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:
- Эмиль Верхарн – Хвала человеческому телу
- Ольга Седакова – Ветер прощанья
- Вера Павлова – Торчащее обтесать
- Absence by Walter Savage Landor
- Book Review – The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
- Владимир Маяковский – Сказка про купцову нацию, мужика и кооперацию
- Asleep! O Sleep A Little While, White Pearl! poem – John Keats poems
- Watching Unto God In The Night Season (3) by William Cowper
- Villonaud for This Yule poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Алексей Жемчужников – Забудь их шумное волненье
- Владимир Соловьев – Знамение
- Robert Burns: On Chloris: Requesting me to give her a Spring of Blossomed Thorn.
- Василий Лебедев-Кумач – Солнце садится
- To Mr. Thomas Southern, on his Birth-Day poem – Alexander Pope
- So tired by Tanisha Avarsekar
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
- Night At The Marina by Shreekumar Varma
- Hymn by Sidney Godolphin
- Lord when the wise men came from farr by Sidney Godolphin
- Kumarakom (after the boat tragedy) by Shreekumar Varma
- Hymn by Sidney Godolphin
- Stir in Stillness by Shruti Talnikar
- Statistic by Shivam Pandya
- Projector by Shreekumar Varma
- Noe more unto my thoughts appeare by Sidney Godolphin
- Night At The Marina by Shreekumar Varma
- Lord when the wise men came from farr by Sidney Godolphin
- Kumarakom (after the boat tragedy) by Shreekumar Varma
- Hymn by Sidney Godolphin
- Cloris, it is not thy disdaine by Sidney Godolphin
- Night by Sidney Lanier
- My Springs by Sidney Lanier
- Martha Washington by Sidney Lanier
- Marsh Hymns by Sidney Lanier
- Laus Mariae by Sidney Lanier
- Laughter In The Senate by Sidney Lanier
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