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:
- Олег Григорьев – Однажды Сережа и Оля
- Hymn To Light
- The Sound Of Music -a Ghazal by Umamaheswari Anandane
- Crazy Jane On The Mountain by William Butler Yeats
- Михаил Ломоносов – Чем ты дале прочь отходишь
- Prologue to Rodin in Rime poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Ations by Shel Silverstein
- The Spring by Thomas Carew
- Robert Burns: Mr. William Smellie -A Sketch:
- Aspirations Of The Soul After God by William Cowper
- Psalm 88 poem – John Milton poems
- Between The Wars by Robert Hass
- Федор Сологуб – Под холодною властью тумана
- E.P. Ode Pour L’election De Son Sepulchre poem – Ezra Pound poems
- 71 Ways For A Writer To Make Money
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
- Ten Years After by Graham Rowlands
- Telescopes In The Square by Graham Rowlands
- South Africa by Ronald G. Auguste
- Shattered Dreams. Broken Promises. by Russell James
- Savour Your Life by Ronald G. Auguste
- Rosslyn To The Prime Minister by Graham Rowlands
- Writing to Onegin by Ruth Padel
- Icicles round a Tree in Dumfriesshire by Ruth Padel
- Conqueror by Russell Hughes Ragsdale
- Conversation 4: On Place by Rosmarie Waldrop
- To A Young Lady. On Her Recovery From A Fever by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Written In Early Youth. The Time,–An Autumnal Evening by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Fire, Famine, And Slaughter : A War Eclogue by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Fancy In Nubibus, Or The Poet In The Clouds by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Epitaph On An Infant. by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- What would I do without this world by Samuel Beckett
- Cascando by Samuel Beckett
- To a Commencement of Scoundrels by Samuel Hazo
- The Nearness That Is All by Samuel Hazo
- The Middle of the World by Samuel Hazo
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.