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 Берггольц – Так еще ни разу не забыла
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Напоминание
- Another Weeping Woman by Wallace Stevens
- Strange Fruit by Seamus Heaney
- A Song of Peach-Blossom River by Wang Wei
- Waly, Waly poem – Andrew Lang poems
- The Five Adorations poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- Joy-Bells by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Epic of Jack and Jill by Robby Charters
- Nijole Miliauskaite – Nijole Miliauskaite
- The City Revisited by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Омар Хайям – Мы источник веселья, и скорби рудник
- Юнна Мориц – Сказка про песенку
- Galahad In The Castle Of The Maidens by Sara Teasdale
- Don’t Hang Up The Phone by Miraj Patel
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
- Conversation Among The Ruins by Sylvia Plath
- Circus In Three Rings by Sylvia Plath
- Child’s Park Stones by Sylvia Plath
- “Célibataire” by Sylvia Plath
- By Candlelight by Sylvia Plath
- Burning The Letters by Sylvia Plath
- Bluebeard by Sylvia Plath
- Blackberrying by Sylvia Plath
- Black Rook In Rainy Weather by Sylvia Plath
- Black Pine Tree In An Orange Light by Sylvia Plath
- Battle-Scene From the Comic Operatic Fantasy The Seafarer by Sylvia Plath
- Balloons by Sylvia Plath
- Ariel by Sylvia Plath
- Apprehensions by Sylvia Plath
- An Appearance by Sylvia Plath
- Amnesiac by Sylvia Plath
- All The Dead Dears by Sylvia Plath
- Aftermath by Sylvia Plath
- Admonition by Sylvia Plath
- Above The Oxbow by Sylvia Plath
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.