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:
- So Long. by Walt Whitman
- Edom O’ Gordon poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Robert Burns: Lines Sent To Sir John Whiteford, Bart: With The Lament On The Death Of the Earl Of Glencairn
- Art Therapy and Loss
- The Spring passing away by Shailendra Chauhan
- In Honour of the City of London by William Dunbar
- A Song at Weicheng. by Wang Wei
- Felix Randal poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Woman Of His Dreams by Talha Jafri
- Ольга Берггольц – Марш оловянных солдатиков
- Михаил Лермонтов – Я счастлив, тайный яд течёт в моей крови
- Алишер Навои – Стихотворные жемчужины
- Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- A Knocker poem – Zbigniew Herbert poems | Poetry Monster
- Tempest poem – Alexander Pushkin
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
- Lorelei by Sylvia Plath
- Little Fugue by Sylvia Plath
- Lesbos by Sylvia Plath
- Leaving Early by Sylvia Plath
- Landowners by Sylvia Plath
- Lament by Sylvia Plath
- Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
- Kindness by Sylvia Plath
- Jilted by Sylvia Plath
- Insomniac by Sylvia Plath
- Incommunicado by Sylvia Plath
- I Want, I Want by Sylvia Plath
- I Am Vertical by Sylvia Plath
- Heavy Woman by Sylvia Plath
- Hardcastle Crags by Sylvia Plath
- Gulliver by Sylvia Plath
- Green Rock, Winthrop Bay by Sylvia Plath
- Gold Mouths Cry by Sylvia Plath
- Goatsucker by Sylvia Plath
- Gigolo 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.