Sisters Go To Fetch Water by Rabindranath Tagore
- When I Go Alone At Night by Rabindranath Tagore
- When I Go Alone At Night by Rabindranath Tagore
- We Are To Play The Game Of Death by Rabindranath Tagore
- We Are To Play The Game Of Death by Rabindranath Tagore
- Waiting by Rabindranath Tagore
- Waiting For The Beloved — English Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
- Tumi Sandhyar Meghamala – You Are A Cluster Of Clouds – Translation by Rabindranath Tagore
- This Dog by Rabindranath Tagore
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.