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:
- Ольга Высотская – Волны
- From Paumanok Starting. by Walt Whitman
- Владимир Маяковский – Помогай фронту… (РОСТА №480)
- A Fragment poem – Alfred Austin
- Валерий Брюсов – Песня гренландцев
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 22. The path by which we twain did go poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Sonnet 53: What is your substance, whereof are you made by William Shakespeare
- A Hedge Of Rubber Trees poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Harry Ploughman poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Doors Of The Temple
- Your Last Drive by Thomas Hardy
- Николай Глазков – Бывают в нашей жизни величины
- Владимир Высоцкий – Давно, в эпоху мрачного язычества
- Morale by Sunil Sharma
- Николай Языков – Песня (Пусть свободны и легки)
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 Little Boy And The Old Man by Shel Silverstein
- The Land Of Happy by Shel Silverstein
- The Hunter by Shel Silverstein
- The Great Conch Train Robbery by Shel Silverstein
- The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
- The Generals by Shel Silverstein
- The Bridge by Shel Silverstein
- The Boa Constrictor Song by Shel Silverstein
- The Bear, The Fire, And The Snow by Shel Silverstein
- The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan by Shel Silverstein
- The Bagpipe Who Didn’t Say No by Shel Silverstein
- Testing The Bomb by Shel Silverstein
- Sylvia’s Mother by Shel Silverstein
- Sure Hit Songwriter’s Pen by Shel Silverstein
- Son Of A Scoundrel by Shel Silverstein
- Someone Ate The Baby by Shel Silverstein
- Someday’s Here by Shel Silverstein
- Somebody Has To by Shel Silverstein
- Smoke Off by Shel Silverstein
- Sing Me A Rainbow 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.