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the soothseekers have withdrawn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:
- Олег Бундур – Разногласия
- The Silence by Wendell Berry
- Block City by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Владимир Набоков – Какое сделал я дурное дело
- Стефан Малларме – Устав от горького бездействия и лени
- Robert Burns: Blythe Was She:
- Василий Жуковский – Тоска по милом
- Love by Shahida Latif
- Return Of The Heroes by Siegfried Sassoon
- Иван Мятлев – Соловей
- Алексей Толстой – Вeсeнние чувства
- Robert Burns: The Slave’s Lament:
- Gipsies by William Wordsworth
- In Tempore Senectutis poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Владимир Степанов – Неваляшка (Буква Н)
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
- Наум Коржавин – Генерал
- Наум Коржавин – Гамлет
- Наум Коржавин – Еж и Заяц
- Наум Коржавин – Есть у тех, кому нету места
- Наум Коржавин – Еще в мальчишеские годы
- Наум Коржавин – Двадцатые годы
- Наум Коржавин – Друзьям
- Наталья Хрущева – Дождик и художник
- Наталья Хрущева – Большой и маленький
- Наталья Хрущева – Бабушка рыцаря
- Наталья Шевченко – Самолёт
- Наталья Шевченко – Прости прости Меня Отец
- Наталья Шевченко – Привилегия
- Наталья Шевченко – Он не в себе
- Михаил Ломоносов – Надпись на иллюминацию, представленную ее императорскому Величеству от их императорских высочеств в Ораниенбауме 1750 года июля 31 дня
- Михаил Ломоносов – Надпись на иллюминацию 1747 года перед зимним домом
- Михаил Ломоносов – Надпись на день восшествия на престол Ее Величества 1753 года
- Михаил Ломоносов – Надпись на день рождения Ее Величества
- Михаил Ломоносов – Надпись благоверному и Великому князю Александру Невскому
- Михаил Ломоносов – Надпись 5 к статуе Петра Великого
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.