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the soothseekers have withdrawn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:
- Валерий Брюсов – Фабричная
- ‘In the Pink’ by Siegfried Sassoon
- Binsey Poplars poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Robert Burns: The Keekin’-Glass:
- Robert Burns: The Deil’s Awa Wi’ The Exciseman:
- Evarra And His Gods by Rudyard Kipling
- To M C N
- Keeping Things Whole by Mark Strand
- No Worst, There Is None. Pitched Past Pitch Of Grief poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- When The Two Sisters Go To Fetch Water by Rabindranath Tagore
- Владимир Орлов – Добрый день
- Any Lifetime by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Федор Сологуб – В норе темно и мглисто
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Дом в цветах
- Владимир Маяковский – В шикарном вагоне, в вагоне-салоне… (Главполитпросвет №315)
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
- Demeter And Persephone poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Dedication poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Cradle Song poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Come not when I am dead poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Come Into The Garden, Maud poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Come Into the Garde, Maud poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Come down, O Maid poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Claribel: A Melody poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Claribel poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- by_an_evolutionist.html
- Break, Break, Break poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Boadicea poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Blow, Bugle, Blow poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Beautiful City poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Battle Of Brunanburgh poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Balin and Balan poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Audley Court poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Ask Me No More poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- And ask ye why these sad tears stream? poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Amphion poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
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.