A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
A life hauls itself uphill
through hoar-mist steaming
the sun’s tongue licking
leaf upon leaf into stricken liquid
When? When? cry the soothseekers
but time is a bloodshot eye
seeing its last of beauty its own
foreclosure
a bloodshot mind
finding itself unspeakable
What is the last thought?
Now I will let you know?
or, Now I know?
(porridge of skull-splinters, brain tissue
mouth and throat membrane, cranial fluid)
Shattered head on the breast
of a wooded hill
Laid down there endlessly so
tendrils soaked into matted compose
became a root
torqued over the faint springhead
groin whence illegible
matter leaches: worm-borings, spurts of silt
volumes of sporic changes
hair long blown into far follicles
blasted into a chosen place
Revenge on the head (genitals, breast, untouched)
revenge on the mouth
packed with its inarticulate confessions
revenge on the eyes
green-gray and restless
revenge on the big and searching lips
the tender tongue
revenge on the sensual, on the nose the
carrier of history
revenge on the life devoured
in another incineration
You can walk by such a place, the earth is
made of them
where the stretched tissue of a field or woods
is humid
with beloved matter
the soothseekers have withdrawn
you feel no ghost, only a sporic chorus
when that place utters its worn sigh
let us have peace
And the shattered head answers back
And I believed I was loved, I believed I loved
Who did this to us?

A few random poems:
- In Memory Of My Mother by Patrick Kavanagh
- Hymns Of The Marshes. by Sidney Lanier
- Федор Сваровский – Путешественники во времени 7
- Владимир Маяковский – Реклама Моссукно
- Sonnet CXXI by William Shakespeare
- Каждому сроку – свой путь
- Poems On Beauty by Rabindranath Tagore
- Robert Burns: Wee Willie Gray:
- Олег Бундур – В глухом лесу
- Николай Гумилев – Какое отравное зелье
- Physically Hearted
- The Carnival by Robert Creeley
- Upon A House Shaken By The Land Agitation by William Butler Yeats
- Not Here by Rumi
- Владимир Высоцкий – Иван да Марья
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
- Starlight
- Song Of The Peri
- Song Of The Parao Camping Ground
- Song Of The Enfifa River
- Song Of The Devoted Slave
- Song Of The Colours By Taj Mahomed
- Song Of Taj Mahomed
- Song Of Ramesram Temple Girl
- Song Of Khan Zada
- Song Of Jasoda
- Song Of Faiz Ulla
- Song By Gulbaz
- Sleep
- Shivratri The Night Of Shiva While The Procession Passed At Ramesram
- Sher Afzul
- Sea Song
- Sampan Song
- Rutland Gate
- Reverie Zahir U Din
- Reverie Ofmahomed Akram At The Tamarind Tank
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.