A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
1.
Sex, as they harshly call it,
I fell into this morning
at ten o’clock, a drizzling hour
of traffic and wet newspapers.
I thought of him who yesterday
clearly didn’t
turn me to a hot field
ready for plowing,
and longing for that young man
pierced me to the roots
bathing every vein, etc.
All day he appears to me
touchingly desirable,
a prize one could wreck one’s peace for.
I’d call it love if love
didn’t take so many years
but lust too is a jewel
a sweet flower and what
pure happiness to know
all our high-toned questions
breed in a lively animal.
2.
That “old last act”!
And yet sometimes
all seems post coitum triste
and I a mere bystander.
Somebody else is going off,
getting shot to the moon.
Or a moon-race!
Split seconds after
my opposite number lands
I make it–
we lie fainting together
at a crater-edge
heavy as mercury in our moonsuits
till he speaks–
in a different language
yet one I’ve picked up
through cultural exchanges…
we murmur the first moonwords:
Spasibo. Thanks. O.K.

A few random poems:
- Федор Сологуб – Лиловато-розовый закат
- Владимир Луговской – Мертвый хватает живого
- Missing Person by Vinita Agrawal
- Epitaph On H. Walmsley, Esq., by William Lisle Bowles
- Channels by Shel Silverstein
- It is a Show by Rixa White
- The Lover Mourns For The Loss Of Love by William Butler Yeats
- The Name poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Mystic by Sylvia Plath
- Юнна Мориц – В цирке
- Жан де Лафонтен – Совет Мышей
- Olney Hymn 22: Prayer For A Blessing In The Young by William Cowper
- Olney Hymn 34: The Waiting Soul by William Cowper
- “Call Not The Royal Swede Unfortunate” by William Wordsworth
- Robert Burns: The Farewell To the Brethren of St. James’ Lodge, Tarbolton:
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
- love.html
- lord_god_have_mercy_on_me.html
- libation.html
- least_in_a_list.html
- interpret_the_light.html
- innocence.html
- in_the_stone_i_rooted.html
- in_between_the_strophes.html
- human_joys.html
- human_charms.html
- he_who_creates_re_creates_himself.html
- hai_kou_unpublished.html
- hai_kou.html
- greek_light.html
- greece.html
- golden_eangle.html
- gesture_theory_a_villanelle.html
- gem_immortality.html
- fruit_leaf_roots_flowers.html
- first_verse.html
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.