Planetarium

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.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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 

• Stepping Westward by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Star-Gazers by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Stanzas by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Stanzas Written In My Pocket Copy Of Thomson’s “Castle Of Indolence” by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Spanish Guerillas by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Sonnet: On seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams weep at a tale of distress by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Sonnet: “It is not to be thought of” by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Song Of The Wandering Jew by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Song Of The Spinning Wheel by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Simon Lee: The Old Huntsman by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Siege Of Vienna Raised By Jihn Sobieski by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• She Was A Phantom Of Delight by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• September, 1819 by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• September 1815 by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• September 1, 1802 by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Scorn Not The Sonnet by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Say, What Is Honour?–‘Tis The Finest Sense by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Ruth by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Rural Architecture by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

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The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works