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:
- Lyric written in 1830 poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Lover’s Gifts XIX: It Is Written in the Book by Rabindranath Tagore
- Иван Дмитриев – Смерть и Умирающий
- Николай Гумилев – Крыса
- You and I by Roger McGough
- Some Singers And Their Traits poem – Ygor Noblott poems | Poetry Monster
- Николай Гумилев – Капитаны
- Gertrude of Wyoming by Thomas Campbell
- Lyonesse
- On Seeing the Ladies Crux-Easton Walk in the Woods by the Grotto. poem – Alexander Pope
- Full of Life, Now. by Walt Whitman
- Ольга Седакова – Азаровка
- At Algeciras; A Meditaton Upon Death by William Butler Yeats
- Hymn To Death by William Cullen Bryant
- Summer – The Second Pastoral; or Alexis poem – Alexander Pope
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
- My Friends by W. S. Merwin
- Language by W. S. Merwin
- It Is March by W. S. Merwin
- William Stanley Merwin – William Stanley Merwin
- Green Fields by W. S. Merwin
- For The Anniversary Of My Death by W. S. Merwin
- For A Coming Extinction by W. S. Merwin
- When I Met My Muse by William Stafford
- Waking at 3 a.m. by William Stafford
- Traveling Through The Dark by William Stafford
- Thinking For Berky by William Stafford
- The Light By The Barn by William Stafford
- Security by William Stafford
- Returned To Say by William Stafford
- Remembering Mountain Men by William Stafford
- Objector by William Stafford
- Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing by William Stafford
- Lit Instructor by William Stafford
- Just Thinking by William Stafford
- William Stafford – William Stafford
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.