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:
- Limbo by Seamus Heaney
- Juvenilia An Ode To Natural Beauty
- Владимир Маяковский – Неразбериха
- Sonnet III by William Shakespeare
- A Serenade At The Villa by Robert Browning
- Олег Бундур – Наши неприятности
- Writing Strategy: On Getting Inspired Everyday
- The Magic Wand
- Inscription For A Moss-House In The Shrubbery At Weston by William Cowper
- If Only
- At The Gate Of The Convent poem – Alfred Austin
- A Jewish Family In A Small Valley Opposite St. Goar, Upon The Rhine by William Wordsworth
- Низами Гянджеви – От сердца всю ночь мечтал
- Sonnet 144: Two loves I have, of comfort and despair by William Shakespeare
- On the Burning of Lord Mansfield’s Library by William Cowper
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
- A Mesh by Shahida Latif
- Tear of warm dew of mind by Seema Gupta
- Your Time’s Comin’ by Shel Silverstein
- Workin’ It Out by Shel Silverstein
- Who’s Taller? by Shel Silverstein
- Who does she think she is…. by Shel Silverstein
- When She Cries by Shel Silverstein
- Ugliest Man In Town by Shel Silverstein
- Tryin’ On Clothes by Shel Silverstein
- They’ve Put A Brassiere On A Camel by Shel Silverstein
- The Worlds Greatest Smoke Off by Shel Silverstein
- The Winner by Shel Silverstein
- The Voice by Shel Silverstein
- The Unicorn by Shel Silverstein
- The Sitter by Shel Silverstein
- The Perfect Wave by Shel Silverstein
- The Perfect High by Shel Silverstein
- The Oak and the Rose by Shel Silverstein
- The Nap Taker by Shel Silverstein
- The Monkey by Shel Silverstein
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.