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:
- no ambition for eternity by Raj Arumugam
- The Gladness of Nature by William Cullen Bryant
- A song of living poem – Amelia Burr poems | Poems and Poetry
- A High-Toned Old Christian Woman by Wallace Stevens
- To Emily Dickinson by Yvor Winters
- Adoration
- Crazy Jane On The Day Of Judgment by William Butler Yeats
- On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Robert Burns: O Steer Her Up An’ Haud Her Gaun:
- Владимир Гиляровский – Грядущее
- Алексей Плещеев – Цветок
- Николай Глазков – Быть хочешь постоянно пьяным
- In Snow by William Allingham
- Passing by Shaunna Harper
- Ancient Sins by Satish Verma
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 94: They that have power to hurt and will do none by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 93: So shall I live, supposing thou art true by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 92: But do thy worst to steal thy self away by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 91: Some glory in their birth, some in their skill by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 90: Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 8: Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 89: Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 88: When thou shalt be disposed to set me light by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 87: Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 86: Was it the proud full sail of his great verse by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 84: Who is it that says most, which can say more by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 83: I never saw that you did painting need by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 82: I grant thou wert not married to my Muse by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 80: O, how I faint when I of you do write by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 7: Lo, in the orient when the gracious light by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 79: Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 78: So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet 77: Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear 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.