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 – Я все оставляю тебе при уходе
- World, Take Good Notice. by Walt Whitman
- Sonnet CXXXVII by William Shakespeare
- Our Singing Strength by Robert Frost
- Sonnet 05
- Георгий Иванов – Танцуй, монах, танцуй, поэт
- Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet Of Motherhood XXIV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- Picture by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Такахама Кёси – Мацумуси пищит
- A Dream of Rodney King by Mary TallMountain
- Robert Burns: Phillis The Fair:
- To Robert Louis Stevenson poem – Alfred Austin
- Галина Гампер – Я повторяю, сердце остужая
- One Day You Will Miss Me.. by Rahul S
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
- Autumn Leaves by Thomas J Camp
- You by Thonda Sri Indrani
- You Will Forget! by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Written at Stonehenge by Thomas Warton
- Words Of Love Forevermore by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Why? by Tiffany Ann Monroe
- While Summer Suns O’er the Gay Prospect Play’d by Thomas Warton
- What Is Woman But A Song! by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- We are Africa by Timileyin Gabriel Olajuwon
- Virgule by Thomas Lux
- Verses on Sir Joshua Reynold’s Painted Window at New College, Oxford by Thomas Warton
- Vagueness Petrified by Thonda Sri Indrani
- Unlike, For Example, The Sound Of A Riptooth Saw by Thomas Lux
- Town Planning Agencies by Tilottama Chatterjee
- Torn Shades by Thomas Lux
- The Road That Runs Beside The River by Thomas Lux
- The Pulling Away by Timothy Cole
- The Pleasures of Melancholy by Thomas Warton
- The Man Into Whose Yard You Should Not Hit Your Ball by Thomas Lux
- The Mocking Bird by Timothy Thomas Fortune
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.