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:
- Winter by Shaunna Harper
- Владимир Маяковский – Долой волокиту! Да здравствует революционная инициатива! (РОСТА № 493 )
- Огюст Барбье – Котел
- Song—Auld Rob Morris by Robert Burns
- never.html
- In Memory of W. B. Yeats by W. H. Auden
- Владимир Корнилов – Происхождение
- lord_god_have_mercy_on_me.html
- In A Classroom
- Robert Burns: On Andrew Turner:
- Владимир Высоцкий – Жизни после смерти нет
- The Bangle Sellers by Sarojini Naidu
- I. The Witch of Coös by Robert Frost
- The Hut
- Agatha
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
- Sonnet 20: A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 19: Devouring Time blunt thou the lion’s paws by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 16: But wherefore do not you a mightier way by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 15: When I consider every thing that grows by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 154: The little Love-god lying once asleep by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 153: Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 152: In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 151: Love is too young to know what conscience is by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 150: O from what power hast thou this powerful might by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 54: O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 53: What is your substance, whereof are you made by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 52: So am I as the rich whose blessèd key by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 51: Thus can my love excuse the slow offence by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 50: How heavy do I journey on the way by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 4: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 49: Against that time, if ever that time come by William Shakespeare
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.