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:
- The Wolf039s Postcript To 039little Red Riding Hood039
- Lines On Seeing A Lock Of Milton’s Hair poem – John Keats poems
- Robert Burns: Mally’s Meek, Mally’s Sweet:
- Sonnet 97: How like a winter hath my absence been by William Shakespeare
- The Gardener LV: It Was Mid-Day by Rabindranath Tagore
- Николай Карамзин – К соловью
- Наум Коржавин – На друга-поэта
- Василий Жуковский – К Дмитриеву (Нет, не прошла)
- Robert Burns: Damon And Sylvia: Fragment
- My Father’s Hats by Mark Irwin
- Николай Гумилев – Злобный гений, царь сомнений
- The Delphic Oracle Upon Plotinus by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Маяковский – Буржуазия и пролетариат стали врагами друг против друга… (Главполитпросвет №19)
- Willie’s Ladye poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Fool’s Money Bags poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
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
- Алексей Толстой – Рука Алкида тяжела
- Алексей Толстой – Рондо
- Алексей Толстой – Растянулся на просторе
- Алексей Толстой – Пустой дом
- Алексей Толстой – Пусть тот, чья честь не без укора
- Алексей Толстой – Против течения
- Алексей Толстой – Прогулка с подругой жизни
- Алексей Ржевский – Сонет, три разные системы заключающий
- Алексей Ржевский – Рондо (И всякий так живет)
- Алексей Ржевский – Рок все теперь свершил, надежды больше нет
- Алексей Ржевский – Прости, Москва
- Алексей Ржевский – Портрет
- Алексей Ржевский – Ода Императору Петру Феодоровичу
- Алексей Ржевский – Как я стал знать взор твой
- Алексей Ржевский – Долго ль прельщаться
- Алексей Ржевский стихи: читать все стихотворения, поэмы поэта Алексей Ржевский – Поэзия на Poetry Monster
- Алексей Плещеев – Знакомые звуки, чудесные звуки
- Алексей Плещеев – Ёлка в школе
- Алексей Плещеев – Весна (Песни жаворонков снова)
- Алексей Плещеев – Весна
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.