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:
- She by Rabindranath Tagore
- Song of the Exposition. by Walt Whitman
- Insights Into History, Culture, & Creativity of Sri Lanka – Explore the Cultural Triangle
- The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare
- Since you asked by Radames Antonio Cruz
- Storm
- Song—Behold the Hour, the Boat, arrive by Robert Burns
- Lord Nevil039s Advice
- Владимир Вишневский – Из дневника читателя
- Lapis Lazuli by William Butler Yeats
- Lookin’ For Myself by Shel Silverstein
- After the Sea-Ship. by Walt Whitman
- Robert Burns: On John Bushby, Esq., Tinwald Downs:
- Нина Воронель – Суета
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мартовский Заяц
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
- A Drinking Song by William Butler Yeats
- A Dream Of Death by William Butler Yeats
- A Dialogue Of Self And Soul by William Butler Yeats
- A Deep Sworn Vow by William Butler Yeats
- A Crazed Girl by William Butler Yeats
- A Cradle Song by William Butler Yeats
- A Coat by William Butler Yeats
- A Bronze Head by William Butler Yeats
- He Reproves The Curlew by William Butler Yeats
- He Remembers Forgotten Beauty by William Butler Yeats
- He Hears The Cry Of The Sedge by William Butler Yeats
- He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes by William Butler Yeats
- He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace by William Butler Yeats
- Gratitude To The Unknown Instructors by William Butler Yeats
- Girl’s Song by William Butler Yeats
- From The ‘Antigone’ by William Butler Yeats
- Fragments by William Butler Yeats
- For Anne Gregory by William Butler Yeats
- Fergus And The Druid by William Butler Yeats
- Father And Child by William Butler Yeats
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.