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:
- Manifestations by Tom Shea
- Take My Hands
- Sleep of the Body the Soul’s Awakening by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Aquatic Nocturne by Sylvia Plath
- The Hands That Hang Down
- Юнна Мориц – Веселый завтрак
- Владимир Лифшиц – Баллада о черством куске
- What think You I take my Pen in Hand? by Walt Whitman
- To A Girl In A Garden by Sappho
- Жан Расин – Андромаха
- A Man Young And Old: IV. The Death Of The Hare by William Butler Yeats
- Gold Mouths Cry by Sylvia Plath
- The Goring by Sylvia Plath
- A Birthday Song. To S. G. by Sidney Lanier
- Paralytic by Sylvia Plath
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 Heart That Is Pining by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- The Clime Of My Birth by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- The Bird Has Vanished by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Solitude at an Inn by Thomas Warton
- Ribbons & Pearls by Timothy Cole
- Refrigerator, 1957 by Thomas Lux
- Timothy Thomas Fortune – Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Plague Victims Catapulted Over Walls Into Besieged City by Thomas Lux
- On King Arthur’s Round Table at Winchester by Thomas Warton
- Ode To Sleep by Thomas Warton
- My Precious Girl by Tiffany Ann Monroe
- My Miracle Valentine by Tirtha Raj Baral (Sanu Punatare)
- Mother Earth; Her Beauty And Her Destruction by TMBedell
- Motel Seedy by Thomas Lux
- Marine Snow At Mid-Depths And Down by Thomas Lux
- Lucky by Thomas Lux
- Love’s Divinest Power by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Love of the heart by Timileyin Gabriel Olajuwon
- Just A Dance by Tiffany M
- Thomas Lux – Thomas Lux
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.