A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
My swirling wants. Your frozen lips.
The grammar turned and attacked me.
Themes, written under duress.
Emptiness of the notations.
They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.
I want you to see this before I leave:
the experience of repetition as death
the failure of criticism to locate the pain
the poster in the bus that said:
my bleeding is under control
A red plant in a cemetary of plastic wreaths.
A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor.
These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight.
When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time.
When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.
I could say: those mountains have a meaning
but further than that I could not say.
To do something very common, in my own way.
A few random poems:
- Sick Leave by Siegfried Sassoon
- Robert Burns: Lady Onlie, Honest Lucky:
- The Female of the Species by Rudyard Kipling
- Snail Poem by Peter Orlovsky
- Аля Кудряшева – Зима застыла среди теней
- Николай Языков – Тригорское
- He Hears That His Beloved Has Become Engaged by Philip Larkin
- On Passing The New Menin Gate by Siegfried Sassoon
- Paragraphs from a Day-Book by Marilyn Hacker
- Of Love and All by Raja Mannar
- When the Walls Were White by Noele Martin
- Алексей Жемчужников – Сняла с меня судьба
- Reading by William Marr
- The British
- Chain Of Pearls by Rabindranath Tagore
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
- Scots Prologue for Mr. Sutherland by Robert Burns
- Sappho Redivivus: A Fragment by Robert Burns
- Robert Bruce’s March to Bannockburn (Song) by Robert Burns
- Rhyming Reply to a Note from Captain Riddell by Robert Burns
- Reply to the Threat of a Censorious Critic by Robert Burns
- Reply to an Announcement by J. Rankine by Robert Burns
- Reply to a Trimming Epistle, received from a Tailor by Robert Burns
- Remorseful Apology by Robert Burns
- Remorse: A Fragment by Robert Burns
- Prologue, spoken by Mr. Woods at Edinburgh by Robert Burns
- Prologue spoken at the Theatre of Dumfries by Robert Burns
- Prayer—O Thou Dread Power by Robert Burns
- Poor Mailie’s Elegy by Robert Burns
- Poem on Sensibility by Robert Burns
- Song—A Waukrife Minnie by Robert Burns
- Song—A Rose-bud by my Early Walk by Robert Burns
- Song—A Man’s a Man for a’ that by Robert Burns
- Song—A Lass wi’ a Tocher by Robert Burns
- Song—A Health to them that’s awa by Robert Burns
- Song—A Health to ane I loe dear by Robert Burns
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.