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:
- Still Life by Reena Ribalow
- Николай Заболоцкий – Ласточка
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня из радиоспектакля “Зелёный фургон”
- Владимир Маринин – К нам тётя соседка заходит на чай
- Desmond’s Song by Thomas Moore
- No Worst, There Is None. Pitched Past Pitch Of Grief poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Омар Хайям – Мы влюбчивая голь, здесь нету мусульман
- All About You by Shel Silverstein
- Николай Заболоцкий – На лестницах
- Among The Sandhills
- Владимир Корнилов – Двое
- Владимир Маяковский – Вот что говорил Ленин на съезде политпросветов (Главполитпросвет №385)
- Николай Языков – П. В. Киреевскому (Ты крепкий, праведный стоятель)
- The Yellow Violet by William Cullen Bryant
- A Glimpse. by Walt Whitman
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
- For Birds by Nithin Purple
- Flying Wishes by Osman cisse Hanif
- Femme Fatale by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Eye By Eye by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Evening by Olivia Lewis
- E-waste by Nisha Gopalakrishnan
- Dreamtime by Olivia Lewis
- Death Divine by Nithin Purple
- Dead Orchard by Nijole Miliauskaite
- CloSe To My Heart by Nishant Deherkar
- Children’s Taste by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Cambodian Flower by Norma Martiri
- Burnt in contemplation by Nishant Deherkar
- The Bonifratrian Hospital by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Blank by Nizar Sartawi
- Between Two Moments by Nizar Sartawi
- Between going and staying the day wavers by Octavio Paz
- Basic Overhaul by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Aquamarine Butterfly by Nina Gabriel
- An Elegy On The Glory Of Her Sex, Mrs Mary Blaize by Oliver Goldsmith
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.