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the soothseekers have withdrawn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:
- Аля Кудряшева – Зима застыла среди теней
- Степан Щипачев – Застольное слово
- Владимир Высоцкий – Здравствуй, “Юность”
- Dusk In Autumn by Sara Teasdale
- Epitaph on John Busby, Esq., Tinwald Downs by Robert Burns
- Youth And The Pilgrim by Sara Teasdale
- Most Memorable Mother’s Day Gift Ideas
- The Only One I Can’t Live Without, Its You by Miraj Patel
- Владимир Высоцкий – Набросок песни к к/ф “Вооружён и очень опасен”
- Song Of The Spinning Wheel by William Wordsworth
- The Vote Excerpt
- Николай Языков – Вечер (Прохладен воздух был)
- The ME inside by Muralidharan Mudaliar
- Waking at 3 a.m. by William Stafford
- Life by Walter William Safar
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
- In The New Sun by Philip Levine
- In A Vacant House by Philip Levine
- In A Light Time by Philip Levine
- I Won, You Lost by Philip Levine
- I Sing The Body Electric by Philip Levine
- How Much Earth by Philip Levine
- House Of Silence by Philip Levine
- Holy Day by Philip Levine
- Holding On by Philip Levine
- Heaven by Philip Levine
- Green Thumb by Philip Levine
- Gin by Philip Levine
- Gangrene by Philip Levine
- For The Country by Philip Levine
- Fist by Philip Levine
- Father by Philip Levine
- Everything by Philip Levine
- Coming Close by Philip Levine
- Clouds Above The Sea by Philip Levine
- Clouds by Philip Levine
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.