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:
- Fancy Dress by Siegfried Sassoon
- Алексей Хомяков – Русская песня
- Whispering In Wattle Boughs
- On Scaring some Water-Fowl in Lock Turit by Robert Burns
- Джон Мильтон – Псалом 1
- Альфред де Мюссе – Намуна
- Николай Языков – Дом сумасшедших в Дерпте
- Михаил Кузмин – Возможно ль: скоро четверть века
- The Magi by William Butler Yeats
- Robert Burns: A Stanza Added In A Mason Lodge:
- Perseus by Sylvia Plath
- Василий Жуковский – 19 марта 1823
- Love Of Jerusalem by Yehuda Amichai
- Омар Хайям – Листья дерева жизни, отпущенной мне
- Hokku Poems in Four Seasons by Yosa Buson
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
- Нина Воронель – Сиротское
- Нина Воронель – Санкт-Петербург
- Нина Воронель – С моим житьем, поспешным и тряпичным
- Нина Воронель – Природа сама сочиняет стихи
- Нина Воронель – Предчувствие погрома
- Нина Воронель – Попытка отчаяния
- Нина Воронель – Поэты военных лет
- Нина Воронель – Папоротник II
- Нина Воронель – Осенняя симфония
- Нина Воронель – Одержимые
- Нина Воронель – Неровен час
- Нина Воронель – Неделю, как сотню, лучше не трогать
- Нина Воронель – Не слишком ли ты многого
- Нина Воронель – Мудрая стерва природа
- Нина Воронель – Московский день
- Нина Воронель – Мой дед был слепым
- Нина Воронель – Меня пугает власть моя над миром
- Нина Воронель – Маме
- Нина Воронель – Ломбардная баллада
- Нина Воронель – Игарка
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.