A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
Something spreading underground won’t speak to us
under skin won’t declare itself
not all life-forms want dialogue with the
machine-gods in their drama hogging down
the deep bush clear-cutting refugees
from ancient or transient villages into
our opportunistic fervor to search
crazily for a host a lifeboat
Suddenly instead of art we’re eyeing
organisms traced and stained on cathedral transparencies
cruel blues embroidered purples succinct yellows
a beautiful tumor
•
I guess you’re not alone I fear you’re alone
There’s, of course, poetry:
awful bridge rising over naked air: I first
took it as just a continuation of the road:
“a masterpiece of engineering
praised, etc.” then on the radio:
“incline too steep for ease of, etc.”
Drove it nonetheless because I had to
this being how— So this is how
I find you: alive and more
•
As if (how many conditionals must we suffer?)
I’m driving to your side
—an intimate collusion—
packed in the trunk my bag of foils for fencing with pain
glasses of varying spectrum for sun or fog or sun-struck
rain or bitterest night my sack of hidden
poetries, old glue shredding from their spines
my time exposure of the Leonids
over Joshua Tree
As if we’re going to win this O because
•
If you have a sister I am not she
nor your mother nor you my daughter
nor are we lovers or any kind of couple
except in the intensive care
of poetry and
death’s master plan architecture-in-progress
draft elevations of a black-and-white mosaic dome
the master left on your doorstep
with a white card in black calligraphy:
Make what you will of this
As if leaving purple roses
•
If (how many conditionals must we suffer?)
I tell you a letter from the master
is lying on my own doorstep
glued there with leaves and rain
and I haven’t bent to it yet
if I tell you I surmise
he writes differently to me:
Do as you will, you have had your life
many have not
signing it in his olden script:
Meister aus Deutschland
•
In coldest Europe end of that war
frozen domes iron railings frozen stoves lit in the
streets
memory banks of cold
the Nike of Samothrace
on a staircase wings in blazing
backdraft said to me
: : to everyone she met
Displaced, amputated never discount me
Victory
indented in disaster striding
at the head of stairs
for Tory Dent
A few random poems:
- Less Than The Cloud To The Wind by Sara Teasdale
- Epigram at Brownhill Inn by Robert Burns
- Эмиль Верхарн – Золото
- The Wine by Sara Teasdale
- Robert Burns: To Miss Ferrier: Enclosing the Elegy on Sir J. H. Blair.
- Song—A Rose-bud by my Early Walk by Robert Burns
- Юлия Жадовская – Да, я вижу
- The Child’s Greäve by William Barnes
- Dialogue Between a Sovereign and a One-Pound Note by Thomas Moore
- Ages and Ages, Returning at Intervals. by Walt Whitman
- The Example by William Henry Davies
- Conversation 23: On Cause by Rosmarie Waldrop
- A Requisition to the Queen by William Topaz McGonagall
- Children of My Own by Marie Starr
- Юлия Друнина – Шторм
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
- The Leaden Echo And The Golden Echo poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Lantern Out Of Doors poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Handsome Heart poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Half-way House poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Habit Of Perfection poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Furl of Fresh-Leaved Dogrose Down poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Child Is Father To The Man poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Candle Indoors poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Caged Skylark poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Bugler’s First Communion poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Blessed Virgin Compared To The Air We Breathe poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- The Alchemist in the City poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire And Of The Comfort Of The Resurrection poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Summa poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Strike, Churl poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- St. Winefred’s Well poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- St. Alphonsus Rodriguez poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Spring & Fall: To A Young Child poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Spring poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Spelt From Sibyl’s Leaves poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
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.