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:
- A REQUEST TO THE GRACES by Robert Herrick
- Mungojerrie And Rumpelteazer by T. S. Eliot
- In a Minor Key poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Сослуживцу
- Homing by Satish Verma
- The Waters by W H Auden
- Ольга Повещенко – Фотограф смотрит в объектив
- Honor Among Scamps by Vachel Lindsay
- Владимир Маяковский – Смотри, рабочий! Вот о чем сегодня речь (Главполитпросвет №166)
- Death In Leamington poem – John Betjeman poems | Poems and Poetry
- Song by Margaret Widdemer
- Ок Мельникова – Заповедь номер одиннадцать
- Invern poem – Ezra Pound poems
- silence.html
- A Song of a Girl from Loyang by Wang Wei
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 Poor House by Sara Teasdale
- The Old Maid by Sara Teasdale
- The Nights Remember by Sara Teasdale
- The New Moon by Sara Teasdale
- The Net by Sara Teasdale
- The Mother Of A Poet by Sara Teasdale
- The Metropolitan Tower by Sara Teasdale
- The Meeting by Sara Teasdale
- The Love That Goes A-Begging by Sara Teasdale
- The Look by Sara Teasdale
- The Long Hill by Sara Teasdale
- The Lights Of New York by Sara Teasdale
- The Lighted Window by Sara Teasdale
- The Lamp by Sara Teasdale
- The Kiss by Sara Teasdale
- The Kind Moon by Sara Teasdale
- The Inn Of Earth by Sara Teasdale
- The India Wharf by Sara Teasdale
- The House Of Dreams by Sara Teasdale
- The Heart’s House by Sara Teasdale
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