To make sure
You have not said:
“I love you,”
They smell your breath.
They even smell your heart
Trying times are these, my darling.
They flog love
Tied to the post of the cul-de-sac
We must hide love in the closet.
In this serpentine maze
This crooked cold corner
They feed the fire
With poems and songs
Thinking, too, is risky.
Those who, late at night, knock on the door,
Are there to kill the lamp.
We must hide the light in the closet.
Then there are the butchers
Stationed at all cross-roads,
Armed with a block and a bloody cleaver.
Trying times these are, my darling.
Surgically,
They plant smiles on lips,
And songs in the mouths.
We must hide joy in the closet.
On lilies and lilacs,
They roast the canaries.
Trying times these are, my darling.
Drunk with victory, the Devil,
Celebrates our wake.
We must hide God in the closet.

A few random poems:
- Федор Сологуб – Либава, Либава, товарная душа
- A Friend Forever
- Take My Hands
- The Woods At Night by May Swenson
- Birthday party blunder by Vinaya Kumar Hanumanthappa
- Songwriting Tip – Structure of a Pop Song
- Владимир Корнилов – Зачем
- Василий Курочкин – Мы всё смешное косим, косим
- Омар Хайям – Муки старят красавиц
- Trebetherick poem – John Betjeman poems
- The Tour by Sylvia Plath
- Николай Некрасов – Деревенские новости
- Calais, August 1802 by William Wordsworth
- Two Years Later by William Butler Yeats
- Вера Павлова – Слово держу осторожно
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
- Year O’ year by Nikunj Sharma
- The Woman From The Archive by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Where we fall by Osman cisse Hanif
- When the Walls Were White by Noele Martin
- When I live with fancy’ by Nithin Purple
- When Trust Fails… by Olaniyi Beloved Abimbola
- The Weavers by Nijole Miliauskaite
- The Weaver by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Vagina Envy by Nin Andrews
- Untitled #13 by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Untitled #12 by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Untitled #11 by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Untitled #10 by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Untitled #1 by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Two sparrows and my heart by Nizar Sartawi
- Turtledove of the Green Land – Dedicated to Tunisian poet, Huda Hajji by Nizar Sartawi
- To Spirituality by Nithin Purple
- To Melancholy- Written On An intensely agitated Day by Nithin Purple
- To Imagination by Nithin Purple
- To Her Beauty by Nithin Purple
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