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:
- And In Wonder And Amazement I Sing by Rabindranath Tagore
- Winged And Acid Dark by Robert Hass
- The Seven Of Pentacles by Marge Piercy
- The Vision Of Cassandra
- Владимир Маяковский – Товарище, не забывайте о Врангеле-бароне! (РОСТА № 116)
- Jewels by Sara Teasdale
- MOURNING by Satish Verma
- Olney Hymn 31: On The Death Of A Minister by William Cowper
- Calypso by W H Auden
- Константин Бальмонт – Можно жить с закрытыми глазами
- Neighing at the Slope by Mahmoud Darwish
- Нина Воронель – Неровен час
- Виталий Бакалдин – Я не рос среди берез
- On the Garden Wall by Vachel Lindsay
- Orlando Furioso Canto 11 by Ludovico Ariosto
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
- Pheasant by Sylvia Plath
- Perseus by Sylvia Plath
- Parliament Hill Fields by Sylvia Plath
- Paralytic by Sylvia Plath
- Spinster by Sylvia Plath
- Spider by Sylvia Plath
- Sow by Sylvia Plath
- Southern Sunrise by Sylvia Plath
- Snakecharmer by Sylvia Plath
- Sculptor by Sylvia Plath
- Rhyme by Sylvia Plath
- Resolve by Sylvia Plath
- Recantation by Sylvia Plath
- Purdah by Sylvia Plath
- Prospect by Sylvia Plath
- Private Ground by Sylvia Plath
- Point Shirley by Sylvia Plath
- Poems, Potatoes by Sylvia Plath
- Pheasant by Sylvia Plath
- Perseus by Sylvia Plath
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