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the soothseekers have withdrawn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:
- Dark spring by Yvor Winters
- Владимир Маяковский – Дядя ЭМЭСПЭО
- Sonnet 43: When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Напрасные жертвы
- Robert Burns: A Dream: Thoughts, words, and deeds, the Statute blames with reason; But surely Dreams were ne’er indicted Treason. On reading, in the public papers, the Laureate’s Ode, with the other parade of June 4th, 1786, the Author was no sooner dropt asleep, than he imagined himself transported to the Birth-day Levee: and, in his dreaming fancy, made the following Address:
- Forgiveness by Zaklina (Jacqueline) Filipova- Svekjarovska
- Song—Blythe hae I been on yon hill by Robert Burns
- A Case Of Murder by Vernon Scannell
- Calm is all Nature as a Resting Wheel. by William Wordsworth
- A Man, They Made a God by Walid Saba
- Evening Star by William Blake
- The Drunkards in the Street by Vachel Lindsay
- Verdad Innegable by Victoria Luisa Mora Paoli
- Souvenirs of Democracy. by Walt Whitman
- Autumn Leaves by Thomas J Camp
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
- Ольга Седакова – Луг, юго-западный ветер
- Ольга Седакова – Липа
- Ольга Седакова – Легенда шестая
- Ольга Седакова – Кот, бабочка, свеча
- Ольга Седакова – Когда говорю я: помилуй
- Ольга Седакова – Как упавшую руку
- Ольга Седакова – Из песни Данте
- Ольга Седакова – Играющий ребенок
- Ольга Седакова – И меня удивило
- Ольга Седакова – Госпожа и служанка
- Ольга Седакова – Где-нибудь в углу запущенной болезни
- Ольга Седакова – Филемон и Бавкида
- Ольга Седакова – Элегия смоковницы
- Ольга Седакова – Элегия осенней воды
- Ольга Седакова – Две книги я несу
- Ольга Седакова – Дикий шиповник
- Ольга Седакова – Деревья, сильный ветер
- Ольга Седакова – Давид поет Саулу
- Ольга Седакова – Цивилизация
- Ольга Седакова – Болезнь
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.