A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
Thinking of Caroline Herschel (1750-1848),
astronomer, sister of William; and others.
A woman in the shape of a monster
a monster in the shape of a woman
the skies are full of them
a woman ‘in the snow
among the Clocks and instruments
or measuring the ground with poles’
in her 98 years to discover
8 comets
She whom the moon ruled
like us
levitating into the night sky
riding the polished lenses
Galaxies of women, there
doing penance for impetuousness
ribs chilled
in those spaces of the mind
An eye,
‘virile, precise and absolutely certain’
from the mad webs of Uranusborg
encountering the NOVA
every impulse of light exploding
from the core
as life flies out of us
Tycho whispering at last
‘Let me not seem to have lived in vain’
What we see, we see
and seeing is changing
the light that shrivels a mountain
and leaves a man alive
Heartbeat of the pulsar
heart sweating through my body
The radio impulse
pouring in from Taurus
I am bombarded yet I stand
I have been standing all my life in the
direct path of a battery of signals
the most accurately transmitted most
untranslatable language in the universe
I am a galactic cloud so deep so invo-
luted that a light wave could take 15
years to travel through me And has
taken I am an instrument in the shape
of a woman trying to translate pulsations
into images for the relief of the body
and the reconstruction of the mind.
A few random poems:
- My Partner in Crime by Rennu Ayyar
- Sonnet 36: Let me confess that we two must be twain by William Shakespeare
- A Tempest in a Teacup poem – A. Van Jordan poems | Best Poems
- The Battle of the Baltic by Thomas Campbell
- Another Song Of A Fool by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Корнилов – Боль
- La Gitana poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster
- How Long by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Conversation
- By Broad Potomac’s Shore. by Walt Whitman
- Как жаль, что много лет назад
- Petals poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Umbrella by Mike Yuan
- Олег Григорьев – Футбол
- Владимир Высоцкий – Сыт я по горло, до подбородка
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
- Come up from the Fields, Father. by Walt Whitman
- City of Ships. by Walt Whitman
- City of Orgies. by Walt Whitman
- City Dead-House, The. by Walt Whitman
- Chanting the Square Deific. by Walt Whitman
- Centenarian’s Story, The. by Walt Whitman
- Cavalry Crossing a Ford. by Walt Whitman
- Carol of Words. by Walt Whitman
- Carol of Occupations. by Walt Whitman
- Camps of Green. by Walt Whitman
- By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame. by Walt Whitman
- By Broad Potomac’s Shore. by Walt Whitman
- Brother of All, with Generous Hand. by Walt Whitman
- Bivouac on a Mountain Side. by Walt Whitman
- Behold this Swarthy Face. by Walt Whitman
- Behavior. by Walt Whitman
- Beginning my Studies. by Walt Whitman
- Beginners. by Walt Whitman
- Beautiful Women. by Walt Whitman
- Beat! Beat! Drums! by Walt Whitman
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.