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:
- To J. S. poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Альфред де Мюссе – Вспомни обо мне
- On His Grotto at Twickenham poem – Alexander Pope
- New Year’s Dawn – Broadway by Sara Teasdale
- Николай Заболоцкий – Ночное гулянье
- Вера Павлова – Подарил мне жизнь
- A Death Song by William Morris
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабочий, читай постановление СТО от 15 июня 1921 года (Главполитпросвет №222)
- Владимир Вишневский – Стада уж боле не пасутся мирно
- The Dunciad: Book II. poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Вера Звягинцева – Всхожу на мост
- The Love That Goes A-Begging by Sara Teasdale
- Наум Коржавин – Двадцатые годы
- A Question by Robert Frost
- City of My Childhood
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 First Sam Hazo at the Last by Samuel Hazo
- The Cleaving by Samuel Hazo
- Carol of a Father by Samuel Hazo
- 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
- The Lime-tree Bower my Prison by Samuel Coleridge
- Psyche by Samuel Coleridge
- Brockley Coomb by Samuel Coleridge
- As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood (fragment) by Samuel Coleridge
- Constancy To An Ideal Object by Samuel Coleridge
- A Tombless Epitaph by Samuel Coleridge
- Cologne by Samuel Coleridge
- Duty Surviving Self-Love by Samuel Coleridge
- Epitaph by Samuel Coleridge
- Dejection: An Ode by Samuel Coleridge
- About The Nightingale by Samuel Coleridge
- Fears In Solitude by Samuel Coleridge
- Christabel by Samuel Coleridge
- Epigram by Samuel Coleridge
- Phantom by Samuel Coleridge
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.